FROM OUR ARCHIVES (246) BOBBY DARIN stars with NICK ADAMS

(246) BOBBY DARIN stars with NICK ADAMS

My friend Bobby Darin came out to LA from New York to pursue an acting career, had a whirlwind romance with actress Sandra Dee, and married her. I got to pitch songs to him on the set of some of their movies and in the offices of his music publishing house. Bobby continued to make television appearances as a singer, as he did on the Judy Garland show, while pursing an acting career.

Bobby made a World War II story film in 1962 that also stared Nick Adams, my friend and Elvis'.

DODD DARIN speaks of his dad BOBBY DARIN

Bobby's son Dodd wrote a book called "Dream Lovers." As he says he wrote it from a place of love and honesty.

I remember Bobby telling me he started TM Music, his publishing house, because he wanted his son to have something when he died. Bobby's health was never as strong as his enthusiasm. Of many of us who started out being groomed to make films as actors and records as singers, Bobby was managed to fulfill that potential.

(272) JO-ANN CAMPBELL : HIT MAKER IN HER OWN RITE

One of the singers I enjoyed performing live with and was proud to know was the talented Jo-ann Campbell, who was a hit-making singer-songwriter in her own rite.

In 1962 she had a hit with "The Girl From Wolverton Mountain", one of my favorite songs of hers, and had a couple albums out,

A southerner by birth, Joanne could put the twang into her singing voice and move doo wop to country.

Joanne dated my friend Bobby Darin just about before he met and married Sandra Dee. Like many of us her romances were reported, for better or worse, in fan magazines.

VIDEO REPLACED JAN 2014

(83) BOBBY DARIN EARLY 1960'S STYLE / CHRISTINE WHITE

By the end of 1960, Bobby Darin had four Gold records and had won two Grammy awards and he had become an actor - a movie star - too. He had moved to Los Angeles, California, in order to make the movie "Come September." Sometimes I wonder if he lead the parade of us singer-songwriter-musician-singer-entertainer types from New York to the West Coast.

"Come September"was a light comedy. Now my friend Frankie Avalon had been making the beach blanket movies and it had been a while since anyone really expected me to be The Next James Dean. He got teamed up with Annette Funicello. Bobby Darin was teamed up with Sandra Dee, a child star who had matured to about sixteen years old. Bobby was about twenty four when they met, and Bobby, who was aggressive for anything he wanted badly - like fame and fortune - went after Sandra. They were married.

And well, it was a volatile situation.

When Sylvester Cross got wind that I knew Bobby Darin, he decided I should pitch American Music songs, including a couple I wrote, to him in person. Why not another Gold for the singer who had "Splish Splash," and "Dream Lover?"

I did, and guess who I ran to at the movie studio when I went to pitch Bobby?

My old friend Christine White!
Fate... that's what it was.

Christine White, James Dean's great friend, who I'd met in 1956 on the street in Hollywood on my first tourist trip down from Oregon, was in town working on a television series. She invited me to one of her celebrity filled house parties in the Hollywood Hills and that reignited our friendship!

NEW LINK TO BOBBY DARIN'S OFFICIAL SITE!

(69) GO WEST YOUNG MEN! GO WEST! (Bobby Darin's already out there!)

My first visit to Los Angeles was during my Christmas respite from home building in 1956. On that trip I met James Dean's great actress friend Christine White and walked the Hollywood streets that my favorite stars walked before me, never imagining I would ever have my own taste of celebrity. I had passed through the city on tours since then, and while the scene was entirely different than the scene in New York, I knew that an exodus of New York had begun. Los Angeles - Hollywood- had always been known for movie making but now it seemed television shows were leaving the cold weather of the east for the warm weather of the west.

Just before he left New York Bobby Darin and I had been talking about producing one of my songs into a record for me. Bobby went to Los Angeles to make the movie "Come September" which also starred his future wife and the mother of his only son, Dodd, Sandra Dee.

Elvis was based in LA too. I caught up with him and stayed at his suite in a hotel while he was making "G.I. Blues." Now that more movies were ahead for him, he was renting a home in Bel Air.

One of my brothers decided that he wanted to try living in Los Angeles for a while too, so I met up with him in Winston-Salem, we loaded up his old car and drove it across the country. We pulled into Elvis' driveway in Bel Air. Joe Esposito came out and demanded that we remove the "bucket of bolts" because it made Elvis' luxury cars "look bad." Before we could put the key in the ignition, Elvis came out, heard Joe, and said, "You leave that car right there. It looks fine."

Elvis liked my brother. "He's country, just like my cousins," he said. He meant Gene and Billy Smith, the two men who started with him as members of his entourage when he first came into fame and would be there when he died.

Here's a Youtube Presentation of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee, with Bobby singing "Once Upon A Time"