Bobby Darin

Bobby Darin biography

Bobby Darin (May 14, 1936 - December 20, 1973), born Walden Robert Cassotto, was an American singer, actor and musician.

Darin performed in a range of music genres, including pop, rock, jazz, folk and country. Although unknown to the public, his health was dangerously fragile and this motivated him to succeed within the limited lifetime he feared he would, and ultimately did, have.

In 1960 after romancing singer Connie Francis, and being run out of the house by her strict Italian father, with a shotgun, breaking her heart, Darin married "Gidget" actress Sandra Dee, whom he met while making his first film Come September (1961). They made a few more movies together at Universal Studios that were moderately successful. They had one son, Dodd Mitchell Darin (also known as Morgan Mitchell Darin) before divorcing in 1967.

He was also an actor, singer/songwriter and music business entrepreneur. His wish for a legacy was "to be remembered as a human being and as a great performer." Among his many other contributions, he became a goodwill ambassador for the American Heart Association.

Early years

Bobby Darin was born in The Bronx to a poor, working-class family of Italian descent. The person he believed to be his father (who was actually his grandfather, Saverio Antonio Cassotto) died in jail a few months before he was born. It was the height of the Great Depression, and Darin once remarked that his crib was a cardboard box, then later a dresser drawer. He was initially raised by his Anglo-American mother Vivian Fern (Walden) Cassotto, who was called Polly, and his sister Giovannina Juliette "Nina" Cassotto, subsisting on Home Relief until Nina later married and started a family with her new husband, Charlie Maffia. It was not until he was 32-years old, in 1968, when Darin, preparing to play a nightclub in New Jersey, was told by Nina, 19 years his senior, that she was, in fact, his birth mother, and that Polly, whom he thought was his mother, was really his grandmother. Nina refused to tell him the identity of his real father, other than that his birth father had no idea Nina was pregnant, and thus never knew that Nina gave birth to his son. Though Nina claimed she told him for her fear of the truth coming out by opponents if he considered entering politics, Darin would never forgive her for this deception and his remaining 5 years of life after this shocking revelation would never be the same again. Polly mothered him well, despite her own medical history resulting in her addiction to morphine. It was Polly who took the young Bobby to what was left of the old vaudeville circuit in New York and places like the Bronx Opera House, and the RKO Jefferson in Manhattan, where he received his first show business inspiration, and where he saw performers like Sophie Tucker, whom he loved.

Darin was frail and sickly as an infant and, beginning at the age of 8, was stricken with recurring bouts of rheumatic fever, an illness that left him with a seriously weakened heart. Overhearing a doctor tell his mother he would be lucky to reach the age of 16, Darin lived with the constant knowledge that his life might be short, which further motivated him to use his talents. He was driven by his poverty and illness to make something of his life and, with his innate talent for music, by the time he was a teenager he could play several instruments, including piano, drums and guitar. He later added harmonica and xylophone. Darin's best friend during childhood was fellow singer, Dick Roman. Roman, who as a teen worked for the Borden milk company, got Darin his first job there as well. They worked there as office boys for $28 a week.

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