10 Things You Need to Know About Bobby Darin Ahead of Broadway’s Just in Time

“Splish Splash.” “Mack the Knife.” “Dream Lover.” No doubt Bobby Darin’s songs have been part of our cultural fabric for almost 70 years. But beyond the hits, Darin was a charismatic and versatile performer who overcame childhood illness to will his way to stardom. Alas, Darin’s full life was cut short when he died at age 37.

The artist gets the spotlight in the new musical Just in Time, which opens at Broadway’s Circle in the Square Theatre on April 26. Starring 2024 Tony Award winner Jonathan Groff as Darin, the show features all of those big-band toe-tappers in their natural nightclub setting—an immersive experience crafted by director Alex Timbers—as well as a fascinating story full of incredible, odds-defying triumphs. Yes, the show’s title namechecks one of Darin’s most popular tunes, but also nods to “The Curtain Falls,” a song that emphasizes his lifelong “carpe diem” credo. Pull back the curtain with our 10-step Darin primer to learn more about the man behind the star.

1. He grew up unaware of a big family secret
Darin was born Walden Robert Cassotto on May 14, 1936 to a poor, working-class Italian-American family in the Bronx. His father was an unknown, small-time gangster who reportedly died before Bobby’s birth; Vivian "Polly" Fern Walden, a Vaudeville performer in her youth, lovingly raised him. However, Darin was shocked to learn as an adult that Polly was his biological grandmother. The woman he believed to be his sister, former showgirl Vanina Juliette “Nina” Cassotto, was his actual mother and delivered him out of wedlock at age 17.

2. ...But he always knew that he was on borrowed time
As a child, Darin suffered four bouts of rheumatic fever that damaged the valves of his heart and made him too weak to go to school or play with friends. One day, he overheard the family doctor say to his mother that “even with the best medical treatment and luck, the boy probably won’t live to see age 20.” Friends and family later theorized this declaration fueled Darin to live out his dreams. Indeed, he told a reporter for Life magazine in 1959 that he “wanted to be a pop legend by 25.”

3. He was a musical prodigy
Around the house, Polly exposed Darin to the sounds of Al Jolson, Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra and encouraged him to explore his musical side. By the time he was in his early teens, Darin was fluent on the piano and drums. He later enrolled at New York City’s Hunter College, joining the drama department, but dropped out within the year to begin working. His first jobs included writing songs for future girlfriend Connie Francis and recording demos at the iconic music industry hub known as the Brill Building, eventually signing a contract with Decca Records. But with no hits to his name, the deal didn’t last.

4. He was given a second chance by a future legend
Darin got his big break thanks to producer Ahmet Ertegun, who went on to shape the careers of legends like John Coltrane, The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin. Impressed by Darin’s raw talent, he signed him to his Atco Records (later Atlantic) in 1958 and sat in on some key early sessions. As for the origin of that stage name? It depends on what you believe: Darin allegedly picked it after looking up at a neon sign for a Mandarin Chinese restaurant with its first three lights burned out—or by plucking “Darin” at random out of a phone book.

5. He hit it big with “Splish Splash”
The story goes that Darin wrote “Splish Splash” in under 12 minutes in 1958. Combining jazzy rhythms with Jerry Lee Lewis’ vocal stylings, the catchy ditty sold 100,000 copies in three weeks. His follow-ups, “Queen of the Hop” and the ballad “Dream Lover,” sold over a million copies. Already a dapper pop idol with the screaming girls to show for it, he turned to his beloved big-band music and released the chart-topping “Mack the Knife” in 1959. It won the Grammy for Record of the Year, and he took home the 1959 Best New Artist trophy. Overall, Darin landed five Grammy nods, received a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.

6. He was a silver-screen star—and nominated for Oscar gold
The ever-brash New Yorker went to Hollywood in 1959 and promptly secured a seven-picture deal with Paramount. He made his acting debut in the 1961 romantic comedy Come September and fell for starlet Sandra Dee while filming in Rome (more below!) In 1962’s psychological drama Pressure Point, Darin went toe to toe with none other than Sidney Poitier. The professional highlight? A 1963 Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his performance as a tormented war hero in the Gregory Peck-starring drama Captain Newman, M.D. He lost to Melvyn Douglas for the Paul Newman-led Western Hud.

7. He married his teen co-star
A besotted Darin, then 24, and Dee, then 18, eloped on December 1, 1960. An actress since childhood, Dee put her career on hold to watch her new husband perform everywhere from NYC’s Copacabana to Las Vegas’ Tropicana hotel. They welcomed son Dodd in 1961. But a tumultuous showbiz lifestyle proved too much to bear. The couple split in 1963, quickly reconciled and then divorced in 1967. Still, as Dodd wrote in his 2021 book, Dream Lovers: The Magnificent Shattered Lives of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee, their love and affection for each other endured long after the breakup. Dee died in 2005 at age 63.

8. He reinvented himself as a folk singer and Vegas act
The arrival of Beatlemania in 1964 caused reverb throughout the music industry, and Darin was no exception. Instead of crooning standards, he ventured into folk/country music with songs like “Things” and “You're the Reason I’m Living.” Next, he selected material by a new breed of songwriters such as Randy Newman (“I Think It’s Gonna Rain Today”) and Tim Hardin ("If I Were a Carpenter," a top-10 hit in 1966). And though he did break from performing, Darin eventually returned to the Vegas stage and had a regular gig at the Las Vegas Hilton. He even signed a $2 million, three-year deal to open the MGM Grand hotel in January 1974.

9. He had a spiritual awakening in the 1960s
Heavily involved in Robert Kennedy's presidential campaign, Darin was so impacted by the senator’s 1968 assassination that he sold most of his possessions—including his tuxedos and patent-leather shoes—and fled Los Angeles for a trailer home in Big Sur, California. “A whole slew of things happened inside me that I felt needed some correcting,” he later explained to Mike Douglas on his eponymous talk show. “Suffice it to say that the changes that I felt were necessary could only come from me, from within. I had to do something about the way I was living, my approach to things, my values in general.” Darin returned to L.A. in 1969 to create his own label and record an album of socially conscious material titled Born Walden Robert Cassotto.

10. He died after decades of heart troubles
In 1973, Darin—implanted with two artificial heart valves two years earlier—was experiencing heart arrhythmias and exhaustion. On December 20, the star underwent a six-hour exploratory open-heart surgery, and the doctors found a massive infection in the organ. He died hours after the operation. (The team later said his body was too weak to recover.) Darin left a will directing that his body be given to medical science, and it was taken to the University of California for research. Recalling the star in a Rolling Stone story, American Bandstand host Dick Clark said at the time: “He had a great native intellect, and if he was only healthy physically, he probably could have gone on to be a legend.” He became one anyway.