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Jimmy Durante’s Beverly Hills home sells for $3.2 million

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The longtime Beverly Hills home of singer, pianist and comic actor Jimmy Durante has sold for $3.2 million.

Durante bought the property in 1944 and had the house remodeled into a contemporary in 1963. The main residence has three bedrooms and 2 1/2 bathrooms in 3,944 square feet. There is a two-story guesthouse with a one-bedroom apartment upstairs where the songwriter rehearsed and maid’s quarters and storage on the ground floor. The swimming pool area includes a pool house with a bathroom and a dry sauna for a total of about 5,200 square feet of living space on the site.

The widower married his second wife, Marjorie Little, on Christmas Day 1960, and they raised their daughter Cecelia in the house.

The cigar-smoking vaudevillian with the protruding proboscis had his own radio show in the ‘40s and television show in the ‘50s. He also appeared on the big screen in scores of movies such as “Palooka” (1934), “You’re in the Army Now” (1941) and “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World” (1963).

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Durante died in 1980 at age 86. His wife died in June. Memorabilia from the estate is going to the UCLA Durante archives and the Smithsonian.

The house came on the market in July at $3,395,000 and drew the interest of fans and bidders worldwide, according to listing agent David Yocum of the Coldwell Banker, Beverly Hills North office. Yocum was a William Morris talent agent for 14 years before going into real estate.

lauren.beale@latimes.com

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