Bobby Darin
Born May 14, 1936, in The Bronx, New York, USA
Died December 20, 1973, in Los Angeles, California, USA (after open-heart surgery)
Birth Name Walden Robert Cassotto
Nickname The Latin Lover
Height 5' 9" (1.75 m)
Walden Robert Cassotto, nicknamed "Bobby," was born in The Bronx, New York, in 1936. Severe rheumatic fever as a child scarred his heart and led to an overprotected and pampered childhood.
He was the focal point of a family that fostered and encouraged his love of music.
His music career started out with writing songs and taking demos around to different music producers.
In 1958 he performed the song "Splish, Splash" on Dick Clark's American Bandstand (1952).
It was a huge hit and eventually would sell over one million copies.
The next year was a big one - he won two Grammies for Best Record ("Mack the Knife") and Best New Artist. "Mack the Knife" stayed in the top ten for 52 weeks, nine of those at #1. This was Bobby's fourth gold record.
His next goal was to make a movie, and that opportunity came in 1960 with the film Come September (1961),
for which he also wrote the title song.
The movie was filmed in Rome, and that's where he met Sandra Dee.
She was 16 years old and at the top of her career.
They were engaged two months after they met and their son, Dodd Darin, was born a year later.
Bobby continued to perform in nightclubs and make movies.
In 1964 he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in Captain Newman, M.D. (1963). Despite very good reviews, he lost the Oscar to Melvyn Douglas.
In 1967 he asked for and was granted a divorce.
Sandra said, "He just woke up one morning and didn't want to be married anymore."
More realistically, their careers had kept them apart more often than not, and they had struggled with the marriage practically from the beginning.
He went in for heart surgery in 1971 and from that point on he had bouts of ill health.
After his recovery, he continued to do nightclub acts, and the next year he did a popular summer variety show called The Bobby Darin Show (1973).
The last year of his life was spent dealing with health problems related to his heart, yet he continued to work when he could.
He died at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles on December 20, 1973, following open heart surgery.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Sheryl Reeder (
[contact link])
Bobby Darin was born Walden Robert Cassotto on May 14, 1936. Growing up in a rough section of the Bronx, New York, Bobby barely survived several serious bouts of rheumatic fever that left him with a damaged heart (which undoubtedly contributed to his early death). Bobby's ambition was to become a legend by the time he was 25. Thinking that his damaged heart would eventually kill him, he planned to live life as fully as he could. One story is that he got his new last name, "Darin", from a neon sign on a Chinese restaurant that was supposed to say "Mandarin" but the first three letters were burned out (another story is that he got it out a phone book). Bobby taught himself to play the drums, piano and guitar. In his late teens he met fledgling music publisher Don Kirshner in a candy store, and the two soon got together and collaborated on commercial jingles. Kirshner helped arrange a trial run at Atco Records.
In 1958, after several forgettable recordings, Bobby came up with his first big hit, "Splish Splash", which he claimed took only 12 minutes to write. "Mack the Knife", climbed to the top-ten music charts the following year. Bobby moved to Hollywood in 1960, and met and later married his wife Sandra Dee. He starred with her in Come September (1961) and received an Oscar nomination for his role in Captain Newman, M.D. (1963).
In the mid-1960s Bobby made several movies (garnering especially good reviews for his performance in the World War II drama Hell Is for Heroes (1962)), toured college campuses and played in Las Vegas. His song "If I Were a Carpenter", written by Tim Hardin, shot to #8 in 1966. However, after his divorce from Sandra, Bobby went into a career decline. In 1968 he worked tirelessly for Robert F. Kennedy's presidential campaign, despite his heart condition. After Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles in June 1968 Bobby, disillusioned with life in general and the state of the world in particular, retreated from the entertainment world. He sold his house and all his possessions, and lived in seclusion in a mobile home in Big Sur. After a year away from the public eye, Bobby realized that he couldn't deny his talent to the public and returned to the recording industry in 1969, and started his own record company, Direction Records, releasing an album "Born Walden Robert Cassotto".
He married for the second time and returned to performing on the Las Vegas stage, although he was less driven to it than he had been because of his failing heart. In January 1971 he suffered a mild heart attack and underwent open-heart surgery to have two artificial valves planted in his heart. After spending most of the year in ill health, Bobby gradually recovered and returned to the stage. By 1973 his life seem to be back on track. In December the artificial valves in his weakening heart malfunctioned and he checked himself into Los Angeles' Cedars of Lebanon Hospital for another round of open heart surgery for the valves to be replaced. On December 20, 1973, the surgery began. A five-man surgical team worked for over six hours to save his life. But although the surgery was partially successful, Darin died literally minutes afterward in the recovery room without regaining consciousness. One of the doctors' diagnoses of Bobby's death was that he was just too weak to recover. There was no formal funeral ceremony. He willed that his body be donated to the UCLA Medical Facility for research.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: matt-282
Family (4)
Spouse Andrea Joy Yeager (26 June 1973 - 24 October 1973) (divorced)
Sandra Dee (1 December 1960 - 7 March 1967) (divorced) (1 child)
Children Dodd Darin
Parents Vanina Juliette Cassotto
Relatives Alexa Darin (grandchild)
Olivia Darin (grandchild)
Trade Mark (1)
Hip-sounding singing style
Trivia (26)
Had one son with Sandra Dee: Dodd Mitchell Cassotto (aka Dodd Darin).
Rather than internment, his body was donated to the UCLA Medical Center.
