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appointments in a single day and it is considered remarkable when he remembers two of them. Remembering names is equally dif¬ ficult to this gentle little soul who is so much a part of show business and yet at the same time quite removed from the general conception of a showman’s life. He got a phone call one morning from someone who iden¬ tified himself, Jimmy thought, as Joe McFall. “Just got into town,” Joe said, “and would like to see you.” A Soft Touch “Sure, sure, Joe,” Jimmy said, try¬ ing to place the name. “Any time. Drop around this afternoon. Anything I can do for you, just let me know.” The softest touch in all show business, Durante is constantly doing something for somebody and his old pal McFall, whoever he was, would be no excep¬ tion. All his old pals are constantly broke and Durante is their walking Personal Loan Corp., the word “loan” being interpreted in its loosest pos¬ sible sense. Jimmy, however, was a little puz¬ zled by McFall. He was sure it was a name he’d never heard before. So he checked, something he rarely bothers to do. Turned out he’d been talking to Joe McConnell, who at that time happened to be the presi¬ dent of NBC. Horrified at the thought of what he’d told McConnell on the phone, Durante called him back. “Joe,” he said, the pixie in his voice spilling all over itself, “if there is anything you can do for me, I’ll let you know.” Jimmy’s home in Beverly Hills, an unpretentious one-story affair on one of the older streets, is the closest thing to a Club Durant that exists in real life. He lives alone with his housekeeper, Maggie, who has been with him eight years and who is by now completely impervious to his terrible “temper.” Things never go right, in the Durante view, and his inherent capacity for righteous indig¬ nation, coupled with a vocabulary at once limited and enriched by a lack of formal education, leads to some truly magnificent outbursts. Maggie, being permanently on hand, is the chief target for these little disserta- 16