The Jimmy Durante Show
Volume 3
"All of us have schnozzles . . . if not in our faces, then in our character, minds or habits. When we admit our schnozzles, instead of defending them, we begin to laugh, and the world laughs with us."
He butchered the English language. He sang as if he gargled with gravel. He dropped pearls of wisdom disguised as one-liners. And he had a nose that got everywhere ten minutes before he did. All of this and a genuine love for his craft and the people who enjoyed it made Jimmy Durante a star in the Golden Age of Radio and still keeps him in the minds and hearts of fans today.
Nicknamed "Schnozzola" for his oversized nose, Jimmy Durante first came to prominence as a teenager, playing New York's restaurant and nightclub circuit as Ragtime Jimmy. Bitten by the show-biz bug, he dropped out of school in the eighth grade and soon joined a musical comedy trio that wowed nightclub audiences with its boisterous unpredictability, Durante's aggressive interaction with the musicians, and his penchant for destroying pianos in mock frustration. By the mid-1920s, the team was being featured in vaudeville, culminating in a lengthy run at New York's Palace Theater. By the time Cole Porter's "The New Yorkers" opened in 1930, Durante was a star.
Jimmy continued his Broadway success in a string of popular shows and revues throughout the 1930s. But he didn't limit himself solely to the Great White Way; thanks to appearances in a series of films for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and a guest star spot on Rudy Vallee's Fleischmann Hour, by 1933, Durante had taken over for Eddie Cantor as the host of radio's "Chase and Sanborn Hour". On the air, Durante's broad delivery, overwhelming personality, and penchant for mangling his words only increased his popularity with laugh-hungry Depression-era audiences and made him a welcome visitor in American homes.
In 1943, Hollywood beckoned once again with the offer of comedic roles in a series of motion pictures. For this opportunity, Durante relocated to Hollywood, where he was also signed to headline a CBS series titled "The Camel Caravan". The new series found the Schnozz co-starred with a fresh voiced young comedian named Garry Moore in what initially seemed to be an odd and highly unlikely pairing. As so often happens, however, the mismatched duo instantly clicked as a team, ratings went through the roof, and Durante's patented brand of language mangling and outraged interaction with the orchestra introduced him to radio audiences all over again. Durante and Moore enjoyed four successful seasons together until Moore decided to pursue a solo career at the end of the 1946/47 season.
With Moore's departure, in the fall of 1947, Jimmy Durante signed a contract to host a new series on NBC for the Rexall Drug Company, costarring vocalist Peggy Lee and character actor Victor Moore. Loud, boisterous, and wildly entertaining, The Jimmy Durante Show proved just as popular as its predecessor - so much so, in fact, that the following season found Durante back on CBS and back with Camel Cigarettes for another two years before the Schnozz finally moved full-time to television in the early 1950s.
The Jimmy Durante Show, Volume 3 consists of five hours of what makes Durante a legendary character. He steps on stage and makes the program and the audience his own. His tirades with the orchestra and whatever star crosses his path, his gruff, yet playful singing voice, his deliberate degradation of English verbiage, and of course his own jokes about his very own nose endear him to fans, old and new. Also, Durante is a statesman, philosophizing in pithy one-line comments on the world, on society, but most of all on how we should all get along. Taken directly from original master recordings and fully restored for sparkling audio fidelity, The Jimmy Durante Show, Volume 3 is even more proof that a man can make the world laugh when he faces his own 'schnozzle'.
Here's the complete content of this five-hour collection:
Guest Rose Marie
Wednesday, March 31, 1948 - 30:00 - NBC, sponsored by Rexall
Guest Dorothy Lamour
Wednesday, April 7, 1948 - 30:00 - NBC, sponsored by Rexall
Includes five minute Harry Truman Speech
Wednesday, April 14, 1948 - 30:00 - NBC, sponsored by Rexall
Guests Lou Clayton & Eddie Jackson
Wednesday, April 21, 1948 - 30:00 - NBC, sponsored by Rexall
Guest Lucille Ball
Wednesday, April 28, 1948 - 30:00 - NBC, sponsored by Rexall
Guest Victor Moore
Wednesday, May 5, 1948 - 30:00 - NBC, sponsored by Rexall
Guest Victor Moore
Wednesday, May 12, 1948 - 30:00 - NBC, sponsored by Rexall
Guest Victor Moore
Wednesday, May 19, 1948 - 30:00 - NBC, sponsored by Rexall
Guest Victor Moore
Wednesday, May 26, 1948 - 30:00 - NBC, sponsored by Rexall
Turkey
Wednesday, November 26, 1947 - 30:00 - NBC, sponsored by Rexall
