Biography
As Long as I'm Singin (1936–1956): Early Years
Darin was born to a poor, working-class family in The Bronx, New York, and his Italian American father disappeared a few months before he was born at the height of the Great Depression. As a result, his mother (a Mayflower descendant) 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. The identity of his true father was never publicly disclosed.
Frail as an infant, perhaps from the poverty that resulted in a lack of proper diet and medical attention, at the age of 8 he was stricken with rheumatic fever. The illness left him with a seriously diseased heart, and he would live with the constant knowledge that his life might end at any moment. 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.
An outstanding student, after graduating from the Bronx High School of Science, Darin attended 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.
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.
'Mack the Knife' Goes Mainstream (1956–1964): Musical Career
Bobby Darin "Mack the Knife" 45 Sleeve.
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 Atlantic 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 that he couldn't 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 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.
In addition to music, Darin turned his attention to motion pictures. He would write music for several films and act in them as well. In his first film, a romantic comedy designed to capitalize on his popularity with the teenage and young-adult audience, he co-starred with the 16-year-old singer and actress Sandra Dee, whom he married in 1960 and with whom he had one son, Dodd, 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 shell-shocked soldier in Capt. 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. Interestingly enough, several leading Hollywood men like Anthony Perkins, Warren Beatty, and Elvis Presley were major contenders for the role.
A time of 'Change' before 'The Curtain Falls' (1965–1973): Later Years
In the mid-1960s, Darin headlined at the major casinos in Las Vegas, Nevada. He and Sandra Dee were divorced in 1967, and 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.
Bobby Darin's late folk/protest period, "Songs From Big Sur" album (compilation released in 2004).
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 1972, he was well enough to star in his own television variety show, on NBC, which ran for two years, until his health problems finally overcame him and he passed away on December 20, 1973. Darin also started Wayne Newton's career.
A goodwill Ambassador for the American Heart Association, on December 20, 1973, Darin died during surgery to repair a faulty heart valve. In accordance with his wishes, his body was donated to the UCLA Medical Center for research purposes.
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 writing the script. The film is titled after one of Darin's top hits, Beyond The Sea, and was released at the 2004 Toronto International Film Festival. In spite of its high production values and strong studio promotion, the movie's box office results were disappointing.
Discography
Bobby Darin early
compilation album.
Splish Splash (Bobby Darin, Murray Kaufman) Recorded in NYC, April 10, 1958
Queen of the Hop (Woody Harris) Recorded in NYC, April 10, 1958
Plain Jane — 1959
Dream Lover — 1959
Mack the Knife (Kurt Weill, Bertolt Brecht, Marc Blitzstein) Recorded at Fulton on West 40th Street, NYC, December 19, 1958 Tom Dowd (eng)
Beyond The Sea (the French hit song La Mer) — 1960
Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey? — 1960
You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby — 1961
What'd I Say? — 1962
Things — 1962
You're the Reason I'm Living — 1963
18 Yellow Roses — 1963
If I Were a Carpenter — 1966
Mame — 1966
A Simple Song of Freedom — 1967
Bobby Darin Sings Doctor Doolittle — 1967
Bobby Darin Born Walden Robert Cassotto — 1968
Commitment — 1969
Filmography
The Sad Sack (1957)
Heller in Pink Tights (1960)
Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960)
Pepe (1960) (Cameo)
Come September (1961)
Too Late Blues (1961)
State Fair (1962)
Hell Is for Heroes (1962)
If a Man Answers (1962)
Pressure Point (1962)
Captain Newman, M.D. (1963)
That Funny Feeling (1965)
Gunfight in Abilene (1967)
Stranger in the House (1967)
The Happy Ending (1969)
Happy Mother's Day, Love George (1973)
Ad campaigns
Darin's song "Beyond the Sea" is played in a 2005 commercial for Carnival Cruise Lines.
"Mack the Knife" was used for an ad campaign by McDonald's several years ago.
