The Time Tunnel star also was pop singer and crooning hologram on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
James Darren, the former teen idol and pop singer who played the dreamy surfer Moondoggie in three Gidget movies before starring on TV’s The Time Tunnel and T.J. Hooker, died Monday. He was 88.
Darren died in his sleep at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, his son Jim Moret, a correspondent for Inside Edition, told The Hollywood Reporter. He had entered the hospital for an aortic valve replacement but was deemed too weak to have the surgery; he went home but had to return.
“I always thought he would pull through,” Moret said, “because he was so cool. He was always cool.”
Even though he could not surf, the Philadelphia native got the role of Moondoggie (real name: Jerry Matthews) opposite three actresses as the precocious Malibu teen: Sandra Dee in Gidget (1959), Deborah Walley in Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961) and Cindy Carol in Gidget Goes to Rome (1963).
Darren then spiraled through history as the headstrong Dr. Tony Newman, an electronics genius, on the 1966-67 ABC adventure series The Time Tunnel, also starring Robert Colbert. (Tom Hanks once said it was his favorite show as a kid.)
In an interview with Tom Weaver for the 2008 book I Talked With a Zombie, Darren said he wasn’t interested in doing television or science fiction before he agreed to a meeting with the creator of The Time Tunnel, Irwin Allen.
Allen told him, “This is something you have to do. I know you don’t want to do it, but I think you are perfect for this role, and he convinced me,” Darren recalled. “Irwin was one of the great salespersons of our time. I accepted the role because of my meeting with him.”
Fifteen years later, Darren joined the William Shatner ABC action drama T.J. Hooker in its second season, portraying Officer Jim Corrigan opposite Heather Locklear as his inexperienced partner, Stacy Sheridan.
Darren directed for the first time in 1986 as a fill-in during the final season of T.J. Hooker, and he went to helm episodes of Hunter, Silk Stalkings, Melrose Place, Werewolf, The A-Team and Beverly Hills, 90210.
Darren’s biggest splash as singer came with the Gloria Shayne-written “Goodbye Cruel World,” which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1961.
He cracked the top 10 again in 1962 with “Her Royal Majesty,” written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin.
In the early ’70s, he sang and played the straight man in a lounge act with comic Buddy Hackett.
Darren revived his singing career in the late ’90s when he appeared on several episodes of the syndicated series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as the holographic lounge singer Vic Fontaine, a role he called “one of the most enjoyable” he ever played.
Several of his Frank Sinatra-styled performances were recorded for the 1999 album This One’s From the Heart.
After many years out of the limelight, Darren made impression as the husband of a bar owner in the film Lucky (2017).
James William Ercolani was born on June 8, 1936. Growing up in South Philadelphia, he was inspired by another Philly native, Eddie Fisher, to become a singer and actor, and went to New York to study acting with Stella Adler.
Spotted by Talent Agent
While there, the owner of a photography shop connected him to Columbia Pictures talent scout Joyce Selznick (David O. Selznick’s niece), which ked to signing contract with the studio.
Darren made his debut as high school senior and gang member opposite Robert Blake in the crime drama Rumble on the Docks (1956).
He then followed with roles in Operation Mad Ball, The Brothers Rico and The Tijuana Story in 1957 and Gunman’s Walk in ’58.
The Gidget movies made him extremely popular with young girls and women.
“The defining moment was when I was at a studio in San Francisco,” he recalled in 2015 interview: “Thousands of girls were screaming out front. When I had to leave the building, they tackled me to the ground and pulled pieces of my hair out. The police had to rescue me and took me to the roof until things settled down.”
Darren was heard performing in All the Young Men (1960), Diamond Head (1962), Under the Yum Yum Tree (1963) and For Those Who Think Young (1964).
He sang “Almost in Your Arms” at the 1959 Academy Awards and “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World” on the 1964 Oscar telecast; performed as Yogi Bear in a 1964 animated film; and did a number on a 1965 episode of The Flintstones.
He also played the best friend opposite Sal Mineo in The Gene Krupa Story (1959), starred as a car mechanic in The Lively Set (1964).
