The File on Bobby Darin, Chapter 18

Chapter 18

“Oh, Miss Kilgallen, I wish you could have met our mother Polly.  She was an amazing woman!  She wasn’t considered to be Pop’s type of girl, she wasn’t Italian, you know.  Her people came over here from England.  I’m sure her family thought that she was marrying beneath her when she became Sam’s wife.  She was not like the rest of our family.  She was petite, very fine-boned, and she was quick!  She moved like a little bird, fast and light on her feet.  Did you know, before she was on the Vaudeville stage, she went to college?  She must have loved our father very much to leave that world behind and live in Italian Harlem.”  Nina paused at last to take a swallow of the tea that Dorothy Kilgallen had her dusky maid, Henrietta, bring in to them.  Tea at 10 p.m. in the Kilgallen household was nothing new to her.  After the tea was served, Dorothy told Henrietta that she could retire for the night. 

Our mother.  Our father.  Kilgallen made note of Nina’s references to her parents.  She did not attempt to correct her guest at this time, because she wanted her to keep on talking.  Running into Nina at the Copa Ladies Room had been the luckiest thing!  Well, perhaps not so lucky, as Dorothy had been making a practice of dropping in at the Copa at various times of the day and evening, hoping for just such an encounter.  She had actually had herself driven out to Nina and Charlie’s neighborhood in Lake Hiawatha, New Jersey.  As she had made the journey, she could hear Cy, her publisher, bellowing, “Your beat is New York City, Dottie, not hicks in the sticks!”  But Dorothy would follow a lead to wherever it took her, after which she usually brought home the goods, so she did not worry too much about Cy.

After trolling up and down the tree-lined streets of neat ranch-style houses in Lake Hiawatha, however, Dorothy had decided against trying to tackle Nina on her own home turf.  She could not expect to shadow Nina and accidentally run into her there; much more likely that she could find Nina right in New York City and use the home advantage.  That advantage was clearly working in her favor already, as she had been able to take Nina back to her impressive brownstone on East 60th Street in Dorothy’s private car.  She then had the refreshments brought up to her own small sitting room just off her bedroom.  Her husband and one or two children may have been in the house, but it was five stories, and they all knew not to interrupt mother when she was working.  Mother might be writing a story about UFOs or plots to assassinate Fidel Castro, but whatever the topic, it would go into a newspaper column that feathered the family nest, and no one must get in the way of this endeavor.

To be taken out of the hot and noisy Copa, away from Walter Winchell, and into this cozy feminine retreat was a badly needed deliverance for Nina.  After making a phone call to home to assure that all was well with her children, she relaxed gratefully into the small pink wing-backed chair that her host had indicated for her.  It would take more than being rescued from Winchell, however, to make her fully drop her guard.

When Dorothy did not say anything in response, Nina finally asked, “Say, Miss Kilgallen, I knew you were married, but you have kids?”  Nina had been inspecting some family photographs in silver frames on a bookshelf across from her chair.  She tilted her head and squinted a bit to study the photos through her teardrop-shaped glasses.

Dorothy smiled proudly as she poured out more tea for them both.  “Yes,” she said, “I have two boys and a girl.  And you?”

“Just the opposite,” Nina said.  “I have two girls and a little boy at home.”

Two boys and a girl at home.  Well, that was the truth, so far as it went.  Dorothy nodded and settled back into her chair.  She and Nina studied one another across the tea tray without appearing to do so, each taking the measure of the other.  Each of them rated the other as a pretty tough customer.  Dorothy sighed inwardly, thinking that she did not want to make a long night of this.

She said to Nina, “I saw you talking with Walter Winchell down front at the Copa.  He seemed to be giving you a pretty hard time.”

Nina laughed and shook her head, “No harder a time than I deserved, Miss Kilgallen.  He was just raking up some very old gossip about my family, that’s all.  I told him there was nothing to it.”

“Nothing to what?” Dorothy wanted to know.

“Oh, just some silly rumor about Sam not being Bobby’s father.  We might as well come clean with each other, Miss Kilgallen.  I saw you that day in the lobby of the St. Moritz.”

Dorothy Kilgallen thought to herself that Nina undoubtedly saw a great deal, and nothing was lost on her.  “Oh dear!” Dorothy said in mock dismay.  “And I thought I was hiding myself away so well!  I’m sorry I was eavesdropping, and I’m even more sorry that I was caught in the act.”  ‘All right,’ Dorothy thought, ‘that’s one layer of subterfuge removed between us.  Can I blow away the rest?’

