{"id":22259,"date":"2026-04-03T15:13:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T15:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/?p=22259"},"modified":"2026-04-03T15:13:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T15:13:17","slug":"gidget-teen-idol-actor-passed-away-at-88-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/?p=22259","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Gidget\u2019 Teen Idol Actor Passed Away At 88!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"96\" data-end=\"365\">James Darren, best known as Moondoggie in the <em data-start=\"142\" data-end=\"150\">Gidget<\/em> films, passed away on September 2 at age 88. He died in his sleep at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after complications from an aortic valve procedure, his son Jim Moret told <em data-start=\"338\" data-end=\"362\">The Hollywood Reporter<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"367\" data-end=\"634\">Born James William Ercolani on June 8, 1936, in Philadelphia to Italian immigrants, Darren started as a singer but rose to fame as an actor. He starred as Moondoggie in <em data-start=\"536\" data-end=\"544\">Gidget<\/em> (1959) and its sequels, helping launch the 1960s surf movie craze alongside Sandra Dee.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"636\" data-end=\"896\">He also had a music career, with hits like \u201cGoodbye Cruel World\u201d reaching No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. Darren later acted in TV series including <em data-start=\"784\" data-end=\"801\">The Time Tunnel<\/em> and <em data-start=\"806\" data-end=\"819\">T.J. Hooker<\/em>, eventually directing episodes of shows like <em data-start=\"865\" data-end=\"880\">Melrose Place<\/em> and <em data-start=\"885\" data-end=\"893\">Hunter<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"898\" data-end=\"1054\">Darren was married twice and had three children, including Jim Moret, a journalist. He leaves behind a legacy as a teen idol, singer, actor, and director.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1056\" data-end=\"1072\">Rest in peace.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dcr9xQIUTBg?si=IOGMv9QCkvgeG6HB\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>James Darren, best known as Moondoggie in the Gidget films, passed away on September 2 at age 88. He died in his sleep at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after complications from an aortic valve procedure, his son Jim Moret told The Hollywood Reporter. Born James William Ercolani on June 8, 1936, in Philadelphia&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-wrap\"><a href=\"https:\/\/albotips.com\/?p=22259\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;\u2018Gidget\u2019 Teen Idol Actor Passed Away At 88!&rdquo;<\/span> &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22260,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22259"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22261,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22259\/revisions\/22261"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}