The File on Bobby Darin, Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Back at the Copa, the final show of Bobby Darin’s run had come to a close.  As Winchell had jumped onto the stage with him, Darin did not see Nina fleeing to the back of the room.  Dick and Bobby and some others in the band had known that no human force was going to keep Winchell off of the stage that evening, so they made no move to block him.  Winchell looked out over the crowd. 

What he said to them was this: “Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve been a Broadway columnist.  I’ve been a performer.  I’ve been in show business for 50 years.  I’ve seen everybody and everything.  There’s one thing that’s important in show business, and that’s class.  And here’s a man who has the class I’m talking about.”
Ronnie Zito shot a look to Dick Behrke from behind his drum set, and it was clear that they were thinking the same thing:  Who was Winchell praising, Bobby, or himself?

Bobby Darin bore up under this windy tribute well, mopping his neck with a handkerchief while he looked both proud and embarrassed.  He bowed deeply from the waist to the audience and said firmly “Good night, folks!”  He wanted to let them know that they could now make their escape from Winchell, who remained on the stage, scanning the patrons as they begin to pick up their belongings to depart.  It was the final night of the run, and Winchell could not help wondering if Bobby’s mystery father might have been sitting in the audience that evening to see what his boy had become?  It was tantalizing to speculate that Darin’s father could be very near at this very moment but giving no sign of his identity.

The well wishers who wanted to greet Darin after the show were directed upstairs to the Copa Lounge.  It had been decreed that no one would be allowed to Bobby’s dressing room this evening, so that he would be able to depart at his own convenience.  Bobby took some time to clean up and change his clothes with Charlie’s assistance before he went to the lounge to say his final good nights to everyone.  Their next engagement would be the Casino Royal in Washington, DC.

When Dick Behrke found him, Darin was already seated at the lounge piano, still going over the chord progression for I’ve Got A Woman.  Dick watched him for a moment with amusement before he said, “You never get sick of that one, do you?”

Bobby looked up at his friend with a small, winning smile on his face.  His brown eyes were shining with satisfaction.  “There is no ending for this song, Dick.”  He could see that unlike most nights, Darin was not going to immediately set about deconstructing the evening’s performance and showering the band with notes about what needed to be done better next time.  The Copa run had been a success, and congratulations all around were now in order.  There would be other engagements to tackle in the future, but tonight they could relax.

As Darin and his bandleader reviewed the evening with satisfaction, a tall, slightly stout man with thinning hair and a freckled face walked up to them.

The man looked at them both for a long moment before he said, simply, “Bobby!”

Darin jumped up from the piano bench and said, “Steve!” For it was Steve Blauner, Bobby’s manager, who had been missing in action since the first night at the Copa.
Steve stepped forward to embrace Darin with a crushing bear hug.  He lifted Bobby off the floor in his embrace, which was not difficult to do, as Blauner had a height advantage.  As he set Bobby back down on his own two feet, he said, “My boy, you have done it!  You have climbed Kilimanjaro.  You have planted your flag on the moon!  You have done—IT!”  He gave Bobby an appreciative slap on the back that all but sent him flying across the room as he continued to heap his praises upon him.

“Why, thanks, Steve, that means everything coming for you, it really does,” Darin said as cleared his throat to stymy a display of emotion and straightened out his disheveled jacket.  Steve Blauner smiled broadly and nodded as he made his way out of the lounge with Dick and Bobby watching his departure.

“Well,” Dick said at last, “I guess he’s back.”  He made a mental note to inquire of Steve about the stairs at the Casino Royal.

“I guess he is!”  Darin agreed.  The moths just could not stay away indefinitely from Bobby’s flame.  Counting among the moths who had never stayed away was Walter Winchell.  Dick spotted him teaching a dance called the Winchell Rumba to one of the cigarette girls on the tiny lounge dance floor.  How Winchell loved to dance!  The opportunities to do so were growing fewer with each passing year, and he was determined to lead a young beauty to a dance floor whenever possible.  But the cigarette girl needed to make her rounds, and there was Dorothy Kilgallen sitting at a booth, waving at Winchell to come and see her.  Out of professional courtesy, he felt obligated to answer her call.  He released the cigarette girl from his grasp to go about her business and made his way over to Dorothy.  As the father of the gossip column, Winchell never tired of reminding the younger generation that he had invented a job for them all.  Most of his fellow columnists bore these reminders with a fair amount of tolerance, though it did not exactly serve to endear Winchell to them. 

“Good evening, Dottie,” Winchell said, feeling just a bit pleasantly flushed coming from the dance floor.  “What brings you here tonight?”

Dorothy Kilgallen smiled and indicated for Walter to take a seat.  “Well, I was hoping to collect some thanks from you.”

Walter looked at her blankly.  “Thanks?  What for?”

