James Darren, who starred in several “Gidget” films in the late 1950s and early 1960s as surfer Moondoggie, rode the wave of his on-screen popularity all the way to the Long Island coast.

The pop star and actor, who died Monday at age 88, starred in a three-week production of the sex comedy “Under the Yum Yum Tree” at Bellport’s Gateway Playhouse in June 1961. Also in the show with Darren was Deborah Walley, who had starred opposite him in “Gidget Goes Hawaiian,” which had just opened in theaters. The stars were brought to Gateway as part of a deal with Columbia Pictures to bring actors from the studio’s films at the time to the Long Island theater. Two years later, Darren sang the theme song for Columbia’s film version of “Under the Yum Yum Tree,” with Dean Jones in Darren’s role.

Darren was accompanied to Bellport by his second wife, Evy Norlund, a former Miss Denmark to whom he was still married at the time of his death. Darren’s grandparents in New Jersey cared for the couple’s infant son, Christian, during the show.

Darren returned to Long Island in August 1974, when he opened for comedian Buddy Hackett at the Westbury Music Fair (they had also played the venue in 1981). In a 2015 interview with Los Angeles Magazine, Darren recalled meeting Hackett after a Nancy Sinatra show at LA’s Cocoanut Grove nightclub. The comedian asked Darren if he wanted to work with him. They ended up playing the Sahara in Las Vegas for 14 weeks and then toured the country together, including a stop at Westbury. When asked what he learned from Hackett about performing in clubs, Darren told the magazine “Everything.”