This article appeared in the Feb. 1963 issue of Motion Picture Magazine and was written by Cindy Adams
Before you meet Bobby Darin, before you can say,
"How do you do, Mr. Da...,"
before you even ask the first
question that he'll refuse to
answer, comes a hurried phone call from his publicity
office. In hushed, agonized
tones, a voice gasps, "Listen,
no questions about his wife,
Sandra Dee. Don't even mention the subject."
"Yeah, but how's about if
I just ask. .."I began.
"No, honestly," moaned
the quavering voice. "It's
strict orders from the Coast.
He positively won't discuss
his marriage or his baby or
his personal life. Please don't
cross us, otherwise he'll
think we put you up to it."
So, one midnight a masked
press representative met me
near a graveyard and under
a full moon I swore a blood
oath, and that was that. This
was a full 10 days before the
date to interview Sir Bobby,
and The Reign of Terror had
already begun.
To me, the only one who
didn't seem party to the arrogant, cocky, belligerent
Darin "image" was Darin, himself. When he rocketed
through New York recently to plug his picture, If A Man Answers, we broke bread,
and he was as pleasant, charming and
gracious as a high school principal on
Graduation Day. But a promise was a
promise. No questions about his marriage,
his baby, or his personal life.
So what did Bobby discuss our whole time
together? His marriage, his baby and his
personal life.
"I'm basically a loner," he began, "So's
Sandy. Outside of Sandy's mom, both our
families live on the East Coast so we don't
have many relatives around. And we prefer
being by ourselves. It's done strictly by our
own hand. We enjoy reading or watching
TV. Our desire to be alone is because, pure
and simple, we enjoy each other's company
. . not because we're anti-social. We have a
wonderful . . . a wonderful . . . rapport . . .
yeah, that's a good word . . . a wonderful
rapport with each other.
"We're not party-throwers or party-goers.
When we do socialize, it's having maybe four
or five people over and that's only rarely.
We have few close friends and they're our
business associates. See, Sandy's been a star
five years. Her home life is intertwined with
her studio life. Her dear friends are her
make-up man, her hair-dresser. Mine are
my conductor, my manager. It's such a small
circle that we've given out our telephone
number only four times: my manager has
it, Sandy's studio, her mom and my family,"
Since this fellow (who admits people
figure he's "a Hermann Goering") was coming off like he'd win the Pussycat Of The
Year Award, I asked so how come, under
penalty of death,no questions about his
marriage, his baby, or his personal life?
"Because basically I'm an entity. A whole
being. So is my wife. I'm an entity called
Bobby Darin. In reality, my name's Cassotto.
So's Sandy's. When I switch from the Darin
side of my career life to the Cassotto side of
my home life, the public has no more right
to us.
"They're entitled to our best performance,
to our autographs if they want them, to stick
cameras down our tonsils when we're in
public and we'll smile all night. That's part
of show business. But when we get home,
look out, Mac!"
Bobby twirled his big gold wedding band
and,never at a loss for words,let me have
a few thousand of them. "My wife's among
the 10 top box-office stars in the country.
Nobody around can come near her. I think
she's the most brilliant comedienne since
Carole Lombard. So how will taking pictures
of her son, or asking her husband his
favorite recipe, or other things like that,
make Sandy a better actress? Or make John
Q. Public start seeing us if John Q, has decided to stop seeing us?"
Bobby grinned. He does it easily. "Listen,"
he admitted, "There were misunderstandings in the beginning with Sandy and her
studio because of my feelings, and I've
realized my wife receives a salary from Universal-International and has certain contractual obligations to live the publicity life
of a star. That's their prerogative. They're
paying her. But it stops when I come home."
And is there any serious friction between
her professional friends and his?
"Thank God there's no serious clash,"
answered Bobby gently. "Sure, I dislike some
of Sandy's people and she dislikes some of
mine. That's natural even for people in any
other profession, isn't it? So, when I'm busy,
she sees those that I can't take and vice
versa. When you love each other you can
work out even aggravating situations.
"In our two years of marriage we've only
been separated 15 days," explained Darin,
munching the crisp bacon with his fingers.
"There's no doubt this actor-husband-wife
relationship is bad. That's why we have to
work so hard to protect this beautiful home
life that we have. You show me any two
show people who are married and occasionally work together and I'll show you two
nervous wrecks. But if your love is strong,
and ours is,you can work anything out.
Nothing's more important than my wife and
me. Our marriage. Our relationship. Our
son. And that's why we've painstakingly
worked out a schedule.
"Touring for this new picture Sandy and
I made together,If A Man Answers, has me
so busy I haven't slept six hours in two days,
but if I'm working a club I sleep 10-12 hours
a night with no appointments before 2
p.m. Sandra's timetable usually varies, too,
The baby's schedule always stays the same."
Asked if he takes time out to work at being
a father, he hit the ceiling,or at least went
as far as his 5'10" would carry him. "Honey,
we don't have to work at being parents. I
don't dangle expensive presents in front of
the baby and coo, 'Look what Daddy bought
you while he was away.' That's because I'm
never away. Where I go, he goes. Our child
may end up being a jaded traveller,but
that's all! And should I leave town, his
mother's there. The first month we didn't
even have a nurse. My wife tended him all
by herself. He's never without one of his
parents at any time."
