Bobby Darin

by Erika Cox

Bobby Darin was another popular teen idol in the 1950’s. Bobby Darin was born Robert Walden Cassotto on May 14, 1936, in the Bronx, New York.

He never knew his father and his mother was forced to go on welfare to take care of Bobby and his sister, Nina. Darin was a sick child and at the age of eight he had rheumatic fever, which left him with a life threatening heart disease for the rest of his life.

He had an exceptional talent and as a teenager was an accomplished musician with the ability to play a number of instruments. While in high school he played the drums with a local band but Darin was also an outstanding academic student at Bronx High School of Science and when he graduated he was given a scholarship to attend Hunter College.

However, his love was the theater and music and he only completed one year at Hunter before dropping out and pursuing his show business career. He started playing in small nightclubs, auditioning for shows, and approaching music producers with various songs he had written but all to no success.

Like many people with ethnic backgrounds trying to get into show business at that time, Bobby changed his last name to Darin and with a new name, Darin continued to perform in clubs and pass out his songs to producers.

In 1956, Darin’s success changed when his agent got him a two-year contract with Decca Records. Like many record producers at the time, Rock and Roll music was in it’s beginning stages and they either didn’t know how or wouldn’t encourage or allow their artists to sing Rock and Roll music they would pigeon hole them into pop music.

The artists were stuck singing plain, simple pop songs and that is what happened to Darin with Decca, stuck singing bubble gum pop music. Darin eventually left Decca a year later and signed with Atlantic Records. Initially with Atlantic, Darin’s role was that of arranger and songwriter for other artists, his own singing career went to the bottom of the list.

The first song he wrote “Love Me Right” was for LaVern Baker, a popular Black singer, and his own first three songs went nowhere. Finally in 1958, his career took off when he released his song “Splish Splash”.

It became an instant hit and sold over a million copies. He went on to release two more similar songs that were just as successful, “Queen of the Hop”, another million dollar seller and “Plain Jane”. In 1959, he released another million-dollar seller, “Dream Lover” a Spanish ballad with a different style than his previous hits.

In 1960, Darin, a Sinatra fan, wanted to make a song with similar vocal styles to Sinatra and a jazz-pop sound, so he wrote and released “Mack the Knife”, which sold several million records, won the Grammy Award record for that year, and has been honored with a Grammy Hall of Fame Award. Darin also won the Grammy Award for best new artist that year.

Darin wanted to be a big star and was in a hurry to accomplish as much as he could perhaps because of his weakened heart condition and the fact that the defect could end his life at any time. Also, he may have felt the need to feel more important and be taken more serious than just being the typical “teen idol” that was popular at the time. So, Darin made and appeared in several movies, performed in Las Vegas shows, and also had a string of successful songs throughout the 1960’s.

In 1968, Darin also found out that his mother was actually his grandmother and that his sister, Nina, was his mother, this changed his life forever, however, he continued with his career. In the 1970’s, Darin recorded with Motown Records and continued to play Las Vegas shows. In 1971, he underwent his first heart surgery to hopefully better his heart and was strong enough to appear in his own television show.

However, in December 1972 he suffered heart complications and while undergoing surgery to repair a damaged heart valve died of complications on December 20, 1972. His body was donated to the UCLA Medical Center for research purposes.

In 1990, Darin was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1999. He also received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

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