Modern Screen (Jan-Dec 1960)

The Small World of Mr. Big (Continued from page 44) on but his shorts, scratching his legs. And then he'll see you and he'll say 'Oooooops, why didn't you tell me somebody was here?' " "This," said Nina Maffey, pointing to the girl, "is my daughter, Vivi." "Hi," Vivi said. "I'm going to be an actress, and famous someday, I hope." "And this," said Nina, indicating a girl seated next to Vivi, "is my other daughter, Vana." "She," said Vivi, "just wants to grow up and marry somebody famous — like Frankie Avalon." "Shhhh!" Vana said, poking her sister, giggling, turning bright red. "And this little one," Nina said, completing the introductions, pointing to a boy who'd been following us, "is my son, Gary. He's four. And you look at him and you see his Uncle Bobby when he was this age. Thin. Big brown shining eyes." She covered Gary's ears, momentarily. "Very cute, and very smart," she said, winking. Then, bringing down her hands, she walked to the stove to check some coffee that was brewing. And she said, "In fact, I think Gary here is the next generation's Bobby Darin. He's always singing, just like his uncle when he was this age." "Mama," Gary asked, "are you gonna tell Uncle Bobby and the eggs?" "Later, honey," Nina said. " — How about giving us a song for now?" Without any hesitation, Gary said, "Sure." "Just like Bobby — see?" Nina said. "I remember somebody'd come to the house and they'd say, 'You going to give us a song?' and Bobby'd say, 'Sure, watch me. I'm Bobby!' . . . All right, Gary." The little boy took a deep breath and began to sing: Oh the shark dear Has such teeth dear And he shows them Poi-ly wife! — Suddenly, he stopped, bowed and left the room. Bobby and those moods "Bobby started singing even younger," Nina said then. "When he was two and a half, I remember, he came over to me one day and he said, 'Nina, I sing for you, okay?' 'Okay,' I said. I thought I was going to hear something like Mary Had a Little Lamb. So what does he do? He begins to sing McNamara's Band. Honest to God. The whole thing, about twelve verses. Just from hearing it on the radio. And then he follows it with this song called Turkish Delight — word for word. And then he picks up a harmonica, one of those dollarand-a-half Woody Herman things we had laying around the house, and he starts to play the Saber Dance by Khachaturian!! Well, I figured then, that day, that we had a real honest-to-goodness musician on — " "Mom," Vivi said, interrupting, holding up one of the letters she'd been looking through. "Here's one from a girl in Texas who says that Uncle Bobby is a grouchy snob, that he is very moody — and conceited— and that nobody likes him for this." "I don't like her, this girl in Texas," said Vana. "She says," Vivi continued, "that she read this and she wants to know if and why Uncle Bobby is like this. 'Please answer,' she says . . . Should I, Mom?" "I'd like to answer," Nina said, pouring the coffee now. "I'd like to answer all the people who say these things about my 68 brother. And do you know what I'd say? I'd say the truth— that sometimes Bobby is grouchy, sometimes he is snobby, sometimes he is moody, conceited. But this is Bobby Darin, I'd say, and this is the way you've got to take him if you want to take him at all." She took a deep breath, brought the coffee cups to the table, and sat. Facing us, she said, "You know, when he was ten months old we could see that he was going to be the moody type. Ten months! — and there he'd be with a face this long half the time. And you could cootchy-coo him all you wanted, you could stand on your head, do anything, and it wouldn't matter. He was in a mood. And boy, there was no changing it. "Even as he grew up," she went on, remembering, "he was moody lots of the time. We used to think it was his sickness, at the beginning. He had rheumatic fever something terrible and for years he was in the most awful pain . . . Thank God that ended. I don't know how he stood it. He'd have to lay in bed all the time, not moving, because to move caused him pain. And you couldn't touch him, he ached so much all over. And when he'd have to go to the bathroom and Charlie, my husband, would have to pick him up and begin to carry him and the way he'd scream — " She paused, and shook her head. "Anyway," she said, "we thought then that this sickness was most of the reason for Bobby's moodiness . . . But even when he got better, after a few years, the moods remained. And you know, the fascinating thing is how where with other people, when they're like that, moody, you feel like saying 'Aw, get lost!' — well, with Bobby, it's always like a magnetic thing, the way people flock around him all the time when he's moody, and the way they all get so affected