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All Music Guide:
Even more than the typical teen idol, James Darren's roots in authentic rock & roll were tenuous. Darren began recording for Colpix in the late '50s at the beginning of a screen career that saw him star in numerous films, most notably Gidget. More at home with standard MOR, show tune-like material than rock, and not much of a singer in any case, Darren was nonetheless marketed as a pop/rock performer to his predominantly young female constituency. He ran off quite a few novelty-tinged hit singles in the early '60s, of which "Goodbye Cruel World," which made number three, was the biggest and best. Top Brill Building pop songwriters -- including the Goffin-King, Mann-Weil, and Pomus-Shuman teams, as well as Bob Crewe, Gloria Shayne, and Howard Greenfield -- gave Darren material, albeit material that was well below their usual standards. He recorded quite a bit after his early-'60s heyday, reaching the Top 40 in 1967 with "All" and charting as late as 1977 with "You Take My Heart Away." During the '90s, Darren co-starred on the Star Trek spin-off Deep Space Nine as hologram crooner Vic Fontaine, reprising songs from the series on the 1999 album This One's From the Heart.
Wikipedia:
James William Ercolani (born June 8, 1936), known by his stage name James Darren, is an American television and film actor, television director, and singer.
Career
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on June 8, 1936, Darren began his career as a teen idol, having been discovered by talent agent and casting director Joyce Selznick. This encompassed roles in films, most notably his role as Moondoggie in Gidget in 1959, as well as a string of pop hits for Colpix Records, the biggest of which was "Goodbye Cruel World" (#3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1961). It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. Another sizeable hit was "Her Royal Majesty" (#6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1962). He is also featured in one of the Scopitone series of pop music video jukebox films ("Because You're Mine").
Darren's role in the 1961 World War II film The Guns of Navarone was an attempt to break out of his teen image. He was the singing voice of Yogi Bear in the 1964 animated film, Hey There, It's Yogi Bear!, on the song "Ven-e, Ven-o, Ven-a". Prior to that, he was the singing and speaking voice of "Jimmy Darrock" on an episode of The Flintstones. He then achieved success co-starring as impulsive scientist and adventurer Tony Newman in the science fiction television series, The Time Tunnel (1966–1967).
In the 1970s Darren appeared as a celebrity panelist on Match Game.
Later Darren had a regular role as Officer James Corrigan on the television police drama T.J. Hooker from 1983–1986. Subsequently he worked as a director on many action-based television series, including Hunter, The A-Team, and Nowhere Man, as well as dramas such as Beverly Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place.
In 1998 he achieved renewed popularity as a singer through his appearances on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in the role of holographic crooner and advice-giver Vic Fontaine; many of his performances on the show were re-recorded for the album This One's From the Heart (1999). The album showed Darren, a close friend of Frank Sinatra, comfortably singing in the Sinatra style; the 2001 follow-up Because of You showed similar inspiration from Tony Bennett.
Personal life
Darren dated Barbara Bouchet after she won the "Miss Gidget" contest in 1959. He has been married twice:
His first wife was Gloria Terlitzky (married 1955 to 1959) with whom he had one son, Jim Moret, who for nearly a decade worked as a CNN reporter and anchor, and is currently Chief Correspondent for the syndicated news program Inside Edition.His second (and current) wife is Evy Norlund, married on February 6, 1960, with whom he has two sons, Christian Darren, a writer, and Tony Darren, a musician and singer-songwriter.Darren and his wife are godparents to Nancy Sinatra's daughter, Angela Jennifer Lambert, (Frank Sinatra's first grandchild). Darren and Nancy Sinatra also share a birthday, June 8, 1936 and 1940, respectively.
