Don Durant - Later Years

Later Years

Durant bought out his contract in 1964, and since big bands had faded in the pop music fever, he subsequently retired from show business.

Instead, he spent much of his time with his family and supervised his real estate and investment holdings. He had shrewdly invested his television earnings and became a millionaire many times over. Durant held no bitterness over the end of his fame and in later years communicated extensively with Johnny Ringo fans through his website. Among his last television appearances were two 1966 episodes of CBS's Wild Wild West, with Robert Conrad.

The Durants were benefactors of Chapman University in Orange County, which is known for its school of film and television. They were in attendance when Chapman awarded an honorary degree in 2002 to actor Arnold Schwarzenegger. This was more than a year before Schwarzenegger was elected governor of California.

In 1992, Durant contracted chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and thereafter lymphoma. In early 2005, he contracted a lung infection but was not hospitalized. He soon died at his home in Monarch Beach in Orange County, with wife Trudy (1931-November 10, 2007) by his side. The Durants had a son, Jeff, and a daughter, Heidi.