Dream Lovers: The Magnificent Shattered Lives of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee - by Their Son Dodd Darin
Darin was an extraordinarily talented singer who became a pretty good actor; Dee was an extraordinarily beautiful child model who became a pretty good actress. Both were major stars when they married-she at age 16 and he at 24-and this is the fairly depressing story of their lives and of their brief marriage as told by their son. Dodd Darin relies on his own memory and on extensive recollections from the family's friends and associates. His father suffered from a heart condition that he knew would kill him at a relatively young age and that led him to concentrate on his career to a fanatical degree. His mother was a teenaged alcoholic, hobbled by an abusive childhood and an intrusive, overprotective mother who never permitted her to grow up. Their marriage was doomed from the start, and this book is their son's way of trying to deal with his conflicting feelings about their lives and his father's death. The book's tone varies from chatty to despairing but is always intensely personal, giving the reader the unsettling impression of eavesdropping on someone else's psychotherapy. Recommended only for large general collections.--Rick Anderson, Contoocook, N.H.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.