Early Years
Darin was born in The Bronx. His maternal grandfather, Saverio Antonio Cassotto, was of Italian descent. His maternal grandmother, Vivian Fern (Walden), was of English ("Old Yankee") and Danish ancestry. He was raised by his maternal grandmother, a vaudeville singer. It was not until he was 32 that he learned that Giovannina Cassotto, the woman he believed to be his elder sister, was his birth mother.
By the time he was a teenager he could play several instruments, including piano, drums and guitar. He later added harmonica and xylophone.
Graduating from the prestigious Bronx High School of Science, Darin chose not to attend Hunter College. Instead, he dropped out in order to play small nightclubs around the city with a musical combo.
Read more about this topic: Bobby Darin
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