Dorothy Kilgallen was not one to torture any living creature.  If a surgical cut had to be made, it should be made quickly, and the bleeding promptly stanched.  She was not without sympathy for Nina, but she had a job to do, and she would do it.  And so, to begin the operation, Dorothy reached for a small reporter’s notebook that she kept in her purse.  Nina sat before her, hands folded, as though at the reading of a will from which she did not expect to benefit.  Dorothy flipped open the notebook and read aloud the address in Harlem where Polly and Nina had resided until the birth of Walden Robert Cassotto.  She read the date and time of birth of the boy at Bellevue Hospital, and the names on the birth certificate, male infant, Walden Robert, weight seven pounds, eight ounces; mother, Nina Juliette Cassotto; father, no name given.  She read the name of the foundling hospital for unwed mothers where Nina and young Walden resided for a brief period after the delivery.  Finally, she read the address where Polly, Nina and Walden had moved to in the Bronx to begin their new life with Polly acting as mother and Nina as big sister to the newborn. 

Dorothy closed the notebook and slipped it back into her handbag.  Both women took up their cups and resumed drinking tea.  Nina lifted her eyes to meet Dorothy’s without flinching.  As Dorothy had surmised, there would be no pleading from Nina, no hysterics.  It was pointless to deny the facts that Dorothy had gathered, and she made no attempt to do so.  Suddenly, Dorothy herself felt exposed under the other woman’s gaze.  How many of us can stand naked in the light of day, with all of our secrets in the open, Dorothy wondered.

Finally Nina said, “Those addresses are available in old city directories, I suppose, but the birth certificate, that should be a private document, don’t you think?”  Nina held her head to one side to punctuate the question.

“In a perfect world, Mrs. Cassotto, they would be private,” Dorothy said, “but, as you know, we don’t live in a perfect world.”

“Mrs. Maffia,” Nina said, correcting her.  “Mrs. Cassotto was my mother’s name.”
“Yes,” Dorothy said, “Mrs. Maffia, of course, I beg your pardon.”

Nina gave a nod of her head to acknowledge the apology.  She considered what Dorothy had told her, smoothing her rumpled brown dress down against her generous lap.  “Can I ask what you intend to do with this information?”

Now, there was a question!  As Walter Winchell had put out feelers about Bobby Darin’s father, Dorothy had gone after whatever leads she could about his mother, thinking little of how, when, or if she might use what she found.  For gossip columnists, just knowing about things was almost better than writing about them.  They were all born with the natural curiosity of baby elephants, and if some people were crushed under their feet as they made their way to the truth, then that was simply the way of elephants.  If Dorothy had ever felt any squeamishness about the propriety of her calling, she had lost it long ago in her youth, the way a butcher, after much practice, does not shrink from eviscerating and dismembering a beef cow.  It was her occupation, no more, no less.  As a newspaper reporter and gossip columnist, many sad and sordid details of domestic life had come to her attention over the course of her career, and Dorothy was able to view them all with professional detachment.  In her time, Dorothy had recounted stories of ghastly poisonings, seduction of minor children, and killings for hire of family members.  Compared to these stories, the story of Nina and Polly’s deceit was a tame one, and all too common. 

Dorothy said, “It’s my job to investigate all sorts of things, more things than I can ever write about.”

Nina again considered what she was hearing.  “Fair enough,” she said, “now let me ask you something else.”

“Yes?” Dorothy said, leaning toward her guest across the tea tray.

“What is your opinion of Walter Winchell?”

Dorothy promptly replied, “I think Walter Winchell should be arrested for impersonating a journalist!”

Nina slapped her knee with satisfaction, the first she had been able to express since fleeing the Copa.  “Thanks, Miss Kilgallen, that’s what I needed to hear.”  She drained her teacup, tasting its contents for the first time.  A moment before they had been cat and mouse seated opposite one another, and in an instant, the electricity had been drained in the air between them.  They were two women sitting comfortably together.  The final surgical cut had yet to be administered, but Dorothy considered at this point that things were looking up for the patient.

“Tell me,” Dorothy said, “what Winchell said to you tonight that made you so unhappy.”

Continued in the next chapter

ID: 1472197   (Rated: 13+) The File on Bobby Darin, Chapter 19  Nina confides in Dorothy Kilgallen by Gisele