This article, written by Hamilton James, appeared in TV Movie Mirror Magazine June, 1963
"Maybe I was too young to marry, I
don't know . . . Heaven knows,
I tried—and so did Bobby."
Sandra Dee talking about the break-
up with Bobby Darin.
"We fought a lot. All young lovers
do. Only, my first teenage love spats
came when I was already married. I
never had time for romance until Bobby
and I fell in love and got married.
Maybe we should have fought before
we got married like most teenagers do."
When the split-up was announced,
most people quickly put the blame on
the high-powered Darin, a show business cyclone.
But Sandra says the break was not
all Bobby's fault.
"Bobby worked very hard to make
the marriage go. Maybe we'll work
things out. I hope we can."
As Sandra talked, the couple's young
son, Dodd Mitchell, played nearby.
"Did you ever see a baby who looked
more like his daddy?"
She was right. Young Dodd is a
Bobby Darin miniature.
What is the real reason behind the
breakup? Neither Bobby nor Sandra
will talk in specifics, but Hollywoodites
have known for some time that the
split was coming.
A few months ago, Bobby opened at
the Cocoanut Grove in Hollywood before a roomful of celebrities. At a party
afterward in the Ambassador Hotel's
Embassy Room, Bobby mingled with
the celebrity guests while Sandra,
obviously miffed, stayed with her own
friends in a corner. She was not the
proud wife she should have been.
At one time, she was heard to
scream to a friend who was trying to
quiet her down: "Who does he think
he is? I'll show him."
Then, when Bobby opened at Harrah's Club in Lake Tahoe, Sandra did
not go along—although she had no
picture commitments that interfered.
Instead, she and Universal-International publicist, Betty Mitchell, took off
for Honolulu.
To repeated inquires from mainland
columnists. Miss Mitchell, an old friend,
had a stock answer. She cabled back:
"Sandra having wonderful vacation.
No comment on other questions."
When Sandra returned from Honolulu
Bobby was still at Lake Tahoe. Apparently her anger hadn't
cooled because it was she who called the
Universal publicity department and
said: "Please announce that Mr. Darin
and I have separated." And then she
hung up.
In announcing the story to the press,
the publicity people could only say:
"She says they're separated—and
that's all we know."
That, of course, was more than
Darin would say. From Lake Tahoe,
there was no word from him.
Friends of Bobby and friends of
Sandra are divided on the question of
who actually walked out on whom.
Shortly before Sandra's trip to Honolulu, it was whispered that for several
days the couple had not been living
under the same roof. Bobby had moved
out of the house, they said at that time,
and had seen his lawyer.
But close friends of both Sandra and
Bobby are hoping for a reconciliation
because the reasons for the split—or
so they say—were too trivial to break
up a family.
There was no other love interest involved on either side. That makes the
split some kind of a rarity in Hollywood
because, no matter what the official
statements say, nine out of ten Hollywood divorces
stem from marital cheating.
Close friends say that, at worst, the
cause of the Darins' trouble is love
spats between two young people of intense drive and emotional and volatile
temperaments.
"No husband and wife could be more
in love than these two. This, I'll bet my
life savings on," says one friend.
A minimum of family trouble is involved.
It's true that Sandra's mother opposed the marriage in the beginning,
but Bobby never held that against her.
"Sandy was only eighteen," Bobby
said, "You can't blame a mother for
wanting her daughter to wait a little
longer before getting married. And I
was Sandy's first love affair."
The two met for the first time in
1960 when both were co-starred, along
with Rock Hudson and Gina Lollobrigida
in Come September. The movie was
shot at Portofino, Italy, one of the most
romantic spots in the world.
It was Sandra's first serious romance.
"I was so busy before that, modeling
and acting, the only romance in my
life came from a mysterious doorbell-
ringer who used to drop a quart of ice
cream on my doorstep—and then flee.
I never did get to see him, but I loved
the ice cream."
When the picture moved to Rome,
Bobby and Sandra kept up with the
dating. When the troupe returned to
the United States, Bobby and Sandra
were so much in love that they eloped
almost immediately.
Their marriage seemed a happy one
—even by Hollywood standards.
"Of course," said Sandra, "there
were times when we couldn't speak
to each other, but that's par, isn't it,
for newlyweds?"
Yet the arguments got more violent.
Bobby's friends sometimes were from
a different world than Sandra's and
vice versa. They gave parties at which
the opposing cliques would clash.
Several times, Bobby sulked out, but
when things cooled down, they always
kissed and made up.
Marriage—and especially that young
son—seemed to change Darin.
He no longer was the young-man-in-
a-hurry. His avowed intention to become a show-business legend by the
time he was twenty-five was amended
happily to thirty.
His acting career zoomed. One of his
most successful pictures was as co-
star again with Sandra in If a Man
Answers. The two made a delightful
comedy team, and producer Ross
Hunter wanted to re-team them.
Darin no longer was the cocky entertainer who had angered many of
the press. Marriage and fatherhood had
mellowed him.
So much so that orchestra leader
Dick Stabile, conductor at the Cocoanut Grove, commented: "Bobby Darin
has changed so much that I am now
taking humble lessons from him."
Career jealousy—often a Hollywood
cause for divorce—doesn't figure with
the Darins. Sandra, of course, is one
of the few women stars—even though
she's barely voting age—to make the
Top Ten box-office list consistently. But
Bobby can hold his own against this.
He has been hailed as the most versatile of all the younger stars.
George Burns, who has been like a father to Bobby, once said that, of
all the new stars, Darin is the only one good enough to have played the Palace back
in the days when vaudeville was tough competition.
Walter Winchell said he surpasses Sammy Davis Jr. and Frank Sinatra on a night-club floor.
And his record sales are phenomenal.
But as much as Bobby has changed, he still has a hot Italian temper - and a pretty young
wife who is not Italian, but just as volatile. Perhaps the combination was too
explosive. Perhaps they were too much in love to stay married. But Sandra and Bobby
may find out that, if they had trouble living together, they will be even more
unhappy living apart.
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