Don Durant

Don Durant (born Donald Allison Durae; November 20, 1932 – March 15, 2005) was an American actor and singer, best known for his role as the gunslinger-turned-sheriff in the CBS Western 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 American West as a singer/actor. He opened at many prestigious nightclubs, such as The Sands and the Sahara in Las Vegas. He garnered a small role in the 1955 Van Heflin film Battle Cry. To supplement his income, Durant taught actors how to ride horses and shoot guns, and worked at RCA as a technician. He helped to build the first kinescopic recorder and stereophonic sound recorder for Warner Brothers. In 1954, he signed with CBS to take small roles as the singer or young lover in a variety of legendary series, including The Jack Benny Show. He sang Groucho Marx's popular "It's delightful, it's Delovely, it's DeSoto" advertising jingle for the former DeSoto automobiles. In 1955, Durant met big band leader Ray Anthony and began filming various television advertisements. One for Papermate pens featured his future wife, the former Trudy Wroe, but he did not meet her at the time because his voice was dubbed into the commercial to replace her co-star. In 1956, Durant starred and did his own stunts in Roger Corman's 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.