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BOBBY DARIN continued
"/ wasn't more than two years old, tooting on a harmonica,
there was more to fight than one small boy, a loyal sister and a sick mother could handle.
Walden Robert Cassotto was born in New York City on May 14, 1937. His father, an Italian carpenter, died five months before he was born. "My mother was not a young woman," says Bobby. "From that time on, she was ill. She couldn't work. We had to go on home relief and she just hated it. She had always been able to accomplish so many things."
With the pride of deep love, Bobby recounted them. Paula Walden had attended a small college near Chicago. "We've got a funny old picture of her on a bloomer-girl baseball team." She had been in vaudeville. "Whenever I saw some one dance on television I was after her, demanding, 'Mom, what step is that? Show me how to do it.' " After she married, she had taught school, held civil service jobs, done social work. "With such a background, you can see why we didn't fit into some of the slums where we had to live after she was no longer able to work. Our neighbors had their troubles, too, many of them due to the lack of education. They couldn't understand why an educated person should be on relief. Some resented us. They thought we were being snooty when we were just being ourselves."
The gap widened when, at the age of four, Bobby contracted rheumatic fever. He was eight before he was able to start school. During these years, his mother and his devoted sister, Nina, read to him, talked to him. sang with him. Their teaching paid dividends. He completed six years of grammar school in four and finished at the head of his class. In junior and senior high school, however, his grades were only fair. "I never did come out even with the other kids in my class," says Bobby. "First I was older, then younger, then older again. I loved to read and my vocabulary grew. The kids called me the walking dictionary and that didn't make me many friends, either. I played ball when I could, but because of the rheumatic fever, that wasn't very often. Again, I was a minority of one."
About that time, a fourth important member joined the family team. Bobby's sister, Nina, had grown to be a beauty, but her boy friends soon learned that the family was inseparable. Nina says, "I let them know that whoever married me got Mother and Bobby, too." Charles Mama, a refrigerator repairman, was the young swain who met the challenge and married Nina. Bobby acknowledges his influence by saying, "I'll never be able to repay the help he gave me."
STRUMMING on a guitar, Bobby entertains some Hollywood children. Bobby plays several instruments, organized a band in high school.