The Hollywood Reporter sadly announced that James Darren died over the Labor Day weekend on Monday, September 2:
James Darren, the former teen idol and pop singer who played the dreamy surfer Moondoggie in three Gidget movies before starring on television on The Time Tunnel and T.J. Hooker, died Monday. He was 88. Darren died in his sleep at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, his son Jim Moret, a correspondent for Inside Edition, told The Hollywood Reporter. He had entered the hospital for an aortic valve replacement but was deemed too weak to have the surgery; he went home but had to return. Even though he could not surf, the Philadelphia native got the role of Moondoggie (real name: Jerry Matthews) opposite three actresses as the precocious Malibu teen: Sandra Dee in Gidget (1959), Deborah Walley in Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961) and Cindy Carol in Gidget Goes to Rome (1963).
Darren then spiraled through history as the headstrong Dr. Tony Newman, an electronics genius, on the 1966-67 ABC adventure series The Time Tunnel, also starring Robert Colbert. (Tom Hanks once said it was his favorite show as a kid.) In an interview with Tom Weaver for the 2008 book I Talked With a Zombie, Darren said he wasn’t interested in doing television or science fiction before he agreed to a meeting with the creator of The Time Tunnel, Irwin Allen. Allen told him, “This is something you have to do. I know you don’t want to do it, but I think you are perfect for this role, and he convinced me,” Darren recalled. “Irwin was one of the great salespersons of our time. I accepted the role because of my meeting with him.”
Born James William Ercolani in Philadelphia, on June 8, 1936, he changed his last name to the more generic “Darren,” which covered his Italian roots.
From an interview on the Classic Bands website:
I was discovered by Joyce Selznick [niece of “Gone With the Wind” producer David O. Selznick]. What happened was, I was studying acting in New York City with Stella Adler [at age seventeen]. I’d been studying with her for a couple of years. I went to see some agents in New York and they said in order to get work, you need to have photographs taken. As I was walking down Broadway after class one day, I saw this photographer's studio, Maurice Seymour. I went in and had pictures taken. I went back to look at the proofs and his secretary, a woman by the name of Yvonne Bouvier, asked me if I was interested in getting into film. I said yeah, I was. She said I know someone you should meet. She set up a meeting between me and Joyce Selznick, who worked for Screen Gems. I went down to 1650 Broadway, the Brill Building. On my way to a meeting with Joyce, we just happened to get on the elevator at the same time. She kept staring at me. I never met her. She never met me. We got off at the same floor and walked to the same office. That was our meeting. Joyce brought me over to Columbia Pictures about a week later and got me a contract there. Joyce had come to Philly after to meet my parents and my family.…I did Gidget in '58 or '59. My theme came about...they were gonna use somebody else's voice and I told them I could sing. We went into one of the soundstages with a piano player and sang the song and they said, he can do it. Then they put me on their label too, Colpix.
Could he sing? He sure could! Here he is singing the “Gidget” theme:
According to an interview with Alison Martino in 2015, Darren used to stay at the legendary Garden of Allah hotel:
I came to Los Angeles to get discovered in 1954. I stayed at the Garden of Allah, a beautiful hotel at Sunset Boulevard and Crescent Heights. It was mystical, like being in a 1940s movie. It had this certain magic that is difficult to describe.
I would walk across the street to a popular diner that was next to Schwab’s Pharmacy called Googie’s and buy a hamburger or whatever and bring it back to my room. I was so shy I would never eat it in the restaurant. Then I met actor John Saxon, and he and I became very good friends—we still are today. I met him at the bar at the Garden of Allah in 1954. James Dean used to sit with [John and me] at Googie’s. He would usually be coming back from a car race, and he’d be picking stones from his hair! I also lived in the Villa Elaine Apartments across from the Hollywood Ranch Market. I lived at that market. There was nothing you couldn’t buy there, and it was open 24 hours a day. It was a total hangout. I would sometimes go there at 2 a.m. with other actors. I remember seeing Tony Curtis there a lot.
Eventually, I moved into an apartment right behind Greenblatt’s, and James Dean would come by there, too. I had no idea how big a star he was going to be. I don't think any of us did. I just knew he loved cars. We would sit around and talk. I even went up to the Griffith Observatory while he was shooting “Rebel Without a Cause” there.
I have a 1958 Porsche 1600 Super Speedster. I bought it 40 years ago for $6,000. It’s one of the most beautiful cars ever. The design is eternal. I would like to put it in my living room but my wife won't go for it. I don't know how many are around today, but I'd guess only about a handful in this condition. Speaking of James Dean, he purchased the exact same model at a dealership across the street from the Hollywood Ranch Market on Vine and paid about $3,400. Mine is silver and his was white. I was in that car with him a few times. That wasn’t the one he died in. That was a Porsche 550 Spyder.
Besides starring in “The Time Tunnel,” Darren was involved in another one of my television guilty pleasures, “Melrose Place.” In 1996, Darren directed the episode “Holy Strokes,” and in 1997, the “Deja Vu, All Over Again” episode. Two years later, he starred in five episodes of “Melrose Place” as Tony Marlin, a somewhat slimy client of Amanda Woodward (Heather Locklear) who demands that one of her friends sleep with him in order to retain the account.
Instead, he dies from an overdose of Viagra just before consummating an affair with one of Amanda’s competitors (Jamie Luner). Once dead, Darren’s character has to perform a few “Weekend at Bernie’s” duties.
For me though, he’ll always be Tony Newman from “The Time Tunnel.” It was (and still is) one of my very favorite shows.
One of the best episodes is “The Day the Sky Fell In,” when Darren’s character travels back in time to Pearl Harbor and is able to reunited with his father just before he dies. It is an emotional episode that still packs a wallop.
One more song from Darren before we go…
See more James Darren/Time Tunnel photos at my main website.
