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Bobby Darin Biography |
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Bobby Darin (May 14, 1936 – December 20, 1973) (born Walden Robert Cassotto) was one of the most popular United States big band performers and teen idols of the late 1950s. However, he is widely respected for being a multi-talented, versatile performer, who challenged and successfully conquered many music genres, including, folk, country, pop, and jazz. He was also an accomplished actor. His wish for a legacy was "to be remembered as a great entertainer, and a human being."
Darin was born to a poor working-class family in The Bronx, New York. His Italian American father disappeared a few months before he was born at the height of the Great Depression. He once remarked that "my crib was a cardboard box, later a dresser drawer". As a result, his mother, a Mayflower descendant (half Italian, half English people), had to accept social assistance to take care of her infant son. It was not until he was an adult that he learned that the woman he thought to be his sister Nina, 19 years his senior, was in fact his mother and the woman he thought to be his mother was in fact his grandmother. The identity of his true father was never publicly or privately disclosed. His mother refused to reveal that information even to him. He went to his death without knowing the identity of his birth father. Frail as an infant, perhaps from the poverty that resulted in a lack of proper diet (nutrition) and medical attention, at the age of 8 he was stricken with multiple bouts of rheumatic fever. The illness left him with a seriously diseased heart, and he would live with the constant knowledge that his life might be a short one. As a child he overheard a doctor tell his mother he would be lucky to reach the age of 16. Driven by his poverty and illness, and with an innate talent for music, by the time he was a teenager he could play several musical instruments, including piano, drums and guitar. He later added harmonica and xylophone. An outstanding student, with a Genius-level IQ, Darin graduated from the Bronx High School of Science, and then attended Hunter College on a scholarship. Wanting a career in the New York theater, he left college to play small nightclubs around the city with a musical combo. In the resort area of the Catskill Mountains, he was both a bus boy and entertainer. He chose the name "Bobby Darin" because he had generally been called Bobby as a child (some called him "Waldo", a version of his first name) and because he had seen a malfunctioning sign at a Chinese restaurant reading "DARIN DUCK" rather than the intended "MANDARIN DUCK" and thought the "darin" looked good. Later this story was modified, as he said on one occasion that the name was randomly picked out of the telephone book. Neither story has ever been verified. Musical career As was common with ethnic minorities at the time, he changed his Italian name and, in 1956, his agent negotiated a contract for him with Decca Records where Bill Haley & His Comets had risen to fame. However, this was a time when rock and roll was still in its infancy and the number of capable record producers and arrangers in the field was extremely limited. Like other performers, Darin was at first pigeon-holed, recording the banal songs popular with record executives at the time. He left Decca to sign with ATCO records, a division of Capitol records, where he wrote and arranged music for himself and others. There, after three mediocre recordings, his career took off in 1958 when he released his unique rock song "Splish Splash" (which was written on a bet with DJ Murray the K that he could not write a song that started out with the words, "Splish Splash") that became an instant hit, selling more than a million copies. This was followed by more hits recorded in the same successful style. In 1959, Bobby Darin recorded "Dream Lover", a ballad that would become a multi-million seller. With financial success came the ability to demand more creative control, despite the objections of many people around him. His next record, "Mack the Knife", was the classic standard from Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera. Darin gave the tune a vamping jazz-pop interpretation. The song went to No. 1 on the charts, sold several million copies, and won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year at the Grammy Awards of 1960. For his innovation, Darin was voted the Grammy Award for Best New Artist. "Mack The Knife" has since been honored with a Grammy Hall of Fame Award. During this time he became onr of the hottest nightclub performers around, propelled by the sucess of Mack and Beyond the Sea. Bobby set all time attendance records at the famed Copacabana nightclub in NYC where It was not odd for fans to line up all the way around the block in order to get tickets. The Copa sold so many seats to Bobbys shows there that they had to fill in the dance floor (normally part of the performance area) with extra seating leaving Bobby with a relatively small (aprox 6 feet deep and 12-14 feet wide)stage on which to perform. In addition to music, Darin turned his attention to motion pictures. He wrote music for several films and acted in them as well. In his first major film, Come September, a romantic