Actor James Darren, known for his work on films including Gidget and TV shows such as T.J. Hooker and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, has died at the age of 88.<\/p>\n
TMZ report that the veteran performer passed away in his sleep at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles on Monday.<\/p>\n
Darren\u2019s cause of death remains unknown a the time of writing, but the actor\u2019s son, Jim Moret, reportedly told TMZ that his father was having heart issues and was a patient at Cedars-Sinai\u2019 cardiac unit.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s believed that Darren had initially gone to hospital for an aortic valve replacement, only to be judged too weak to safely undergo the procedure.<\/p>\n
He was subsequently sent home, but returned to hospital a short time later.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always thought he would pull through,\u201d his son Jim said, \u201cbecause he was so cool. He was always cool.\u201dDarren shot to prominence as a teen idol after landing the role of surfer Moondoggie in 1959\u2019s Gidget. He reprised the role in the two sequels Gidget Goes Hawaiian and Gidget Goes to Rome.<\/p>\n
The actor also had a recurring role as police officer Jim Corrigan on T.J. Hooker. He appeared in a total of 66 episodes across four seasons.<\/p>\n
Beyond acting, James also enjoyed a career as a singer and performed the theme song for Gidget. As per reports, he also directed a variety of episodes on shows like Melrose Place, Beverly Hills, 90210 and The A-Team among others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Actor James Darren, known for his work on films including Gidget and TV shows such as T.J. Hooker and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, has died at… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3802,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n