Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been trying to get through the story of the singer Bobby Darin — of Splish Splash, Dream Lover, Queen of the Hop (my personal favorite), Beyond the Sea and Mack the Knife fame — and his stormy, doomed marriage to teen star Sandra Dee (of the Gidget and Tammy movies, among others).

After seeing the rather creepish biopic Beyond the Sea, starring a far-too-old Kevin Spacey as Darin (but it was Spacey’s own project, and reportedly Darin was his idol), I was curious about their relationship. Their son, Dodd, wrote the painful tribute back in 1994, a decade before his mother’s death. Darin died way too young, only making it to his 37th birthday before succumbing to a congenital heart disorder.

The most striking and tragic thread is how unbelievably unprepared Sandy was for adult life. Playing much older girls in film, and therefore giving the public the impression she was older, the 16-year-old married Darin — eight years her senior — in 1960. Soon after, Dodd Mitchell Darin was born. Up until she met Bobby on a film set, Sandra was completely controlled and sheltered by her mother. She’d never made a decision on her own. She didn’t know how to make a cup of coffee for herself, or navigate her way around a city. Bobby, on the other hand, was raised Brooklyn-poor (born Walden Robert Cassotto), but grew up pampered and spoiled because of his constant illnesses.

The story around who his mother really was would blow anyone’s mind. Make ’em cuckoo. So you can imagine the dysfunction when these two souls were thrown together.

So sad. If I had time this morning, I’d delve deeper into other revelations (such as Bobby’s unrivaled cruelty to some of his fans — the very people who put him at the top of the charts and paid to see his movies), but…I must be going. Faculty meeting this morning, yay.

Grab this book if you like bios — it’s a head shaker.

All right, I drank the Kool-Aid.

After hearing about it on the news and giving in to my gnawing sense of nosy, I Nooked (hey, I just made up a new verb) Once Upon a Secret, the new memoir by Mimi Alford, detailing her love affair with President Kennedy. Although I’ve only read a little over half of the 160-some pages, I’m already feeling a bit creepish. There’s just something…I dunno…incongruent about the whole thing.

Mimi was raised in a healthy, wealthy, straight-laced, happy WASP family on a sprawling colonial farm in New Jersey. She went to preppy schools and learned preppy ways and attended preppy debutante balls and had preppy dreams of marrying and having preppy children after getting a preppy education at the all-girl Miss Porter’s School in Farmington, Connecticut. Jackie Kennedy, an alum of the same school, indirectly influenced Mimi’s being invited to Washington to intern for a summer. This is, of course, where she met JFK, and where all her preppy, straight-laced, good-girl training went down the john tubes in a matter of hours. Literally, hours. By her fourth day there, the 19-year-old was doing the deed with the Philanderer-in-Chief.

So far, the prose is littered with “I don’t regret it,”  “I didn’t see myself as a home wrecker, but rather someone for the President to be with while his wife was away,” “I couldn’t say no,” and allusions to her naïveté. Gotta admit, some of it just doesn’t ring true, and honestly, it indicts her character in 2012 more than invokes pity for her lovesick confusion back in ’62.

In her defense, however, she didn’t let the cat out of the bag (save for a small circle of confidants) all these many years, until 2003, when a reporter in New York uncovered some evidence and threatened to go public. Long story short: She decided to tell the tale her way, rather than have people linger on in assumption purgatory.

Still, her insistence on having no feelings of remorse (at least so far) is troubling. She’s a respected businesswoman, working for a large church. She grew up,  married, and had children. It’s bothering me ever so slightly (and I ain’t no prude, mind) that she wants this book to be a legacy of sorts for her grandchildren, when it’s so heavily laced with repeated disregard for Jackie and her kids. I know that Jackie knew about her husband’s proclivities, and turned a blind eye to most of it; in many ways, it was as much Jackie’s fault, and the way of the times, but still. So far, to me, the memoir has some backfire to it.

Oh well. I’ll keep reading to see if it gets better, but right now, it’s kind of uncomfortable. Like peeping. Heh.

Is it Friday yet? BLAAAAAAH

FO

But I really want to know: What are you reading right now? I’ve recently gleaned much pleasure from taking the advice of family and friends on book choices. Always open to suggestions.

