WHEN THE GREAT SCHNOZZOLA CAME TO TOWN
Charismatic New Yorker was welcomed with open arms
HE had the most celebrated nose in showbiz – a fact Jimmy Durante played up to great effect. His touring show, The Hollywood Lover, billed the actor and comedian as The Great Schnozzola when it arrived in Glasgow in the spring of 1936.
(The city has another interesting, albeit very small connection with the legendary star. On the cobbled street recreated for Glasgow’s Museum of Transport, the poster advertising what films are coming to the Regal Cinema in 1938 includes mention of Little Miss Broadway, the movie Durante appeared in with Shirley Temple. He was a huge star.)
Durante, according to his obituary in our sister newspaper The Glasgow Herald, was “a survivor of the golden days of American vaudeville and went on to become an international star in radio, films, television and records”.
“He used to speak about his kingsized nose as if it had a personality of its own and one of the songs he rasped out at the piano was It’s My Nose’s Birthday Today,” it added.
Durante was most famous for the songs Inka Dinka Doo and Sitting at my Piano the Other Day but he had a varied career – from the 40s onwards he was a favourite of Newport high society in the US, loved for his distinctive gravelly speech, malapropisms and jazz-influenced, cheerful songs.
Born in 1894 to French-Italian parents, Durante grew up on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and left school to start playing piano and telling jokes in tough clubs.
He was much-loved, not just by fans, but by many famous stars of the day, including Frank Sinatra, Ethel Merman and Bette Davis, who remember his kindness, generosity and courtesy, with numerous anecdotes portraying him as that rare thing in Hollywood, a man without an enemy.
One of his friends was celebrated Scottish entertainer Sir Harry Lauder, whom he met during that visit to Glasgow in 1936.
He was invited to Lauder’s home in Strathaven, Lanarkshire. Here, it is said Lauder referred to them as “two big noses”, and added he was glad to see audiences in Glasgow had received the American as well as he had been received in the States.
They had lunch at his mansion, and Lauder reportedly told him that “everything you see here is bought by the money I made in America”.
Outside of his showbiz life, Durante was a huge supporter of children’s charities and an active member of the Democratic Party.
He performed at both the inaugural gala for President John F Kennedy in 1961 and a year later at the famous Madison Square Garden rally for the Democratic Party that featured Marilyn Monroe singing Happy Birthday to JFK.
Durante died of pneumonia, aged 86, following six years living with the after-effects of a stroke.