Gidget and T.J. Hooker star James Darren passes away at age 88
Darren became a teenage idol by playing the love interest in all three of the “Gidget” movies.
James Darren, who was eighty-eight, passed away. The actor’s most well-known roles were from the 1959 movie Gidget and T.J. Hooker, which he appeared in on television decades later. When Darren first began his career, he was viewed as a teenage idol.
The actor passed away on Monday, September 2, while sleeping at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, according to a statement on his website.
Jim Moret, the Inside Edition correspondent, revealed to The Hollywood Reporter that his father visited the hospital in order to undergo surgery to replace his aortic valve, but the surgeon determined that he was too frail to proceed.
“He was so cool that I always felt he would make it through. Forever cool, that’s what Moret told the outlet. PEOPLE inquired about comments from Moret’s agent.
James Ercolani, better known as Darren, was born in Philadelphia in 1936. His parents were immigrants from Italy, and he was more likely to get into mischief outside of school than to study hard. In 1983, he told PEOPLE, “I was a Dennis the Menace sort, not a bad kid.” A talent scout found him when he started pursuing acting after quitting school at the age of 16.
The Philadelphia native signed with Columbia Pictures and made his film debut in the 1956 drama Rumble on the Docks after training under renowned acting coach Stella Adler in New York.