Dorothy continued to smile as she said, “For giving you the Copa tickets when you thought wild horses wouldn’t drag you in here.”  Dorothy feigned a grumpy look and held a hand up to her jaw.  “Bobby Darin and the toothache in one day?  No!”

Winchell remembered that day, just three weeks ago, when Dorothy had visited his office at the Mirror.  Yes, it was true, he had been something less than gracious that day.  Winchell laughed and said, “I hope you never experience one-tenth of the problems that I’ve had with bad teeth.  But you are right, Dottie, I treated you badly, and I do apologize.  What can I do to make it up to you?”

Dorothy Kilgallen leaned forward a bit in her chair.  “I’ve been reading the background material on Bobby Darin, and there is something I’m confused about.  Just who are his people, anyway?” she wanted to know.  “I’ve seen both Charlie and Nina Maffia here at the Copa.  What about his parents?”

Walter felt a mild alarm which he in no way expressed.  He rested his blue eyes calmly on Dorothy while he waved to Dick Behrke from across the room.  “Well, you can get that information from someone who knows him best.”  Winchell had decided he did not want to get into an extended conversation with Dorothy on the subject of Darin. 

Dick, seeing himself summoned, made his way across the room to where Walter was seated with a woman whose name he was not immediately sure of, but it seemed to him that he had seen her before.  In just a moment he would realize that it was columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, who had long been a regular panelist on the TV quiz show What’s My Line.  He came up to the table and asked, “What can I do for you, Walter?”

Walter made the introductions.  “Dick, this is Dorothy Kilgallen of the Journal-American.  Dottie, this is Bobby’s bandleader and school chum, Dick Behrke.”
Dorothy and Dick both murmured hello’s.  Winchell pulled out a chair for Dick and said to him, “Dottie is interested in collecting some background information on Bobby, if you have a moment.”

Dick, always ready to do his bit for public relations, took his seat and briefly recited the information so familiar to him as a child, and now printed many times over in press releases and interviews, that Bobby’s father had died shortly before Bobby was born.  His mother Polly, who was devoted to him, had passed away within the last year, just as Bobby was getting ready to make it big.  It was a sad story, but it had a happy ending of success for Darin. 

“Yes,” Dorothy said, studying him thoughtfully.  “That’s what I’ve read too.  But I’m having a little trouble with it.  I wonder if I believe it?” It was not clear to Dick if this observation was directed at him or at Winchell, who sat motionless during this exchange.

Dick sat up straight in his chair.  He said quietly, “I guess you would need to ask Bobby about that.”

Kilgallen looked over at Bobby surrounded by a throng of noisy fans.  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, “Italian men, they can be pretty touchy on the subject of family.”

“I’m afraid I can’t be of any help to you,” Dick said, wondering how he could politely make his escape from these two bloodhounds.

“That’s all right, Dick,” Dorothy said, “Don’t worry about me, I’ll just keep working the room until I find what I need.”  She nodded at Walter as she closed her notebook and tapped it with the pen.  She looked perfectly ladylike and perfectly determined as she sat across the table studying Dick’s face for clues.

As he got up from the table, Dick said, “Please excuse me a minute, Miss Kilgallen, there is someone else I need to talk to.”

Dorothy smiled.  “That’s fine, Dick, I’ll be on the job, never fear.”  She watched as Dick paused to speak briefly to a waiter, then made his way back to their table.

“Just one more question for you, Dick, then I think I can let you go,” Dorothy said.  Again, Winchell was noncommittal.  Wasn’t he Bobby’s friend, Dick wondered?  ‘Or is that a stupid question?’ he asked himself.  Winchell had been around them so constantly during the Copa run, he too was beginning to fade into the background, with the thugs and the potted plants.  Dick thought to himself that he should have been more on his guard against Winchell.  And now here he was with Dorothy Kilgallen on his hands, asking questions.  Dick suddenly felt very tired, but he knew his evening was not over yet.

Dick said, “I don’t think we should talk here.  I’d like you both to come with me to the St. Moritz, if you don’t mind.”

Winchell wanted to stay to enjoy the festivities in the lounge.  He said to Dick, “Why would we do that?”

Dick looked sharply at Winchell, took a step closer to him and said quietly, “Because I don’t think we want to be seen talking right under Bobby’s nose.”  He paused to look at both Kilgallen and Winchell. 

Dorothy gave Winchell a look that plainly said, ‘The boy is crazy,’ but she said nothing.

Dick continued speaking quietly so as to not attract attention.  “I’ve seen both of you hanging around here this week, trying to interview everyone in the place from Mr. Podell right down to the busboys.  You both tried to talk to Charlie, and I know that that was a complete waste of time!  Please, let’s just go to the St. Moritz and get this over with now.”

