Dodd Darin

A most interesting book about singer/actor Bobby Darin and model/actress Sandra Dee. The author, the son of these two famous individual, bares all in the story of his parents. Most everyone knows Darin who had rhematic fever as a child and was told he probably wouldn’t live til 15. He was a talented signer (Mack the Knife, Beyond the Sea, Dream Lovers) as well as actor (nominated for Best Supporting Actor in Captain Newman MD). However, he also played multiple instruments, wrote songs, owned a publishing company, had his own television variety showed, played Vegas and various nightclubs throughout the country, and started Wayne Newton on his career. Sandra Dee began as a model at a very young age and turned into one of the most famous film stars of the 50’s with roles in films of Gidget and Tammy. The author, Dodd Darin, gives us his parents with all their warts. We find out Darin is an arrogant s.o.b. whose only interest seems to be making it big and using people, especially his family, to help him get ahead. Sandra Dee was under her mother’s control, that she did not know how to live as an individual. I believe they were truly in love and had high hopes that somehow their relationship would work out (even though I knew it did not). Once Darin divorced Dee, it seemed her career just stopped and once Dee’s mother passed away, Dee was essentially non-functioning – she did not know how to write a check. She was long dependent on alcohol and pills. The book provides plenty of interviews with those who knew, worked, or were related to the principles. The author is in search of his parents (his dad passed when he was 12) and he never seemed to be able to understand why his mother was so non-functioning. At the end of the book you get the impression that he does know his parents, not only the good points that he admired from childhood, but the bad as well but he accepts them as his parents. I thought this was a great look at the lives of these two incredibly talented individuals – however, I believe he did devote more time to his Dad. I wish there had been more photographs.… (més)