The Urchin With the Nose

Jimmy Durante was loved because he came across as a sincere guy, who rose from poverty through hard work to become someone. People love that kind of story. Durante loved his audiences, so his audiences pulled for him.

A while ago, we posted the first of a three-part series from United Press International on Durante. Here’s the second part which goes into his early years. It appeared in papers in November and December 1959. Part three will be posted later.

The Remarkable Schnozzola
Clayton Joins Durante's Stage Team and a Great Star is Born
By Vernon Scott
HOLLYWOOD (UPI)—What would you do if you became the parent of a baby that looked like Jimmy Durante?
That's what happened to Barthelmeo Durante, a barber, and his Italian-born wife, Rosea Milliao Durante, back in February 1893. Even to these kindly people Jimmy's appearance came as something of a shock. His gargantuan nose was as proportionately striking then as it is today.
But the outsized proboscis came in handy when Jimmy was an odd-looking little urchin selling papers in New York. People became customers for laughs, unwittingly shaping the boy's future as a comedian.
“I'm peddling papers along the streets, passing the jernts and peeping under the swinging doors," Jimmy recalled. "I'm thinkin’ the swellest job in the world is the guy banging da piano in a saloon. I wants to be him."
Pianist at 16
After a couple of years of lessons the Schnozz' dream came true. At 16 he was punishing the 88 in a third-rate Coney Island gin mill glitteringly emblazoned "Diamond Tony's."
Jimmy moved on to another joint, a cut above Diamond Tony's in New York's Chinatown. This one was called the Chatham Club. It was during this stage of his life that he fell in love with a girl he identifies only as Gladie. The nose had been tweaked by cupid and was all for marching to the altar. Gladie, however, jilted the funny-looking little piano player for a guy with a reasonable nose. Durante was heartbroken.
He remained a bachelor, hobnobbing with the Manhattan hoods of the era, and becoming increasingly popular as a ragtime pianist.
Then in 1918 he met Maud Jeanne Olson, a Midwestern girl who wandered into the club Alamo in Harlem where Jimmy was working with a five-piece combo. They were married in June, 1921.
Joins Jackson

By this time the Schnozz had joined forces with Eddie Jackson. They became a successful team in the smoke-shrouded saloons. It wasn't until 1924 that Lou Clayton, the man who exerted the most influence on Jimmy, joined the act to make it one of the most famous of the roaring '20's.
The partners opened the Club Durante, and shrewd businessman Clayton ran the team. Jimmy was devoted to Clayton, and still is.
"I loved that man," Jimmy said. "He was the finest, most honest guy I ever knew. He made me a star—that's what he did."
Vaudeville paged the trio during the late '20's and early '30's and all three partners prospered, blowing their earnings on high living and gambling. In 1932 Jimmy bucketed off to Hollywood to star in the movies with Clayton acting as business manager and Jackson stringing along for laughs. But the pattern was broken. Jimmy stood alone as the star.
The Great Day
"Yeah, them were the great days," Durante recalled. "There was something doing every minute."
But the carefree prosperity palled. Jimmy's pictures began to slow down at the box office, and by the early '40's work wasn't easy to find. The partners split up.
Jeanne died in 1943, and Jimmy still visits her grave. Clayton, after a long, painful illness, passed away in 1950. Until his death, Clayton's doctor and hospital bills were picked up by little Mr. Malaprop. Whenever his old friends died Jimmy paid for the funerals.
When the movie rug was pulled out from under him, Jimmy went to work on radio and returned to night clubs, making ends meet and conquering new fields. "But I never changed my act, and Eddie Jackson came back with me," he said. "Audiences would be disappointed in me if I didn't sing all the old tunes, like 'Inka Dinka Do.'
Same Songs
"I been doin' some of them songs 20-25 years. It's all a part of the Durante tempo—‘I know I Can Do Without Broadway, But Can Broadway Do Without Me?’ and 'Have You Ever Had the Feeling that You Wanted to Go. And Still Had the Feeling That You Wanted to Stay?'
"They is ageless on accounta the tempo. They ain't got lyrics in 'em like ‘Wait 'Till the Sun Shines Nelly.’"
Jimmy's butchered lingo is not strictly an act. He never went beyond the seventh grade. But in typical Durante secrecy, he refuses to say how much of his mangled syntax is purposeful. When asked, he merely gets a twinkle in his eye.
"It's mortifyin’ sometimes to have people laugh at the way I talk," he grinned. But it's also satisfying. However them are the conditions that prevail." Another Durante secret is his famed signoff line, "Goodnight, Mrs. Calabash, Wherever You are!”
Jimmy won't tell anyone the meaning of his mysterious, but deadly serious adieu. The two best guesses are that Mrs. Calabash was an affectionate nickname either for his wife or for Clayton. But no amount of wheedling will extract a straight answer.
"I ain't talkin’ about it,” Jimmy says flatly. "It's a very special thing to me, with a very special meanin’. Maybe some people have guessed the meaning of it. But they'll never hear it from my lips." (Next: A day with the Schnozz).