Don Durant

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Don Durant
Corona del Mar, California
Occupation(s)Actor and Businessman
Spouse
​
(m. 1959)​
Children2
Websitehttp://www.johnnyringo.net/

Don Durant (born Donald Allison Durae; November 20, 1932 – March 15, 2005) was an American

series Johnny Ringo
, which ran on Thursdays from October 1, 1959 to June 30, 1960.

Background

Durant was born Donald Allison Durae in Long Beach, California. His father was killed in a truck accident near Bakersfield two months before Durant's birth; his mother remarried three times before she died of lung cancer at the age of only forty-six in 1959. Durant himself was seriously injured a few weeks before his eleventh birthday, when his bicycle chain broke, and he careened into the path of a cement truck. He lay in a coma for three days, his right arm fractured, his right femur and hip so badly damaged that doctors nearly amputated the leg before his family scraped up enough money for a specialist. Young Durant was bedridden for more than a year.

Singer and actor

Durant then began touring the

automobiles
.

In 1955, Durant met

She-Gods of Shark Reef, which became a cult classic. Continuing to tour, he sang on Anthony's ABC
variety series and recorded an album. He also appeared in an episode of Sergeant Preston of the Yukon the same year as Jack Elders, son of Tom Elders played by George Selk titled "The Limping King" and another episode titled "Phantom of Phoenixville" as Jack Flynn.

He appeared on another syndicated series,

Warner Brothers western series Maverick to feature Jack Kelly as Bart Maverick, the brother of Bret Maverick (James Garner). Durant had auditioned for the role of Bart but was instead cast as a singing bad guy in the episode. For that part, he learned to play the guitar
the weekend before filming.

In 1957, celebrity journalist Walter Winchell reported that Durant was courting Carole Mathews, an actress twelve years his senior, who in 1958 joined the cast of the NBC western series, The Californians.[1] About this time, Durant met Wroe while they were en route to film an advertisement for the Ford Motor Company. She spent most of the trip gushing over Elvis Presley. Durant told her that he had been to a few of Presley's parties, and the two began dating. They wed on February 28, 1959, and were together until his death.[2]

On March 1, 1959, the day after Durant's marriage, he appeared on CBS in the role of Pat Sharkey in the episode "Body of the Crime" of the drama series,

Wanted: Dead or Alive
.

In 1958, Durant shot an unsuccessful pilot which caught the attention of actor/

deputy named Cully, and Karen Sharpe was cast as Laura Thomas, Ringo's girlfriend and the daughter of Case Thomas, another deputy and a storekeeper played by Terence De Marney. Johnny Ringo's main competition came from Walter Brennan's The Real McCoys
on ABC, against which Ringo achieved decent ratings. Sometimes it was in the "Top 20".

Many famous actors guest-starred on Johnny Ringo. The Johnny Ringo Playset became the most sought-after television western toy. Surprisingly, the sponsor,

Johnson Wax Company, believed that there were too many Westerns (thirty at the time) on network television and wanted to replace one of their own with a sitcom. Dick Powell was out of the country, and Spelling had moved on to another project. With no strong advocates for survival, Johnny Ringo was cancelled after one season of thirty-eight episodes. Neither NBC
nor ABC were interested in taking over production of Johnny Ringo.

Durant continued to make personal appearances (which paid more than his television salary had), guest-starred in CBS's Perry Mason and The Twilight Zone, and was nearly cast opposite Lucille Ball in her Broadway debut, Wildcat!, which flopped.

Durant signed a contract with another studio, but aside from a 1963 guest role on NBC's Laramie western series with John Smith and Robert Fuller as Slim Sherman and Jess Harper, respectively, few offers materialized. On Laramie, Durant was cast as Gandy Ross, a likable safecracker trying to go straight, in the episode "No Place to Run".

Later years

Durant bought out his contract in 1964; and, because big bands had faded in the pop music fever, he subsequently retired from show business.

In 1992, Durant contracted

Corona del Mar, California
. The Durants had a son, Jeff, and a daughter, Heidi.

Selected Filmography

He also appeared in Perry Mason: The Case of the Defiant Daughter Feb 1, 1958

References

  1. ^ "Carole Mathews". Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen. Retrieved February 27, 2014.
  2. ^ "Johnny Ringo - Bon Durant Biography". www.johnnyringo.net. Archived from the original on 2021-01-25. Retrieved 2021-03-03.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Don_Durant&oldid=1211298249"