Bobby Darin
| Bobby Darin | |
|---|---|
Darin in 1959
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Walden Robert Cassotto |
| Born |
May 14, 1936 East Harlem, New York City New York, U.S. |
| Died | December 20, 1973 (aged 37) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Genres | Jazz, blues, rock 'n' roll, pop, swing, folk, country |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, singer-songwriter, actor |
| Instruments | Vocals, guitar, piano, drums, harmonica, xylophone |
| Years active | 1956–1973 |
| Labels | Decca, Atco, London, Capitol, Brunswick, Atlantic, Motown |
Bobby Darin (born Walden Robert Cassotto; May 14, 1936 – December 20, 1973) was an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and actor of film and television. He performed in a range of musical genres, including jazz, pop, rock 'n' roll, folk, swing, and country.
He started as a songwriter for Connie Francis, and recorded his own first million-seller "Splish Splash" in 1958. This was followed by "Dream Lover", "Mack the Knife", and "Beyond the Sea", which brought him world fame. In 1962 he won a Golden Globe Award for his first film Come September, co-starring his first wife, Sandra Dee.
During the 1960s he became more politically active and worked on Robert F. Kennedy's Democratic presidential campaign. He was present on the night of June 4/5, 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles at the time of Kennedy's assassination. That same year he discovered that he had been brought up by his grandmother, not his mother, and that the girl he had thought to be his sister was actually his mother. These events deeply affected Darin and sent him into a long period of seclusion.
Although he made a successful comeback - in television - his health was beginning to fail, as he had always expected, following bouts of rheumatic fever in childhood. This knowledge of his vulnerability had always spurred him on to exploit his musical talent while still young. He died at age 37, following a heart operation in Los Angeles.
Born Walden Robert Cassotto in the East Harlem neighborhood of New York City, Bobby Darin was reared by his maternal grandmother, who he thought was his mother. Darin's birth mother, Vanina Juliette "Nina" Cassotto (born November 30, 1917-1983), became pregnant with him in the summer of 1935 when she was 17. Presumably because of the scandalous nature of out-of-wedlock pregnancies in that era, Nina and her mother hatched a plan to pass her baby off as Nina's younger brother. Years later, when Nina finally told Darin the truth about his upbringing, she refused to reveal the identity of his biological father, and she continued to keep that secret even up until her own death in 1981. Darin's maternal grandfather, Saverio Antonio "Big Sam Curly" Cassotto (born January 26, 1882), was of Italian descent and a would-be mobster who died in prison from pneumonia a year before Darin's birth. His maternal grandmother, Vivian Fern Walden (also born in 1882), who called herself Polly, was of English ancestry and a vaudeville singer. From his birth, Darin always believed Nina to be his older sister and Polly his mother. But in 1968, when he was 32, Nina told Darin the truth, reportedly devastating him.
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