The two of them seemed reluctant at first, but as Dick had surmised, their curiosity got the best of them, and they simply had to follow him out of the room.  The place was so full at that point, Bobby did not even notice that they were gone.  Dick had arranged for a taxi to be waiting out front to take them the short distance to the St. Moritz.  As they rode, he kept up a steady stream of observations about the weather, about the city heat, about the upcoming Democratic National Convention to be held in Los Angeles, anything except the topic that he knew most interested his companions.  He had their attention now, and he knew they would not stray from him.

The lobby of the St. Moritz was deserted.  The bar was closing up.  Dick could not help but think of how he had been delivered here against his will the day Bobby had taken ill.  That seemed so long ago now.  On that day, he done everything that had been asked of him.  Today, Dick would be calling the shots.  He conducted his two guests past the startled bartender as he was closing up for the night.  “Sam,” he said as they passed by in a group, “we need the back room!”  Not waiting for a response, he steered Kilgallen and Winchell to the back of the bar.  Once they had some after-hours drinks brought into them, Dick seated himself at a table across from the two news hounds.
“I want you both to know that I’ve seen you trying to pick up some dope on Bobby this week.  I know he would be very annoyed if he became aware of this, and I’m asking you both to just please lay off.”

Kilgallen and Winchell began to protest in unison about merely doing their jobs, giving the public what they want, and so on.  Dick put up a hand and said, “I know, I realize that, believe me.  Celebrities live for publicity, sure.  People like reading about them.  But celebrities are people too, and before you go any further turning over stones to see what’s under them, I just want to ask you to stop and think how this might affect people who never asked to be famous.”

Walter Winchell was impressed.  He had not heard Dick say so many words in one breath since he first met him.  He was looking out for Bobby, and that was to be expected.  He admired him for being a loyal friend.  However, that admiration would certainly not stop Winchell from doing his job.

Dorothy leaned forward to speak to Dick.  “If Bobby has any secrets, we may not be able to control what comes out, even if we don’t publish what we already know.”  This statement got Walter’s attention.  What did Kilgallen know?  He certainly could not ask this while Dick was present.

Dick was not to be drawn in to a debate about this.  “IF Bobby has any secrets, and I don’t know that he does, I would guess that they are not his alone, but involve other people.  Other people who don’t deserve to be stripped naked in a newspaper column.”

Winchell dismissed this notion with an impatient toss of his head.  “Nothing stays secret forever, Dick.  Someone always talks!”

“But not everybody talks,” Dick Behrke replied, remembering his conversations with Polly in the back room at Baruch Place.  What he learned from Polly, which he would never divulge to anyone, had made the events of the preceding days not so very surprising to Behrke.  He was not sure exactly what these two people knew or thought they knew.  It might already be too late to stop them from broadcasting what they had learned.  Dick felt as though he was holding up his hand in front of a storm, asking it to stop.  This was most likely a futile gesture, but he could tell himself that at least he had tried. 

“I want you two to hash this out between you.  See if you can find some excuse for acting like human beings and not,” he groped to find the correct term, “not gossip columnists!”  With this, Dick rose from the table, downed his drink, and left the two startled news hounds together.  He barely managed to suppress a coughing fit induced by the liquor until he had gotten out of the room.  This Copa run had certainly added a lot more depth to Dick’s resumé.  He wondered, as he made his way back to Bobby at the Copa Lounge, if his newfound experience with firearms, gangsters and gossip columnists would serve him at all in his future as a bandleader. 

Walter Winchell and Dorothy Kilgallen sat in stunned silence for a moment as they heard Dick making his way through the bar and out to the lobby.

Finally, Dorothy burst out into a laugh that she had been trying to suppress for several minutes, as she had no wish to step on Dick Behrke’s impressive exit from the scene.  To the air formally occupied by Behrke, she said, “And the mountain gives birth to a mouse!” 

Walter tipped his fedora back further on his head than usual and agreed.  “I guess he just meant to get us away from Bobby, and he succeeded.”

Dorothy turned to Walter and said, “It’s true, I came to the Copa tonight hoping to find you, because I need to talk to you.  But I didn’t mean for Behrke to get mixed up into it, poor fish!”

Winchell looked at the door through which Dick had taken his leave.  “He’s a very nice kid,” he said, “and I know he has put up with a lot.  You’re right, he’s Bobby’s friend, and he doesn’t deserve to be mixed up in the middle of this.”  Then he turned to Kilgallen and said, “Okay, Dottie, let’s get down to brass tacks.  You were always the most level-headed one of the female gossip hounds.”

Dorothy drew up her mouth into a mock pout and said, “Oh Walter, I don’t want to be known as the level-headed one.  I want to be known as the adorable one!”

Continued in the next chapter

ID: 1472940   (Rated: ASR) The File on Bobby Darin, Chapter 21  Bobby at the Casino Royal, Washington, DC by Gisele