The life of teen idol Bobby Darin

Bobby Darin was a major pop star … a singer, dancer, musician and an Oscar. He was an entertainer who did all this except Broadway. So far!

The Tony Award-winner Jonathan Groff (“Merly V Roll with”) plays the icon of “only time” in the 1950s and ’60s music. “He was at the height of his powers, when he was on the floor of a nightclub with the audience in the palm of his hand,” Groff said.

For Darin, a live audience was oxygen. Therefore, for Groff also: “You can feel this vibration between artist and a member of the audience. (This is), for me, the most important thing to tell about his story.”

Seven years to bring the show to Broadway and sweat of full sweat. Groff’s casting – dear to his roles on stage, and in the “frozen” movies – may not be clear. Groff Pennsylvania grew up in a horse farm in the Menonite country; Darin was a magnificent Italian child from Bronx.

I asked Groff what he liked to listen to when he was growing up. “I am in the fourth or fifth grade, destroying the nintendo, at the computer or in the basement,” Annie Gate Your Gun, “he laughing.

“So, this is the 1990s, perhaps? And you’ve been playing something since the 1940s?”

“Absolutely!”

Similarly, Bobby Darin was an old soul, his son, Dod Darin says. “He praised, he loved, he respected the old times. He loved that era of show business. That is what he belongs.”

Dodd said, “Some may have to do something with the woman:” Poly, her mother, was an old Wadevil, “Dod said.” And she nurtured her and said, “You can’t play stickball in the street. And you can’t roughhouse with children ‘(because he was weak and sick).’ But you can learn song. You can learn to dance. You can learn to play piano. ‘And it opened the whole world. ,

“Fril and sick” was no exaggeration. Born in Walden Robert Cassotto, Darin faced several matches of rheumatic fever as a child, permanently damaging his heart. When he was a boy, he told a family doctor that he would not be beyond his teenage age. “Keep yourself in that position,” the dod said. “So, he was ambitious. He was inspired. He always used to walk. He was trying to jam all this,” because he knew that he had no time. “

Over time to ruin, he began to write songs, and at the age of 22, Bobby Darin created waves with a recording of “Spleish Splash”.

Bobby Darin performs “Spleish Splesh” (1958):

For his second album in 1959, not to play it safely, Darin took a dark gathagit from the German “Threepney Opera” and made it a swing. “When my father took ‘Mac the Knife’ before his release and hearing this to Dick Clarke, he said,” Why are you doing this? This is a bomb! ” Dod said.

It won Grammy for a record record, and became the biggest hit of Darin’s career.

The following year, he was on the way to Italy to make his motion picture debut in front of the US Sandra D. of America. “We kill it correctly,” Darin said. “She hated me and I loved her, and she was this.”

Teen Idol married Teen Movie Star in December 1960 and welcomed her son, Dod, a year later. Dodd later wrote, “My father created his destiny. Destiny made my mother.”

What did he mean by that? “Okay, my mother passed a lot,” he said. “She never really wanted fame. She did not really crave it. It happened in just a way. Unlike my father, who preferred to perform, loved the show business.”

D was looking for a domestic life, Dod said, but Bobby Darin was not ready to slow down. The marriage ended after six years. Darin never stopped playing a club.

Sammy Davis Junior once said that Bobby Darin was the person he would not want to follow. “Absolutely true,” Dod said. “My father imagined Sammy.”

This feeling was mutual, as seen in the broadcast of “This is your life” in 1959:

It was also painted during the episode, Nina, the woman was Darin thought Her sister was. But after almost a decade he would learn a long -held family secrets: Nina was actually Bobby’s mother, as a teenager gave her birth out of the modelock. The woman who made a polly, the woman whom she thought was her mother, her grandmother. “He was never the same,” Dod said. “He said that his whole life was a lie; he, as, was a fraud. It is just disastrous. There is no sugarcane in it.”

Seeing that tape todayDodd says, it all seems clear. “This is a mother’s love,” he said. “It’s not a sister, okay? It is my son,” but you can’t Tell it.”

The dod, who was seven years old, remembers the change in your father from the time that his father came to know: “I am not saying that it is directly responsible for that incident; I am sure it is part of it. But he joined Bob Darin Stage, you know that he took his tapido. No more Tuxido started.

“And that was some of the best time I was with him. He was a regular friend. We were in a big tone in a trailer, hanging out. And yes, he let his hair down, if you would do. It was a good time.”

Bobby Darin performed “Simple Song of Freedom” (1970):

In December 1973, Bobby Darin’s heart finally left. He was 37 years old. The dode was just 12 years old. Now 63, Dod Darin is grateful, with the new Broadway show, a new generation can learn the story of their father.

“It’s so beautiful that after all these years – he has exceeded 50 years – we are talking about him here. We are missing him,” Dod said. “He did something right.”

Online exclusive: View an extended interview with Dod Darin

You can stream the album “The Ultimate Bobby Darin” by clicking on the embed below (free spotify registration required to complete the full spotfy registration):

For more information:

Story created by Kya Lim. Editor: Lauren Barnellow.

See Jonathan Groff “Dream Lover” for Cast album Recording of “Just in Time”: