 Be nice to people on your way up because you meet them on your way down. Man is the only animal that can be skinned more than once.”
When I got through with him, he was all covered wit` blood, my blood”
Politics is developing more comedians than radio ever did.”
Why can`t everybody leave everybody else the hell alone”
“My wife has a slight impediment in her speech. Every now and then she stops to breathe.”
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.”
“Good night, Mrs Calabash, wherever you are!”
“Be nice to people on your way up because you meet them on your way down.”
I hate music, especially when it`s played.
[ad-libbing with Bob Hope] When it comes to noses, you`re a retailer. I`m a wholesaler!
[referring to his funny looks as a child] I`d go home [from school] and cry. I made up my mind never to hurt anybody else, no matter what. I never made jokes about anybody`s big ears, crossed eyes, or their stuttering.
Trivia
Has a street named after him on the east side of Las Vegas, Nevada.
His voice was the inspiration for that of the dog in the Tom and Jerry cartoons.
A legal challenge to his adoption of daughter CeCe late in life, on the grounds that he was too old to care for such a young child, was dismissed by a judge, who said, "I`ve heard this man sing `Young at Heart.`"
Famous for a number of other beloved catch-phrases besides the "Mrs. Calabash" routine, including: "It`s a castastrophe!", "I`m mortified!" "Surrounded by assassins!", "Everybody wants ta get inta da act!, and "Hotch-cha-cha-cha-cha!"
Also made a living as a bandleader and talent booker.
Dropped out of school in the eighth grade and a couple of years later played ragtime piano for a living, taking jobs whereever he could, including bars, cabarets and whorehouses. He became known for a time as "Ragtime Jimmy."
Comic Sonny King, who worked with Durante during his career, stated in an interview that the mysterious "Mrs. Calabash" was indeed Jimmy`s late wife Jeanne Olson, but "Calabash" was a reference to Calabasas, California, where she was hospitalized in her later years. She had difficulty in pronouncing the city name, often calling it "Calabash", and it became an inside joke for the Durantes.
For years he signed off his radio and TV shows with "Goodnight Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are", but he would never divulge who she was. Some speculated it was a "code name" for a current or former lover, some doubted she ever existed. It was not until after his death in 1980 that it was revealed she was, indeed, a real person.
Interred at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California, USA. Specific Interment Location: F, T96, 6.
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