James Darren, a teen idol who helped spark the surfing craze in the 1960s as the charismatic beach boy paired with Sandra Dee in the hit film “Gidget,” died Monday at age 88.
Darren died in his sleep at a Los Angeles hospital, his son Jim Moret confirmed to CBS News.
Moret told CBS News that Darren was admitted to the hospital last week for an aortic valve replacement, but was unable to receive it due to his strength at the time. He was then rushed back to the hospital on Sunday.
“To be honest with you, it was kind of a surprise,” Moret told CBS News. “I mean, we knew he wasn’t doing well, but we didn’t expect this.”
Moret said Darren was not in pain and was “able to express his love for his family.”
During his long career, Darren has acted, sung and built a successful career behind the scenes as a television director, directing episodes of such popular shows as “Beverly Hills 90210” and “Melrose Place.” In the 1980s, he starred as Officer Jim Corrigan on the television crime series “TJ Hooker.”
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But to young moviegoers of the late 1950s, he will be best remembered for his role as Moondoggie, the dark-haired surfer in the 1959 hit film “Gidget.” Dee played the title character, a plucky Southern Californian who goes to the beach and ends up falling in love with Moondoggie.
“I was in love with Sandra,” Darren later recalled. “I thought she was absolutely perfect as Gidget. She had a great charm.”
The film was based on a novel that a Californian, Frederick Kohner, had written about his own teenage daughter and which helped spark an interest in surfing, an interest that influenced pop music, slang and even fashion.
For Darren, his success with teenage fans led to a record deal, as it did for many young actors of the era, including Tab Hunter and Annette Funicello. Two of Darren’s singles, “Goodbye Cruel World” and “Her Royal Majesty,” reached the Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. “Goodbye Cruel World” also appeared in Steven Spielberg’s 2022 semi-autobiographical film, “The Fabelmans.” Other singles include “Gidget” and “Angel Face.”
Darren was the only member of the “Gidget” cast to appear in both of its sequels, “Gidget Goes Hawaiian” in 1961 and “Gidget Goes to Rome” in 1963. Dee was replaced by Deborah Walley in the second film and Cindy Carol in the third. “Gidget” later became a television show, launching the career of Sally Field.
“They had me under contract, I was a prisoner,” Darren told Entertainment Weekly in 2004. “But with these lovely young women, it was the best prison I think I’ll ever be in.”
As a contract player at Columbia Studios, Darren also appeared in adult films, including “The Brothers Rico,” “Operation Meatball” and “The Guns of Navarone.”
By the mid-1960s, when Darren appeared in “For Those Who Think Young” and “The Lively Set,” his acting career on the silver screen was nearly over. He appeared in only a handful of films after the end of the 1960s, most recently in 2017’s “Lucky,” directed by John Carroll Lynch.
But he remained active on television, appearing as a lead in the science fiction series “The Time Tunnel” in the late 1960s, and making guest appearances and small recurring roles on such TV series as “The Love Boat,” “Hawaii Five-O” and “Fantasy Island.”
Darren was a regular on the William Shatner series “TJ Hooker” for four seasons in the 1980s. While appearing on the show, he noticed that there was no director listed for an upcoming run and asked if he could take a shot.
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“When the movie came out, I got a lot of offers to direct,” he told the New York Daily News. “I quickly got so many offers to direct that I gave up acting and singing.”
For nearly two years, Darren directed episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger, Hunter, Melrose Place, Beverly Hills 90210 and other series. He returned to acting in the 1990s with small roles on Melrose Place and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
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Darren was born James Ercolani in 1936 and grew up in South Philadelphia, not far from teen idols of the 1950s and 1960s, such as Fabian and Frankie Avalon. He had no trouble singing, and by age 14 he was performing in local nightclubs.
“I knew from the age of 5 or 6 that I wanted to be an artist, or maybe famous,” he said in a 2003 interview with the News-Press of Fort Myers, Florida. He noted that luminaries such as Eddie Fisher and Al Martino had lived in the same neighborhood as him, “a real neighborhood. It made you feel like you could be successful, too.”
According to a 1958 Los Angeles Times profile, he got a break when he went to New York to have his picture taken and the photographer’s office connected him with a talent scout.
He was quickly signed by Columbia Pictures, and the newspaper said that after a few appearances, his fan mail to the studio was “second only to Kim Novak’s. … The studio now thinks the young man is ready to hit the jackpot.”
Darren married his first wife, Gloria, in 1955 and together they had Moret, an “Inside Edition” correspondent and former CNN anchor. After a divorce, he married Evy Norlund, who came to the United States as a Danish contestant in the Miss Universe pageant. They had two sons, Christian and Anthony.
He was also the godfather of Nancy Sinatra’s daughter, AJ Lambert.
“One of my dearest and closest friends in the world, of my entire life, has passed away,” Sinatra wrote on social media. “My daughter’s godfather, AJ. I wish her a swift and beautiful journey through the Universe and beyond. Good luck, sweet Jimmy. My heart is torn but full of love for Evy, Christian, Anthony and Jimmy Jr.”