Did not find out until the age of 32 that the woman he thought to be his sister was in fact his mother and and the woman he thought was his deceased mother was in fact his grandmother. This was listed in VH1's The Greatest: 100 Most Shocking Moments in Rock and Roll History (2001).
When he was still a struggling songwriter at the now famous Brill Building, he met then up-and-coming singer Connie Francis. After a rocky beginning, the two develop an amicable relationship and were soon madly in love. He had wanted to marry Connie but her overprotective father would not let her date, let alone marry, anyone. When Darin suggested the two elope, he was chased from one of her shows by her gun-toting father. Darin and Connie only saw one another twice after that incident, once during a television appearance in which they sang together and once during the filming of This Is Your Life (1950) of which Connie was the subject, in which the announcer had congratulated Bobby on his recent marriage to actress Sandra Dee. Connie has stated several times that not marrying Bobby was one of the biggest mistakes she ever made in her life.
His maternal grandfather was of Italian ancestry, and his maternal grandmother had Danish and English ancestry.
He lost his hair in his early 20s and wore a toupee thereafter.
Attended and graduated from the Bronx High School of Science (1953).
Recorded with legendary Nashville guitarist Hank Garland.
His #1 hit song, "Mack the Knife", had a strange connection with the number "59": it was the 59th #1 single of the rock era, it entered the Billboard charts at #59, and was the second biggest-selling record of 1959.
He signed Wayne Newton to his record producing company (TM Music) and had him record "Danke Schoen", which was originally supposed to be recorded by Darin himself.
He was posthumously awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording at 1735 Vine Street in Hollywood, California on May 26, 1982.
He was posthumously awarded a star on the Las Vegas Walk of Stars in Las Vegas, Nevada on May 14, 2007 (what would have been his 71st birthday).
In 1964, he was "The Heart Ambassador" for The Heart Fund charity.
Posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1990), the American Songwriters Hall of Fame (1999) and the Bronx Walk of Fame (2004).
Seriously campaigned for the role of "Tony" in West Side Story (1961). Ironically, he would wind up winning his only Golden Globe Award in 1962 for "Most Promising Newcomer" in a virtual tie with with Richard Beymer, who got the role as "Tony", and Warren Beatty, who had also seriously campaigned for the same role.
He made his television debut on March 10, 1956, on The Dorsey Brothers' Stage Show (1954), performing "Rock Island Line". He had the lyrics written on the palms of his hands, as he had to learn the song on short notice.
On April 24, 1958, just weeks prior to release of his breakthrough hit "Splish Splash" for Atco Records, he recorded "Early in the Morning" and "Now We're One", for Decca Records. At that time, he had a few days left on his contract with Atco and was expecting to be released, but as it turned out, he was retained. Following the release of "Splish Splash" on Atco, Decca--through its subsidiary Brunswick Records, released "Early in the Morning"/"Now We're One" as a single, under the name of "The Rinky Dinks", Darin's back-up girl group for his Decca sessions. After it was revealed that Darin's voice was on the Brunswick recordings and as he was under contract to Atco, his Brunswick recordings were withdrawn from the market and secured by Atco. Atco then, released "Early in the Morning"/ "Now We're One", by "Bobby Darin and The Rinky Dinks". In a subsequent move, Decca Records had Buddy Holly cover the both songs on a single for its subsidiary Coral Records, where Holly was already established with such hits as "Peggy Sue" and "Rave On". Decca was hoping to recover the loss from the earlier withdrawn single. Darin's version of "Early in the Morning" entered Billboard's Pop 100 first and peaked at #24; Holly's version reached #32.
Half-brother of Gary Walden.
In the 2016 Australian version of "Dream Lover - The Bobby Darin Musical" stage show, Darin was portrayed by David Campbell; and on a rotating basis Kyle Banfield, Nocholas Cradock and Brendan Godwin portraying both the young Bobby Darin and Dodd Mitchell Cassotto.
His song "Eighteen Yellow Roses" is mentioned in Hollywood Mouth 3 (2018).
Has never appeared in a film nominated for the Best Picture Oscar.
Amazingly, Bobby Darin and Jack Nicholson were born and raised about the same time, in the same parts of the country and under the same circumstances.
The New York Times Magazine listed Bobby Darin among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal Studios fire.
Every summer when he was a teenager, Darin used to walk across the Triborough Bridge (now the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge) from the Bronx to go to Astoria Pool in Queens. The pool is one of the largest pools in the country, 330 feet in length. On Opening Day, July 4, 1936, the Olympic Trials for the U.S. Swim and Diving Teams for the 1936 Summer Olympics was held.
Resided at 1400-1426 Rising Glen Road in Los Angeles when he was married to Sandra Dee, just 1½ miles (2Km) from Holly's (Meg Foster) house in They Live (1988).
A childhood bout with rheumatic fever left Darin with a weakened heart that plagued him through his life. In late 1973, he entered Cedars of Lebanon hospital for extensive heart surgery, complications from which led to his early death at the age of 37 on December 20, 1973.
Personal Quotes (4)
Conceit is thinking you're great; egotism is knowing it.
I want to be a legend by the time I'm 25.
Now my attitude is very simple; I must do what artistically pleases me.
I went out and had these special shoes made. It's nothing new, I don't know if you know, John Wayne is 6' 4" and wears 3-4 inch lifts in his shoes. I don't know who he wants to be bigger than, but he does and it an old, old custom, I certainly did not invent it. In my case, it was more necessary than it was for Duke Wayne. I had these shoes made and two to three inch lifts inside and the heel was another two and half inches or so and I walked around that way, wherever I cou
Amanda S. Stevenson 
