James Darren,

James Darren, a teen idol who helped ignite the Nineteen Sixties browsing craze as a charismatic seashore boy paired off with Sandra Dee within the hit movie “Gidget,” died Monday at 88.

Darren died in his sleep at a Los Angeles hospital, his son Jim Moret confirmed to CBS Information.

Moret instructed CBS Information that Darren was admitted to the hospital final week for an aortic valve substitute, however he was unable to obtain one as a result of his power on the time. He was then rushed again to the hospital on Sunday.

“It was type of a shock to be fairly trustworthy with you,” Moret instructed CBS Information. “I imply, we knew that he was not effectively, however we did not count on this.” 

Moret stated Darren wasn’t in ache and that he “was capable of specific his love for his household.”

In his lengthy profession, Darren acted, sang and constructed up a profitable behind-the-scenes profession as a tv director, helming episodes of such well-known collection as “Beverly Hills 90210” and “Melrose Place.” Within the Eighties, he was Officer Jim Corrigan on the tv cop present “T.J. Hooker.”

However to younger film followers of the late Nineteen Fifties, he can be remembered greatest as Moondoggie, the dark-haired surfer boy within the smash 1959 launch “Gidget.” Dee starred because the title character, a spunky Southern Californian who hits the seashore and ultimately falls in love with Moondoggie.

“I used to be in love with Sandra,” Darren later recalled. “I believed that she was completely good as Gidget. She had great allure.”

The movie was primarily based on a novel {that a} California man, Frederick Kohner, had written about his personal teenage daughter and helped spur curiosity in browsing — one which influenced pop music, slang and even vogue.

For Darren, his success with teen followers led to a recording contract, because it did with many younger actors on the time, amongst them Tab Hunter and Annette Funicello. Two of Darren’s singles, “Goodbye Merciless World” and “Her Royal Majesty,” reached the High 10 of the Billboard Scorching 100 chart. “Goodbye Merciless World” additionally appeared in Steven Spielberg’s 2022 semi-autobiographical movie, “The Fabelmans.”Different singles included “Gidget” and “Angel Face.”

Darren was the one “Gidget” forged member who appeared in each its sequels, 1961’s “Gidget Goes Hawaiian” and 1963’s “Gidget Goes to Rome.” Dee was changed by Deborah Walley within the second movie and Cindy Carol within the third. “Gidget” later grew to become a tv present, launching the profession of Sally Subject.

“That they had me underneath contract; I used to be a prisoner,” Darren instructed Leisure Weekly in 2004. “However with these beautiful younger girls, it was the most effective jail I feel I am going to ever be in.”

As a contract participant at Columbia Studios, Darren appeared in grown-up movies, too, together with “The Brothers Rico,” “Operation Meatball” and “The Weapons of Navarone.”

By the mid-’60s, when Darren appeared in “For These Who Assume Younger” and “The Full of life Set,” his big-screen appearing profession was virtually over. He appeared in only a handful of films after the Nineteen Sixties ended, final showing in 2017’s “Fortunate,” directed by John Carroll Lynch.

However he remained energetic on tv, showing as a lead on the sci-fi present “The Time Tunnel” within the late Nineteen Sixties, and doing visitor spots and small recurring roles in TV exhibits similar to “The Love Boat,” “Hawaii 5-O” and “Fantasy Island.”

Darren was a collection common for 4 seasons of the William Shatner-starrer “T.J. Hooker” within the Eighties. Whereas showing on the present, he seen that no director was listed for an upcoming sequence and requested if he might check out for it.

“When it was proven, I bought a number of provides to direct,” he instructed the New York Every day Information. “Quickly I used to be getting so many provides to direct, I type of gave up appearing and singing.”

For nearly two years, Darren directed episodes of “Walker, Texas Ranger,” “Hunter,” “Melrose Place,” “Beverly Hills 90210” and different collection. He returned to appearing within the Nineteen Nineties with small roles in “Melrose Place” and “Star Trek: Deep Area 9.”

Darren was born James Ercolani in 1936 and grew up in South Philadelphia, not removed from such fellow teen idols of the Nineteen Fifties and ’60s as Fabian and Frankie Avalon. Singing got here simple to him, and at 14 he was showing in native nightclubs.

“From the age of 5 or 6 I knew I wished to be an entertainer, or well-known perhaps,” he stated in a 2003 interview with the Information-Press of Fort Myers, Florida. He famous that such luminaries as Eddie Fisher and Al Martino had lived in the identical space as he did, “an actual neighborhood. It made you’re feeling you might achieve success, too.”

Based on a 1958 Los Angeles Occasions profile, he bought a break when he went to New York to get some footage taken and the photographer’s workplace put him in contact with a expertise scout.

He was quickly signed by Columbia Photos, and the newspaper stated that after a number of appearances, his fan mail on the studio was operating “second solely to Kim Novak’s. … The studio now feels that the younger man is able to hit the jackpot.”

Darren married his first spouse, Gloria, in 1955 and collectively had Moret, an “Inside Version” correspondent and former CNN anchorman. After a divorce he married Evy Norlund, who got here to the U.S. because the Danish entry within the Miss Universe contest. That they had two sons, Christian and Anthony.

He was additionally the godfather of Nancy Sinatra’s daughter A.J. Lambert.

“Considered one of my dearest, closest pals in all of the world, of all my life has handed away,” Sinatra wrote on social media. “Godfather to my daughter, AJ. Wishing him a quick & stunning journey by the Universe & past. Godspeed, candy Jimmy. My coronary heart is torn however full of affection for Evy, Christian, Anthony & Jimmy Jr.”