Dream Lover Tops The Charts
Bobby started out 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’ and in 1962, he won a Golden Globe for his first film Come September, co-starring his first wife, Sandra Dee. The world was at his feet…or so it seemed.
It was in 1959 that Darin recorded his own composition, ‘Dream Lover’ that became a multi-million seller. It made No.2 on the Billboard charts in the late spring/early summer of 1959 but in Britain it went one better topping the charts for four weeks from Independence Day, the 4th of July. The song gave Darin financial independence and he took more creative control of his career as was proved by the album, That’s All.
His follow up single was the Kurt Weill’s ‘Mack the Knife’ that Darin turned into a classic that few would have thought he had the ability to do when his career began. Surprisingly Darin was initially opposed to releasing it as a single, but the song went to No. 1 on the charts for nine weeks, sold two million copies, and won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year in 1960. Darin was also voted the Grammy Award for Best New Artist that year, and ‘Mack The Knife’ has since been honoured with a Grammy Hall of Fame Award.
He never scaled the loft heights again but throughout the 1960s, he became politically active and worked on Robert Kennedy’s Democratic presidential campaign. He was present on the night of 4/5 June 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles at the time of Kennedy’s assassination.
With his career flourishing and a return to the top ten in America with his excellent cover of Tim Hardin’s ‘If I Were A Carpenter’ Darin made a discovery that shocked him and also deeply affected him. He found out that his grandmother, not his mother, had brought him up and that the girl he had thought to be his sister was actually his mother.
After a period of inactivity he made a return to the TV screens but his health was not good. He had bouts of rheumatic fever as a child and he always acknowledged that it was his vulnerability that helped to spur him on professionally. In early 1973 he had a minor hit on the Motown label singing, ‘Happy’, the love theme from Lady Sings The Blues the movie starring Diana Ross. Five days before Christmas the same year he died following a heart operation, he was 37 years old.
UK English
Loretta Zwickel
March 1, 2016 at 12:09 pm
Bobby Darin was so many things and I loved them all – he started out as a pool boy in Glenn Oaks Country Club NY – people loved him – he married Sandra Dee who was too young and too anorexic but he loved her – he had a bad heart born with it – but what killed him was the person he loved the most “lied to him” and with all he withstood in life – he died – I cried on the Flushing 7 IRT that day when I read it in the newspapers.
Ray Maudlin
March 1, 2016 at 8:11 pm
I heard Bobby sing at Indiana University in the Fall of ’62 or ’63. He sang every hit he had ever made and then took a 10 minute intermission. As he walked off the stage, I asked myself, “What’she left?” When he returned, he blew away all 4,500 people in the theater singing ballads. He was astounding. At that time, IU had the finest school of music in the world and I am certain a lot of them were in the crowd that received Bobby so warmly. I became his lifelong fan that evening.
Mariel De Bellefeuille
May 26, 2016 at 1:16 am
J’aimerais que parfois vous mettiez des chansons de cette époque qui nous rappelle de merveileux souvenirs. Ceci serait intéressant sur facebook que l’on puisse écouter a nouveau les chansons de notre jeunesse, meme celles des annés 1970-80-90 et une chse assi du Glenn Miller etc…je suis assurée qu’il y aurait beaucoup d’écoute. Je vous remercie du fond du coeur.
Sylvia
February 16, 2017 at 6:39 pm
My great grandson age 10 loves the old songs, his favorite is “Dream Lover” by Bobby Darin. I’m hoping the CD lasts and lasts, it’s the only thing we listen to in the car.