by these moods. . . . It's like a comedy sometimes." "You remember the night with the pastrami sandwiches, Mom?" Vivi asked. "I was just remembering," Nina said. " — You see, one night a couple of years ago, before Bobby became famous, he was sitting around the house with a whole bunch of people — his entourage, as they say." "Uncle Bobby's entourage," Vivi interrupted, "started long before he did." "That's right," Nina said. "So," she went on then, "they're all sitting around. And they're very quiet. Because Bobby is in a mood, about his appetite, what he wants to eat, of all things. And he's not talking. And they're not talking, of course. And then, all of a sudden, Bobby jumps up from the chair where he's sitting and he says, 'I know what I need to put me right. A pastrami sandwich. How about it?' he says to the others, smiling now. And they all jump up, too, and smile, too, and they say, 'Yeah, a pastrami sandwich — just the thing.' And they're all just about at the door when Bobby stops and says, 'Naw, pastrami's not going to do me any good.' And he goes and sits down again. And so do the others. Till about ten minutes later, all of a sudden, he jumps up and says, 'Chop Suey, that's what I want!' So, again, the others get all excited and they say, 'Yeah, that's it— Chop Suey!' . . . Well, to make a long story short, let me just tell you that when they got to the door Bobby decided he really didn't want Chop Suey, either, and so they all turned around and went to sit down again — and that this went on and on I don't know how many times, until at one point Bobby yelled out 'Pizza!', as if he really meant it this time, and the others cheered and said, 'Pizza! Yeah! That's swell!'— and, finally, finally, they all left." Nina laughed heartily at the memory. And then she explained: "Now this, like I said, is before Bobby became famous. So you can't say that these other people — the entourage — hung around and put up with these moods because they were getting paid for it or because they figured that no matter what Bobby decided to buy for himself he'd buy for them too. Bobby didn't have more than a few dollars to his name at the time. It was each man for himself. These people, they just enjoyed being around Bobby. And the moodier he was, the better a time they seemed to have." Nina looked down at the letter again. '"Conceited," she said, reading the word. "Now about his being conceited — " she started to say. A fan comes to look There was a knock on the back door. Vana got up to see who it was. "Hello," she said, seeing a little girl, standing there. "Hello," said the little girl. "Is your Uncle Bobby home yet?" "Uh-huh," said Vana. "Can I come in to see him?" she asked. "He's asleep now," said Vana. "Oh," said the little girl, excitedly, "that's the way I'd really like to see him. When he's asleep—" Nina sighed and walked over to the door. "Sweetie," she said, "you have a big brother, don't you? And does he like it if you walk into his room while he's sleeping, to take a look at him?" "I never want to see him sleeping.'' said the little girl. "Well then," said Nina, ignoring the answer, "Bobby wouldn't like it either. . . . Now why don't you come back later and take a look at him when he's awake. All right?" "All right," the little girl said, disappointed. "Some of these kids," Nina said, sighing again, closing the door. " — Now, where was I?" "About Uncle Bobby being conceited." said Vivi. "Oh yeah," said Nina. She was just about to begin talking again when Gary walked back into the room, and over to us. He was carrying a cat. "This is Splish-Splash," he said. "He has six fingers on each hand, 'stead of five. And he thinks he's a dog ... I have a dog, too," he added, quickly. "Uncle Bobby gave him to me. His name's Geronimo." Nina leaned over and patted her son's head. "Why don't you see if you can find Geronimo," she said. Gary looked up at her. "Mama, did you tell the story about Uncle Bobby and the eggs yet?" he asked. "Later," Nina said. "Please, Mama— tell it now," Gary said. Nina smiled. "All right. Real fast, though." To us, winking, she said, "This is Gary's favorite Uncle Bobby story of all time." Then she said, in recitation-voice: "Once upon a time there was a boy named Bobby. His daddy had gone to Heaven and his Mama was sick and so he was very poor, and lived in a little dumpy apartment in The Bronx, New York. And Bobby didn't have many toys, he was so poor. And it was hard to have fun, being without toys and being so poor. So this one day he decided to invent a game, all by himself. First, he went into the kitchen and he found a few empty milk bottles. And then he went to the icebox and he found about three dozen eggs there. Now why were there so many eggs there? Because this