Eldergays, tell me about Bobby Darin

Late in his abbreviated life he learned that his sister was his mother. And his mother was his grandfather.

He was devastated by the assassination of RFK.

Sandra used to stand backstage in Vegas and after his name was announced and he was headed onstage she would say: "Your toupee is on crooked."

Sandra Dee.....that is.

His biggest hit was Mack the Knife. Darin was a throwback to the big band era, great voice. Then he tried to 'get with the times' and his career was shot. OP, try the movie Beyond the Sea with Kevin Spacey as Darin!

[quote]I’ve never heard anything about him!

Yeah, right. We believe you OP.

Anyway, the other day I stumbled across this clip. Remember that forgettable Michael Jackson song "Happy"?

I didn't know that Bobby Darin had recorded it too.

Just gorgeous. Can anyone sing like this today? Anyone?

Connie Francis claims him as the love of her life......but her dad & his mafia friends chased Bobby off.

Oh, for God's sake OP, just Google him! At any rate he was a very talented guy and it was a shame he died so young.

R6 is it because he isn’t Italian?

[quote] And his mother was his grandfather.

That must have been a shocking thing to discover back then.

He *was* Italian.

R8 Bobby WAS Italian...

The woman he thought was his sister was actually his mother Bobby was illegitimate - the woman who raised him and who he thought was his mother - was their mother.....

His MOTHER was actually his grandmother.

R8 His actual name was Bobby Cassotto. Italian indeed.

Bobby and Jack Nicholson had sister-moms. It was a thing circa 1936-7 for unwed sluts to hide their shame from the community.

I thought his biological mother was the girl he believe was his sister.

No need to Google, OP. Just watch the superb film BEYOND THE SEA, where I played him to a T!

He was an incredibly talented musician. From his voice to the multiple instruments he played.

Bobby Darin's mother never revealed the identity of his father. It haunted him all of his life. His will apparently states that his only child - son Dodd - will not inherit his estate until age 65. Dodd is 59, so the wait is almost over.

He often wore a toupee.

He sneered. He thought he needed to be like Sinatra so he sneered at his audience.

[quote]Sandra used to stand backstage in Vegas and after his name was announced and he was headed onstage she would say: "Your toupee is on crooked."

R19 You couldn't even read as far as R2 on this thread?

I was a huge Darin fan when I was younger. Preferred him to Sinatra. But that has changed. Sinatra's tone is preferred now. Beyond the Sea is his best swing song. This is a nice version of If I Were a Carpenter. Getting his 70's groove on

He had a heart condition and knew his life was limited. “Beyond the Sea”, the film is awful. The song “Beyond the Sea” is sublime. Even better than “Mack the Knife”. He had a great voice with wide appeal.

He was a good actor, too. Did a great job in Pressure Point with Sidney Poitier.

Ted Bundy grew up thinking his mother was his sister. He thought his grandfather was his father. Apparently in HIS case, this kind of deception warped him beyond measure.

Darin was amazing in Captain Newman, M.D. with Gregory Peck.

R26 here...forgot to add Darin received an Oscar nomination for his performance.

Sexy in COME SEPTEMBER (and yes, that's Joel Grey)

Shocked no one mentioned Dream Lover, another hit of his

1960 lp w/ Johnny Mercer is really great

Dream Lover and Beyond the Sea are my favorites. I could listen to them endlessly.

Also love his early teen hits Splish-Splash and Queen of the Hop and his versions of Lazy River, Down With Love, Clementine, Artificial Flowers, I Didn't Know What Time It Was and I Guess I'll Have to Change My Plans. And, of course, Mack the Knife.

HIs Skylark is one of the vest renditions ever of that gorgeous song. And even his version of Auld Lang Syne makes me cry.

Yes, I'm a big fan.

Bobby Darin's other big hit was "Mack the Knife" which was done to death.

Bobby Darin's other big hit was "Mack the Knife" which was done to death.

" I still don't know her.... it's getting too high for me to sing, it's too high for you to"!

That last "to" should be "too".

Great singer. I like some of his Motown era recordings. I really like "Happy" which was the theme from Lady Sings the Blues film starring Diana Ross.

There were two excellent compilations of the Motown era - one of his released recordings and another of unreleased recordings (the Motown vault continues to have many treasures still undiscovered).

I love Bobby Darin.

Unrelated: I'm very confused by R25's comment. Ted Bundy was the child of his mother and her father?

One of the great pop albums is Darin at the Copa.

He proposed to Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero, but her papa said no way. Much later:

Darin had married Sandra Dee, and Concetta went to a hotel room to comfort him after he’d sent Dee away for serious gambling problems.

“I was never more eager to reach a destination than I was to get to Bobby’s room that night, to be with him, to console him, something I knew I’d always been able to do,” Concetta said. “I rapped lightly on one of the double doors to Bobby’s suite, and when the door flung open, there he stood, totally caught off guard, in the buff, while two hookers were actively writhing on the floor.”

Concetta detailed how she was quite angry with what she saw but despite that, she claimed that Darin was always her soulmate and that she never stopped loving him.

He started out as rock-and-roll with "Splish Splash", but soon realized he was better with swing. "Mack The Knife" was the biggest selling song of the Fifties.

[quote]"Mack The Knife" was the biggest selling song of the Fifties.

No it wasn't.

The resemblance to Spacey is uncanny.

