James Darren, Actor, Singer and ‘Gidget’ Heartthrob, Dies at 88

His role as a surfer in that trendsetting hit movie led to success on television shows like “The Time Tunnel” and “T.J. Hooker,” and on the pop charts.

James Darren, an performing artist and artist whose featuring part as a California surfer in the “Gidget” motion pictures made him one of the most prevalent heartthrobs of the late 1950s and early ’60s, passed on on Monday in Los Angeles. He was 88.

His child Jim Moret said the cause of his passing, in a healing center, was congestive heart failure.

Mr. Darren, a Philadelphia local who didn’t surf and wasn’t indeed a especially solid swimmer, had been a contract player with Columbia Pictures when he was cast as an yearning surf behind in “Gidget,” which too featured Sandra Dee in the title part and Cliff Robertson as the Huge Kahuna, the pioneer of a surfing gang.

Released in 1959, the motion picture told the story of a tall school young lady who becomes friends with that pack in Malibu and creates a smash on Mr. Darren’s character, Moondoggie. It was a hit, and it got to be one of the to begin with signs of the surfing fever that would before long incorporate the music of the Shoreline Boys and the “Beach Party” films.

Mr. Darren went on to play the character in two more “Gidget” movies, “Gidget Goes Hawaiian” (with Deborah Walley in the title part) and “Gidget Goes to Rome” (with Cindy Carol); arrive a part in the acclaimed 1961 World War II dramatization “The Weapons of Navarone”; carve out a long career in prime-time tv, counting a featuring part on the 1966-67 time-travel arrangement “The Time Tunnel”; and discharge a number of singles and collections, to begin with as a purveyor of lightweight pop tunes and afterward as a relax vocalist whose collection comprised generally of standards.

Before he was cast as Moondoggie, a character with a noticeable singing part, Mr. Darren had never sung professionally. At to begin with the studio considered having him lip-sync to somebody else’s voice.

“I told them I seem do it,” Mr. Darren told The Los Angeles Times in 2004. “So we went into one of the sound stages and I sang ‘Gidget.’ They said, ‘He sings fine,’ at that point I did all the other songs.”

His recording of that tune, the movie’s topic, come to No. 41 on the Announcement pop chart. As a result, he started to juggle a singing career with an acting career.

The two ways would meet all through his life. In 1965, he given the voice of a surf-rock artist named Jimmy Darrock in an scene of the movement arrangement “The Flintstones,” and in the late 1990s he played a holographic crooner on a few scenes of “Star Journey: Profound Space Nine.” That portion motivated him to return to the recording studio for the to begin with time in nearly 30 years.

James William Ercolani was born in South Philadelphia on June 8, 1936, to William Ercolani, a tailor, and Virginia (Lipiano) Ercolani.

He knew he needed to be in appear commerce from a youthful age. His grandma would energize him to sing for neighbors in trade for a dime. Afterward, she would deliver him a quarter. When he was 12, his father started taking him to clubs, where, he reviewed, he “would get up and sing two songs.”

But what he truly needed to do was act. When he was a young person, James tried out to consider with Stella Adler in Unused York. Once he was acknowledged, he took the prepare from Philadelphia twice a week.

His fortunate break came amid a visit to a picture taker for a head shot. The secretary inquired if he’d like to be in motion pictures and organized for him to meet with Joyce Selznick, the niece of the motion picture tycoon David O. Selznick. At the time, she worked in marketing at the Columbia auxiliary Screen Pearls and would afterward ended up his manager.

When Ms. Selznick and Mr. Darren ventured into the same lift some time recently they met, he afterward reviewed, Ms. Selznick kept gazing at him. She afterward took him to meet Harry Romm, a maker and specialist, and Harry Cohn, the president of Columbia pictures. She secured him a seven-year contract without a screen test or a reading.

“I was like a child in the womb,” Mr. Darren said in a 2011 meet. “I was so ensured. I had no stresses at all. All the choices were made by Joyce or by the individuals at Columbia Pictures, and I know they would make the best choice for me.”

The early a long time went well. His to begin with film, the low-budget “Rumble on the Docks” (1956), brought him hundreds of fan letters. His execution in “Gidget” boosted his profile and driven to a supporting part in “The Weapons of Navarone,” an epic war film featuring Gregory Peck, David Niven and Anthony Quinn; it was a basic and commercial success.

But after “Gidget Goes to Rome” was discharged in 1963, it was apparent that his twin careers had started to level. The motion picture did not do well, and he never had a greater hit than his early single “Goodbye Pitiless World,” which hit No. 3 on Billboard’s Hot 100 in 1961.

Mr. Darren proceeded to get relentless acting work for the rest of the decade, but for the most part on tv. His featuring part on “The Time Tunnel” — he played Dr. Tony Newman, one of two government researchers misplaced in time, with each scene taking put in a diverse period and regularly amid a significant authentic minute — earned him a faithful faction taking after, in spite of the fact that the arrangement was short-lived.

In 1970, Mr. Darren met Buddy Hackett at the Coconut Woods in Los Angeles, and the two went on to work together in a comedy-and-music act for 12 a long time. At Mr. Hackett’s recommendation, he moved on from high school pop tunes and started centering more on guidelines, turning himself into a crooner in the vein of Straight to the point Sinatra and Dignitary Martin, whom he had long admired.

“Everything I know around live execution, I learned from Buddy Hackett,” Mr. Darren said in a 2016 radio meet. “He’d tell me, ‘You know what? You’re, like, a sentimental picture, so to talk. Sing sentimental melodies! What are you singing this garbage for?’”

He remained dynamic on tv into the 1980s, as a visitor star on appears like “Charlie’s Angels” and “The Adore Boat” and as a standard from 1982 to 1986 on the police dramatization “T.J. Hooker,” which featured William Shatner. It was whereas on that appear that he started a unused career as a tv executive. Over the another decade, he coordinated scenes of a few prevalent tv arrangement, counting “Melrose Place” and “Beverly Slopes, 90210.”

After working fundamentally as a executive for 12 a long time, Mr. Darren was cast in a repeating part on “Star Journey: Profound Space Nine” as the relax vocalist Vic Fontaine. The character’s ubiquity empowered him to discharge a unused collection based on the tunes he sang on the arrangement, and to continue visiting. He discharged two collections of measures for the Harmony Jazz name, “This One’s From the Heart” in 1999 and “Because of You” in 2001.

Mr. Darren hitched Gloria Terlitzky in 1955, and they separated in 1958. Their child, Jim, is a broadcast writer. In 1960, he hitched Evy Norlund, a previous Miss Denmark.

In expansion to his child Jim, he is survived by his spouse; their children, Christian and Anthony; a brother, John; and five grandchildren.