Only once or twice in my lifetime has a celebrity’s death really moved me; Bobby Darin’s death was one of those. Maybe it was because he was a New York kid or maybe he reminded me of my youth or maybe it had something to do with overcoming life’s challenges.
Darin was married and divorced twice by the time he was 30; he was devastated when learned at the age of 32 that the woman he thought was his older sister was his mother, and he suffered from poor health his entire life. Beginning at age eight, he was stricken with recurring bouts of rheumatic fever.
But he could act, dance and put across a song. Sad, when you hear Darin ask the pianist to give him a minute to catch his breath in the following clip–he was thirty-years-old–but during the last few years of his life Darin was often administered oxygen during and after his performances. Here, in my view, is one of best life performances of a standard I know of… “Once Upon a Time” So affecting.
