“SCHNOZZLE” IN LONDON

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 July 1936, Page 14

“SCHNOZZLE” IN LONDON

♦ S FAMOUS U.S. COMEDIAN LONDON, May 20. There was a loud hiss, like the last gasp of an empty soda-water siphon. It came from Mr. Jimmy “Schnozzle” Durante, possessor of the biggest nose in the show business. The famous American comedian in London on his first visit yesterday. “ ‘Schnozzle’? No, it’s not a prdper woid. It’s a name. Dey ail call/me dat,” he explained, a tiny smile lurking at the base of his nose. "Clayton, my partner, called jne ‘Schnozzle’ foist, about 15 years ago. I was thin then, see? —and it kinda threw me nose into prominence.” Mr. Durante talks vigorously, with both hands. “I been acting in de show ‘Jumbo’ in New York.. Dey built a huge, ring” —illustrative gesture; two cocktail glasses flew earthwards —“srf)oo people sit in de auditorium. There was an enormous cast. They had an elephant. It was all nice and intimate. “De elephant he tried to step on me. but that wasn’t in de plot. He just had a fellow-feeling for me, I guess. Was I mortified!” Mr. Durante is to appear at the London Palladium. “Alone or with a company?” he was asked. “No. company.” he said. “With me, one’s company, more’s none. They'll resister that I’m on the stage; all right. I’m just fass-cinated to death at acting here in London.”