comedy designed to capitalize on his popularity with the teenage and young-adult audience, he co-starred with 16-year-old actress Sandra Dee. They were later married in 1960 and had one son, Dodd Mitchell Darin, in 1961. Asking to be taken seriously, he took on more meaningful movie roles, and in 1962 he won the Golden Globe Award for "Most Promising Male Newcomer", for his role in Pressure Point. In 1963 he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as a Post-traumatic stress disorder soldier in Captain Newman, M.D. At the Cannes Film Festival in France, where his records—in particular his version of Charles Trenet's French hit song " La Mer" (in America in English: "Beyond the Sea")—brought him a wide following, he won the French Film Critics Award for Best Actor. Perhaps the most major disappointment of his life came when he lost the lead role in West Side Story to Richard Beymer. Several leading Hollywood men like Anthony Perkins, Warren Beatty, and Elvis Presley were also major contenders for the role. Later Years In the mid-1960s, Darin headlined at the major casinos in Las Vegas, Nevada. He was the youngest performer to headline in Las Vegas and in NYC at theCopacabana. He was instrumental in bringing up new talent — Richard Pryor and Flip Wilson opened his night club performances when they were virtually unknown. At the Copacabana he insisted that a black comic (Nipsey Russell) be his opening act. This was a very hard sell in the era of NYC night club segregation. However considering he had set the attendance mark (eclipsing Frank Sinatra) his request was grudgingly granted by Jules Podell, the Frank Costello (mob boss) manager of the Copa. His acting accomplishments include an Academy Award nomination for his outstanding performance in Captain Newman, M.D.. He and Sandra Dee were divorced in 1967. Darin became politically active, working on the 1968 Presidential election campaign of Robert Kennedy. Profoundly affected by Kennedy's assassination, he made two protest albums of folk music. At the beginning of the 1970s he continued to act and to record, including at Motown Records. In January 1971, he underwent his first heart surgery in an attempt to correct some of the heart damage he had lived with since childhood. In June of 1972 Bobby got married to a woman named Andrea Yeagher. It was by no means a hollywood marriage and Bobby felt that Andrea brought him down to earth and loved him for who he was not his image. In 1972, with Andrea by his side he was well enough to star in his own television variety show, on National Broadcasting Company ( The Bobby Darin Amusement Company) which ran for two years. He also remained a top draw at Las Vegas where he was administered oxygen after his performances. Darin also started Wayne Newton's career. He also owned and operated a highly successful music publishing company (TM Music) which was responsible for many hit records including "Under The Boardwalk" and "Good Lovin". Death A goodwill Ambassador for the American Heart Association, on December 20, 1973, Darin died following surgery to repair a faulty heart valve. The mechanical heart valve had clotted (a known risk of prosthetic heart valves) when Darin decided to stop taking his anticoagulant drug warfarin that is routinely used to prevent such problems. Darin's heart disease required him to both take the drug on a daily basis and to undergo frequent blood tests to determine a satisfactory level of anticoagulation. Unfortunately, Darin reportedly neglected to take antibiotics as a precaution before undergoing dental work; as a result, bacteria seeped into his bloodstream, and further infected his already fragile heart. In accordance with his wishes, his body was donated to the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center for research purposes. Shortly before his death he divorced his second wife Andrea. Those close to hime have said that this was an attempt to distance her from the pain of his death. Even though he did talk to Sandra a short while before his death, the call was mainly to talk to his son Dodd. Contrary to the "Beyond the Sea" biopic sandra was not by his side or had even visited hime in the final hospital stay. This was at Bobby's request. In 1990, fellow 1950s rock and roll pioneer, Paul Anka, made the speech for Darin's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 1999 he was voted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He has a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1735 Vine Street. In 2000, actor Kevin Spacey, a lifelong fan of Darin, acquired the film rights to his story. Spacey directed and produced the film, and played Bobby Darin — as well as co-writing the script. The film is titled after one of Darin's top hits, Beyond the Sea (film), and was released at the 2004 Toronto International Film Festival. In spite of its high production values, strong studio promotion, and critical acclaim, box office results were disappointing. However, the movie spurred a renewed interest in Darin which has resulted in the release of "never before heard, or seen" material. His pianist, Roger Kellaway, has recorded two albums of Darin's music as well. Discography Filmography Ad campaigns Trivia 
Courtesy of: http://www.wikipedia.org/ |
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