Jimmy Durante Movies and Career Information

James Francis "Jimmy" Durante (February 10, 1893 – January 29, 1980) was an American singer, pianist, comedian and actor. His distinctive clipped gravelly speech, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and large nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s. His jokes about his nose included referring to it as a "Schnozzola", and the word became his nickname. Durante was born in Brooklyn, New York, the third of four children born to Italian-Americans Bartolomeo Durante (1849–1942) and Rosa (Lentino) Durante (1858–1921). He served as an altar boy at New York City's Saint Malachy's Roman Catholic Church also known as the Actor's Chapel. Durante dropped out of school in the eighth grade to become a full-time ragtime pianist. He first played with his cousin, whose name was also "Jimmy Durante." It was a family act, but he was too professional for his cousin. He continued working the city's piano bar circuit and earned the nickname "Ragtime Jimmy," before he joined one of the first recognizable jazz bands in New York, the Original New Orleans Jazz Band. Durante was the only member not from New Orleans. His routine