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James Darren, Pop Singer & ‘Gidget’ Actor, Dies at 88

James Darren, the former teen idol and pop singer who played the dreamy surfer Moondoggie in three Gidget movies, died Monday. He was 88.

Early in his career, the dark-haired Darren received excellent notices for starring in Let No Man Write My Epitaph(1960) — portraying the son of a hoodlum defended by Humphrey Bogart’s character in 1949’s Knock on Any Door — and for playing the Greek soldier Spyros Pappadimos in The Guns of Navarone(1961). 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. Darren made his film debut as a high school senior and gang member opposite Robert Blake in the crime drama Rumble on the Docks(1956), then followed with roles in Operation Mad Ball, The Brothers Rico and The Tijuana Story in 1957 and Gunman’s Walk in ’58.

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