R40 Ooops. Sorry, I stand corrected. Billboard says it was.

Odd though that it only placed at n.2 in 1959.

He was a talented singer and musician. A friend of mine grew up with in the same neighborhood as Walden aka "Bobby". Her family operated a small business in the area and knew the family. She says that the Cassottos were members of the "family" and swears that if he had made it as a singer, he would have ended up in jail.

His son Dodd wrote a book about his parents. It’s terrific. Called Dream Lovers. Bobby was kind of an asshole but love his music. Sandra Dee had a really sad life.

I remember watching on youtube an amazing interview that Sally Jessye Raphael did with Sandra Dee in the 1990s in which Ms. Dee came out of a long retirement to talk about her career, her marriage to Darin and the sexual abuse she suffered as a child. Highly emotional.

If Sandra Dee had been sane she probably could have become TV sitcom star after her film career died.

Wasn't Dee an alcoholic and an agoraphobic in later years? I don't think she was even willing to attend her only child Todd's wedding. Died of kidney disease or something like that. Pitiful really.

And Bobby expected to die young - towards the end (he died at 37), he carried oxygen tanks around with him and as soon as he came off stage, on went the oxygen mask or cannula or whatever. Had scarlet fever as a child that damaged his heart.

Sandra blamed the hospital for mishandling Bobby's last heart attack or whatever but I don't think she sued and got a settlement.

When I was a kid, about 50+ years ago, we lived in LA and whenever relatives visited we'd drive them around Hollywood/Sunset Blvd./Beverly Hills and show them where the celebrities lived. During one of these outings, we drove past Bobby Darin's house. There he was, out front watering his lawn. I didn't know who he was at the time, but the adults were very excited.

The Connie/Bobby duet above suggests they could have made a terrific album together.

Dodd's book about his parents called DREAM LOVERS is a good read.

Sorry R45 I didn't see your post about the book before I posted.

Rona Barrett who was friends with Bobby, Sandy, and Connie wrote that the only one who was surprised about the divorce was Sandy. She said Bobby came home one day, packed his suitcase, said he didn't want to be married anymore and walked out leaving Sandy to the bottle.

She also said that initially Bobby was interested in Sandy's mother and that they were having an affair. But during COME SEPTEMBER, he switched to Sandy.....

To the person who said Beyond the Sea was a throwback to the Big Band era, no. It was inspired by the "swing" records Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra and others did in the 50s with Nelson Riddle arrangements, the Basie Band and the like - Darin was trying to emerge from teen top forty to more sophisticated music and style.

"Beyond the Sea with Kevin Spacey as Darin!"

I will never forget the Siskel-Ebert review of that movie. Roger Ebert exclaimed that Kevin Spacey is s BETTER SINGER than Darin was, and I fell off my chair. Spacey had a smoother singing voice = better singer to rock and roll fed Ebert, I assumed. Being a good vocalist is not about having a pretty voice, it's about nuance, it's about technique, it's about musicianship. For the most part a lost art.

How weird. I just watched Come September with my mother when I visited her. Dee and Darin made several of those light rom coms that were popular back then. So did Rock Hudson for that matter.

He’s fine! He sends his love!

[quote] Shocked no one mentioned Dream Lover, another hit of his

Mary!

Beyond The Sea is a terrific song

Dee was a horrible actress. A sitcom would have made that even more obvious than her films.

Sandra Dee's was one of the most tragic Hollywood stories.

His version of Once Upon a Time is both gorgeous and perfectly performed. He was sick at the time, and it’s so sad at the beginning how the intro plays twice while he comments that he needs to catch his breath.

[quote] Rona Barrett who was friends with Bobby, Sandy, and Connie wrote that the only one who was surprised about the divorce was Sandy. She said Bobby came home one day, packed his suitcase, said he didn't want to be married anymore and walked out

Yep. That's the typical male behavior. Everything is fine on the outside until they make the move. And leave.

It's why I never believe reports that someone's marriage/relationship is soo good. You can never know.

I love Beyond The Sea and the original French La Mer.

They’re summery, yet wistful.

"Mack the Knife" *IS* Bobby Darin.

"Remember that forgettable Michael Jackson song "Happy"?"

That was one of his best ballads.

Bobby Darin had at least one illegitimate son.

Nice find, R65.

Looking like someone doesn’t mean you’re related

I've got all of Darin's recordings. He had Sinatra beat hands down as far as I'm concerned. He had a very sad life with fatal heart disease that he knew would kill him at a young age. He didn't help himself any by smoking. He was devastated at the revelation that the woman he believed to be his sister was actually his mother. He hated his sister and that became even more so after learning the truth. Dodd Darin gathered up all his belongings after Bobby died in the hospital and put them in storage. He took it out ten years later and found a paper where Bobby had written "she robbed me of my dream to always show mamma what I could do." What the women didn't realize when they switched roles was that Bobby grew up believing his grandmother lost her health due to his late in life pregnancy. The women concocted this scheme due to the shame in those days of an illegitimate pregnancy. Most people who knew Darin said he died as much from a broken heart as he did from the disease.

If anyone wants to hear what a real interpreter of song can do then go to YT and listen to these three Darin recordings: They're: "Easy Living," "What a Difference a Day Makes" and "When Day is Done." These are all off his "Winners" album.

Nobody dies of a broken heart.

How many other illegitimate children do we think are out there?