In addition to being a pop singer, the “Time Tunnel” star was a crooning hologram on “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.”
James Darren passed away on Monday. He was a former teen idol and pop singer who starred in television shows like The Time Tunnel and T.J. Hooker. He portrayed the dreamy surfer Moondoggie in three Gidget movies. He was eighty-eight.
Darren passed away peacefully at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, according to The Hollywood Reporter’s Jim Moret, Darren’s son and an Inside Edition correspondent. He had gone into the hospital to have an aortic valve replacement, but the doctors said he was too weak to undergo the procedure, so he had to go home and come back.
Moret remarked, “I always thought he would pull through because he was so cool.” He was cool all the time.
Early in his career, the dark-haired Darren garnered great reviews for his roles as Greek soldier Spyros Pappadimos in The Guns of Navarone (1961) and as the son of a thug defended by Humphrey Bogart’s character in Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960).
Despite his inability to surf, the native of Philadelphia was cast as Moondoggie (real name: Jerry Matthews), the precocious Malibu teen opposite three actresses (1959 in Gidget, 1961 in Gidget Goes Hawaiian, and 1963 in Gidget Goes to Rome).
After that, Darren traveled through time as the brash and brilliant electronics scientist Dr. Tony Newman on the 1966–1967 ABC adventure series The Time Tunnel, which costarred Robert Colbert. (Tom Hanks once claimed that as a child, this was his favorite show.)
Before agreeing to a meeting with Irwin Allen, the author of The Time Tunnel, Darren stated he wasn’t interested in doing science fiction or television in an interview with Tom Weaver for the 2008 book I Talked With a Zombie.
“This is something you have to do,” Allen informed him. He persuaded me that you are ideal for this role, even though I know you don’t want to do it,” Darren recalled. “Irwin was a legendary salesman in our era. I met him, and that’s why I took the role.
Fifteen years later, Darren starred as Officer Jim Corrigan opposite Heather Locklear as his inexperienced partner, Stacy Sheridan, in the second season of William Shatner’s ABC action drama T.J. Hooker.
After serving as an emergency stand-in director for T.J. Hooker’s final season in 1986, Darren directed episodes of Hunter, Silk Stalkings, Melrose Place, Werewolf, The A-Team, and Beverly Hills, 90210.
In addition, he portrayed the affluent Tony Marlin on Fox’s Melrose Place, where he crossed paths with Locklear again.
The Gloria Shayne song “Goodbye Cruel World,” which peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1961, was Darren’s biggest hit as a vocalist. (Darren sang a rendition of the song on a Donna Reed Show episode that year, about a man whose heart is broken by a “mean, fickle woman.”)
With the song “Her Royal Majesty,” penned by Carole King and Gerry Goffin, he once again made it into the top 10. He also performed as the straight man in a lounge act with comedian Buddy Hackett in the early 1970s.
When Darren played the holographic lounge singer Vic Fontaine in multiple episodes of the syndicated series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in the late 1990s, he brought back his singing career. He called this role “one of the most enjoyable” he had ever had.
A number of his performances in the vein of Frank Sinatra were captured on tape for the 1999 album This One’s From the Heart.
Following a long hiatus from the spotlight, Darren returned in 2017’s Lucky, the last movie starring Harry Dean Stanton, as the husband of a bar owner.
On June 8, 1936, James William Ercolani was born. He was inspired to pursue a career in singing and acting by Eddie Fisher, a fellow Philadelphian, while growing up on South 10th Street in South Philadelphia. He traveled to New York to train as an actor with Stella Adler.
He signed a contract with the studio after being introduced to talent scout Joyce Selznick, the niece of David O. Selznick, by the owner of a photography business in the city.
In the crime drama Rumble on the Docks (1956), Darren made his screen debut opposite Robert Blake as a high school senior and gang member. He went on to play parts in Operation Mad Ball, The Brothers Rico, and The Tijuana Story (1957), as well as Gunman’s Walk (1958).
He became incredibly popular with young women thanks to the Gidget movies.
He said in a 2015 interview with Los Angeles magazine, “The defining moment was when I was at a studio in San Francisco and word got out that I was there.” “Out front, thousands of girls were yelling.” They pulled hair out of me and tackled me to the ground when I had to leave the building. The cops had to come to my aid and transport me to the roof until things settled down.”
Darren had to prove to the producers that he could sing in order to get the Gidget role. “I told them I could sing, but they were going to use somebody else’s voice,” he remarked. “I sang the song in one of the soundstages with a pianist, and they said, ‘He can do it.'” Then they signed me to Colpix, their label.
In addition, Darren appeared in the following films: For Those Who Think Young (1964), Under the Yum Yum Tree (1963), Diamond Head (1962), and All the Young Men (1960).
In addition to performing as Yogi Bear in an animated film in 1964 and singing “Almost in Your Arms” at the 1959 Academy Awards and “It’s a Mad Mad Mad World” on the 1964 Oscar telecast, he also appeared in a number on a 1965 episode of The Flintstones.
In addition, he appeared as Sal Mineo’s best friend in The Gene Krupa Story (1959), played a car mechanic in The Lively Set (1964), and traveled to Italy with Barbara McNair to topline Venus in Furs (1969).
Darren was wed to Gloria Terlitsky, his childhood sweetheart, from 1955 until their divorce in 1958, and to Evy Norlund, a former Miss Denmark, from 1960 until his passing. He spent many years living in a house on Kimridge Road in Beverly Ridge Estates that Audrey Hepburn had once owned.
His other sons, Christian and Anthony; grandchildren, Amanda, Carly, Matthew, Natalie, and Nicholas; and goddaughter, A.J. Lambert, daughter of Nancy Sinatra, are among the survivors in addition to his wife and Moret.
Darren met a lot of music lovers over the years, some of whom he never expected.
One day, my friend and I were in a pizza place. In his conversation with Weaver, he recalled, “I heard this motorcycle pull up, and in walked Bruce Springsteen in his little motorcycle cap, like Brando wore in The Wild One—I guess he left his helmet outside.” “Oh, I should go say hello to him,” I said.
“Hello, I don’t mean to interrupt, but my name is James Darren,” I said as I approached him. All I want to say is that I’m a huge fan. I adore everything you have. He uttered, “James Darren?” “Goodbye Cruel World” was purchased by me in Freehold, New Jersey. Isn’t that lovely?
