Horsing Around With Durante

Everybody wants ta get inta de act! Including Jimmy Durante’s parakeet.

United Press International’s Hollywood reporter wrote a three-parter on Schnozz for papers at the end of 1959. It apparently was necessary to employ Durante’s dialect when quoting him. Even when it was Durante’s parakeet quoting Durante.

We’ve posted the other two parts. Here’s the third. It’s funny to read Durante was as quirky at the race track as you might expect.

Variety reported in April 1960 the proposed Frank Capra-Columbia picture on Durante’s life story was dead. The trade paper suggested everyone behind it really weren’t all that enthusiastic to make the movie.

Off-Stage Durante—Final Article: Writer Spends Hectic Day With The Schnozz
(This is the last of three dispatches on the private life of Jimmy Durante. Here's what it's like to spend a day with the colorful comedian).
By VERNON SCOTT
UPI Hollywood Correspondent
HOLLYWOOD (UPI) — Jimmy Durante, bleary-eyed with sleep, staggered from the bedroom of his seven-room house in Beverly Hills dressed in old-fashioned blue wool swimming trunks and a brocade dressing gown.
“How're ya?" he asked, walking into the breakfast room.
Sitting down at the table, Durante flipped through the mail. His pet parakeet, "Tinker," flew to his shoulder and piped, "Good morning, Jimmy. I got a million o' dem."
Durante looked pleased, "Cute, ain't he," Jimmy said, then, in a louder voice, "I'm ready when you are, Maggie."
With Him 25 Years
Maggie White, Jimmy's maid, has been with him for 25 years. On occasion she has gone without pay during the rough years. She is completely devoted to the comedian. This morning she served prune juice, milk, toast and tea. Jimmy swallowed an assortment of pills with his juice.
"It looks like a nice day out," he said. "I think I'll go out to da track and watch the horses run. It's a beautiful sight to see."
Jirnmy ate his breakfast slowly announcing that he eats lightly. He smokes 10 cigars a day, but abstains from alcohol except for an occasional glass of sherry. "Funny t'ing," he said. "I get more tired when I ain't workin' than when I'm on the stage. Some people might consider this a catastrastroke, but not me.
Da Audience Da Reason
"I'm never tried when I come off the stage. The excitement of da audience keeps me going, expecially when I can see them smilin' faces.
"Nachelly, I get tired traveling around the country, but as long as I get my eight hours sleep I'm all right."
Breakfast finished, Jimmy fired up his first cigar of the day and walked into his den. The walls were crowded with plaques, pictures arid mementos of his long career. There also were photographs and paintings of horses.
“So you’re going to write a story about me?” he asked. “Well, that’s fine, but I don’t want nobody to put me on a pedasill.
“This year I’m gonna do four of my own TV shows, and a couple guest shots. But what I really wanta do is make more TV shows before da movie cameras. I got 16 fillums of my old program—which I owns outright. If I could get another 10, then I could make it a regular series. Like for reruns, too.”
Jimmy dressed quickly, awaiting his friend and piano player, Jules Buffano, for a junket to Del Mar racetrack.
On the trip to the track Jimmy studied the racing form carefully, marking down his choices. But his pre-race picks seldom are the ones he bets, He's the easiest man, in Hollywood to tout off or on to a horse, even by novice players.
Racing General
Once in the turf club, Durante issued orders like a general. Friends and track employes deployed themselves to the betting windows with Durante money clenched in their fists. The general puffed his cigar furiously, exchanging confidential tips with his aides.
Then, secretively, before each race, Jimmy disappeared to make the master bet of the race. In the confusion, the old Schnozzola was never quite sure whether he had won or lost.
On the return trip to Beverly Hills Jimmy went into a huddle with himself to determine the results of the day.
"It ain't no use tryin' to figger out how much I won, or maybe lost," he said finally. "I forgot how much money I started with."
Back in his home, Jimmy stoked another stogie and plopped down in an easy chair. He planned to have a quiet dinner with his girl friend, red-haired Margie Little, whom he has dated for some 14 years.
Thereafter she would return to her own home and the "boys" would show up a few at a time to sit around and gab.
"I ain't ever considered retirin'," Jimmy said, exhailing a billow of smoke. "As long as work is fun, then I'm for it. When it ain't fun no more I'll quit. "Lotsa times the newspapers say I'm gonna put the Schnozz out to pasture and take life easy. So far I ain't got no plans in that particular direction. "It ain't such a bad life," he concluded. Then, flapping his arms to his sides, he added, "And they're gonna make a picture of my life."
Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin are planning to film "The Jimmy Durante Story" with Martin playing Jimmy, Sinatra as Lou Clayton, and Crosby as Eddie Jackson. The old Schnozz himself will act as technical advisor to the project.