Bobby Darin's Chart

American actor, singer and recording artist, best remembered for his song "Mack The Knife" that held the No. 1 slot on Billboard's pop singles chart for nine weeks. The song sold two million copies and won him 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. His career ranged from Sinatra-like crooning through folk protest. He was an Oscar nominee for his role in Captain Newman, M.D., while That Funny Feeling was one of three comedies he played with his wife, Sandra Dee. Darin had his own weekly variety show on NBC in the 1972-1973 season. Their son Dodd published Dream Lovers in 1994 in which he related that his dad was ruthless and selfish, a pampered child. Darin had been born out-of-wedlock to 17-year-old Nina Cassotto whose mother Polly, a retired showgirl, claimed the boy as hers. He was 32 years old before he learned the truth and never did know his father's name. He had four bouts of rheumatic fever between ages 8 and 13. At 24, he met Sandra Dee, 16, and they were married for seven years, 1960-1967. Darin's second wife was Andrea Yeager, a legal secretary whom he met in 1970 and married on 25 June 1973. Four months later, in October 1973, they divorced. Bobby Darin died after open heart surgery on 20 December 1973 at the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, California. He was 37 years old. His son accepted the award for him when he was posthumously inducted into the Hall of Fame on 17 January 1990.