Bobby Darin

[1] A member of the Brill Building gang of struggling songwriters, Darin was introduced to singer Connie Francis, for whom he helped write several songs.[citation needed] Guided by Atlantic's star-maker Ahmet Ertegun, Darin's career finally took off in 1958 when he recorded "Splish Splash".[1] With the success of "Splish Splash" the single was re-released by Atco Records as "Early in the Morning" with the band renamed as The Rinky Dinks.[1] With it came financial success and the ability to demand more creative control of his career; Darin meant for his That's All album to show that he could sing more than rock and roll as a result.Darin followed "Mack" with "Beyond the Sea", a jazzy English-language version of Charles Trenet's French hit song "La Mer".The late-1950s success included Darin setting the all-time attendance record at the Copacabana nightclub in Manhattan and headlining at the major casinos in Las Vegas.Darin's 1960 recording of "Artificial Flowers", a song by Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock from the Broadway musical Tenderloin about the death of a child laborer, featured a jazzy, big band arrangement by Richard Behrke, that was in sharp contrast to its tragic lyrics.[30] In the 1960s, Darin owned and operated, with Doris Day's son Terry Melcher, a music publishing and production company (TM Music/Trio).[citation needed] In 1962, Darin began to write and sing country music, with hit songs including "Things" (US No.[33] In the fall of 1959, Darin played "Honeyboy Jones" in an early episode of Jackie Cooper's CBS military sitcom/drama Hennesey.Darin's first major film, Come September (1961), was a teenager-oriented romantic comedy with Rock Hudson and Gina Lollobrigida and featuring 18-year-old actress Sandra Dee.In 1961, Darin starred as a struggling jazz musician in Too Late Blues, John Cassavetes' first film for a major Hollywood studio.[36] Writing in 2012, Los Angeles Times critic Dennis Lim observed that Darin was "a surprise in his first nonsinging role, willing to appear both arrogant and weak".Throughout his acting career, Darin appeared alongside a series of Hollywood leading men Sidney Poitier, Steve McQueen, and Gregory Peck.[17] In October 1964, Darin appeared as a wounded ex-convict who is befriended by an orphan girl in "The John Gillman Story" episode of NBC's Wagon Train western television series.That event, combined with learning about his true parentage, had a deep effect on Darin, who spent most of the next year living in seclusion in a trailer near Big Sur.In 1968–69, he wrote and recorded two albums that covered issues such as civil rights, poverty, the Vietnam War and the death of RFK – Bobby Darin Born Walden Robert Cassotto (1968) and Commitment (1969).In spite of his declining health, Darin's last venture was spent performing live, while undergoing heart surgery and receiving post-treatment medication.When her father found out about the engagement, he stormed into the rehearsals of The Jackie Gleason Show with a gun and threatened to shoot Darin, who managed to escape out of a window.Darin was frail as an infant and, beginning at age eight, had recurring bouts of rheumatic fever that left him with a seriously weakened heart.On December 11 of that year, Darin checked himself into Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles for another round of open-heart surgery to repair the two artificial heart valves he had received in January 1971.Shortly after the surgery ended in the early morning hours of December 20, Darin died in the recovery room without regaining consciousness.[4] In 1990, Darin was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with singer and close friend Paul Anka announcing the honor.In 1986, director Barry Levinson intended to direct a film based on Darin's life and had begun preproduction on the project by early 1997.The resultant biopic, Beyond the Sea, starred Spacey as Darin, with the actor using his own singing voice for the musical numbers.Although Dodd Darin, Sandra Dee, and Blauner responded enthusiastically to Spacey's work and the film was strongly promoted by the studio, Beyond the Sea received mixed-to-poor reviews upon wide release, and box office results were disappointing.In September 2016, Dream Lover: The Bobby Darin Musical had its world premiere at Sydney Lyric Theatre, Australia."[65] Campbell made similar observations, describing playing Darin as a "cathartic experience", and stating, "I feel like I'm healing things during this show.