And would he want Dodd Mitchell to follow in Daddy's footsteps?
Behind his thick cigarette smokescreen,
Bobby's semi-obscured eyes narrowed. "Look,
honey," he began. "Our son is an entity
(there was that word again), and the earlier
he knows it the better off he'll be. Naturally,
at some point he's going to turn to me or
his mother and say he wants to be a vet. Or
a mechanic. Or something else. Well, good
luck to him. His mother and I are here
purely as guiding posts. Listen, Sandy and I
certainly have had many talks about this.
"We decided that we'll neither encourage
nor discourage him to do anything. He's not
a transplantation of us. If he comes home
with a D or a C on his report card, I ain't
gonna say, 'Why you idiot, when I was in
school I had all A's!' I've only got a right
to holler if my kid is playing ball instead
of doing his homework, not if he's doing
his best.
"We don't mean that if he decides to quit
school,which I did,and wants to loaf
around,which I did not,we'd say, 'Oh, just
do what you want, Sonnyboy, it's okay with
us.' That's a lot of nonsense! But if he wants
to quit at 14 and go to work for a living,
then he can quit like that!" And Bobby
snapped bacony fingers.
"Our son will have to work for whatever
he wants. A baby's character is moulded by
environment. All my values come from the
26 years I've been able to look, listen and
evaluate. He'll have less evaluation because
he'll have it easier than we did. He'll be a
child of financial comforts. However, I'll
have a will drawn up with the specification
that he'll have to work for his inheritance,
because children who come into money the
easy way don't always build character."
In his 26 years, Darin himself has built
plenty of character.
The night club-record-movie star,who
also sings, dances, acts, writes music and
plays piano, vibes, drums and guitar,whom
I expected to spring like a tiger at any
moment, just kept purring along like Tabby.
"This so-called 'belligerent' image of me,"
he continued, "was created unintentionally
because I always say definite things. Strong
things. And just because my statements are
positive, they get blown up in the stories
about me. In the beginning I went along
with this because I realized it grabbed me
a lot of publicity."
Having devoured his lunch, he continued
with his Hour Of Truth, "She's a pretty good
talker, my wife. She's very strong, too. And
she's a very bright girl. Can't you just see her
asking 'belligerent' me if she can do such and
such, or should she say such and such? Wow!
That adjective they've labelled me with is
damned asinine.
"Now, as we progress, I read how marriage
has mellowed me and 'The New Bobby
Darin' junk. Sure I'm happy. Sure you feel
better when you're in love, but saying my
performance has improved because that
'chip on the shoulder' is gone is pure jazz!
Then, once a week, some column cracks that we're breaking up. In the last batch of 18
clippings, 12 said we were splitting."
Besides the blockade on discussing his wife
publicly, Bobby's also put his manicured thumbs down on interviews with her. One
reason is that he's not keen on photographers
jockeying his wife into intimate poses with
him,nor does he cotton to hail-fellow-well-types pinching her cheek. He doesn't
dig being mauled or playfully thwacked on
the back. She doesn't like anyone to touch
her, either. Because they love one another
dearly, each gets sensitive for the other.
Each gets protective toward the other. And,
occasionally, after such experiences the adrenalin runs free. In order to keep friction
down to a minimum, the result was separate personal appearance tours for If A Man
Answers.
To cure Bobby's adrenal glands when
he's not working, the Darins have a swimming pool and a basketball set-up on the grounds of their nine-room house, which
they're decorating themselves. The garage houses a workshop where Bobby can repair
what he deliberately busted just so's he'll
have an excuse to work with his hands.
When he really wants to drown out Sandy or Dodd or the other household noises, he zips
himself into his den, punches up the tape
machine real loud ("I find my own noise inspirational") and does his best work.
Although Sandy and spouse are not exactly extravagant, they're not exactly what
you'd call over-thrifty, either. Bobby takes
"a pittance a week for pocket money," puts
aside a proper balance for the family expenses and lays away enough for not only a
slight drizzle but in case we should have 40
days and nights of rain. Since the day he
earned his first dollar, a good portion of his
earnings is put back into his pet investment:
the career of Bobby Darin.
They do not live on a budget since Bobby
lived on one for 22 years and has no intention of doing it again unless he has to.
Just before the well-mannered, gentlemanly paper tiger clambered into his king-sized limousine, he said softly, "Y'know, the
other night some actress on the Tonight
Show made the statement that she wouldn't
marry an actor even if she loved him. Well,
maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I don't get that
whole thing. I thought love was the most
important part of a marriage. So did Sandy.
"There's a wonderful phrase that two
people can be one. Well, that's all right on
paper. But two people are never really one.
They have to be made into one. And love
is the only force that can do it.
"Reporters are always asking us if we
think we'll be able to always work out this
career and marriage bit. I'm sick of answering these questions. The only people who
really have to know that Sandy and I are
happy are Sandy and I. And we know it.
We love each other dearly and that's all
that's important."
Like this picture? You can buy it as a
clear 8 X 10 ( from the negative)
from Santiago Rodriguez, photographer of the stars.
E-mail him
bobbydarin.net/bobbydarin.com, All Rights Reserved.