OK, I’ll start and you chime in. The Nook is taking a rest while I actually hold a physical book, and this one’s a doozy at 600-some pages in hardback. I picked it up on sale at B & N the other day, and for a celeb bio, it’s just OK. The title — Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America — is a bit of a reach, isn’t it? I mean, the guy only made a handful of movies to begin with, and he hasn’t been filmed in almost 20 years. Compare that to his contemporaries of the time: Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman, Woody Allen, Clint Eastwood. Hm.

Of his filmography, I’ve seen Bonnie and Clyde, Reds, Shampoo, Heaven Can Wait, Dick Tracy and Bugsy. I saw his breakout film, Splendor in the Grass, years ago, but I don’t remember much about it other than his character, Bud, being a self-absorbed louse. Compared to what the aforementioned actors have accomplished in the same time span (roughly 50 years), I can’t say that I necessarily agree with Beatty’s alleged seduction of the country. Now, seduction of actresses in the country (and the world) — that’s a totally different kettle of fish. If they had an Olympic event for that, shewww…

Still, it’s fascinating how easily he rose to fame, as if the cosmos directed the ascent. And he was an absolute doll to look at, no arguing that point. The fact that he’s been married to the same woman (actress Annette Bening, his first and only wife) since 1992 is admirable, too, especially by Hollywood standards. All that being said, I was a bit disappointed that there is no insight into his present-day life (this was by design and agreement ahead of time), and several of the key players in Beatty’s prior life would not cooperate. That, to me, gives the book a Kitty Kelley-esque flavor, which isn’t the greatest attribute when you’re writing an authorized bio. At least Beatty himself agreed to be interviewed.

Some facts you might find interesting, providing you are A) a classic film buff of any age, B) over 50, or C) either or both:

1. Henry Warren Beatty is Shirley MacLaine’s little brother. Their surname is actually “Beaty,” the spelling of which Warren altered when too many people were pronouncing his last name “Beet-y.” MacLaine is their mom’s maiden name.
2. Warren was incredibly difficult to work with on set, mostly due to his exasperating tendency to “think things to death.” More than a few directors wanted to jump off buildings because of Beatty’s constant over-analysis and unrelenting questioning of motivation and line deliveries.
3. His first Hollywood conquest was the beautiful Joan Collins, whom I believe had just as much in the gorgeous department as Liz Taylor back then. He left her for Natalie Wood, followed by a hundred others, one of which got him into a lot of trouble.

I’m only partway through, so I’ll save my final judgment for the last page. I’m enjoying it well enough, until I decide to download the next installment of The Dresden Files.

So…what are you reading? Give us a title and brief commercial. Maybe I’ll end up reading it, too.

Not a grain or a morsel or a modicum. But truth, right in your face.

For the first time in, oh, fifteen years or so, I watched the Oprah Winfrey show, tuning in yesterday completely by accident while confined to the couch. It was an amazing revelation.

Like many of my friends (and UNlike 99% of the men I know), weight issues have ruled my consciousness — indeed, my very existence — since I was a young teenager. Concern gave way to obsession, and as is almost always the case, obsession bred despair. Losing and gaining the same 25 pounds every six months since 1980 can take a toll on a person.

Enter Oprah and her guest, author Geneen Roth. When she told the audience that Roth’s book “opened [her] eyes” and allowed her to make sense of everything surrounding her 40-year battle with weight, I was curious. Cuz girls, you know it ain’t about food, or being hungry. It’s never about being physically hungry for people like us, is it? There’s always a hidden agenda with food.

As is Oprah’s style, she made sure everyone in attendance had read the book as well, and audience members were definitely part of the show. There were many personal stories that sounded awfully familiar. Several women had been charged with videotaping themselves going through their daily routines for a week or whatever. Wow. Revealing. Even more shocking were the admissions by some women that when they lost a hundred pounds, they were still unhappy. To someone like me (the last time I wore a size 7 was 1974), that was a difficult concept around which to wrap my reptilian brain. It was then that I decided I must see what is in this book.

And although what Roth gives in the way of practical tips isn’t necessarily new to repeat diet offenders, seeing and hearing how the book changed people on a non-food level was new to me — and believe me, fiends, I’ve read every diet book ever published. Much of what she said was highly personal with regard to figuring out why those of us who run the diet treadmill always fail. (Again – it’s *never* about the food itself; food is just the drug of choice to numb or escape other, more sinister issues.) You can read a partial transcript on Oprah’s site.

Heavy.

So I ordered it from half.com. I’m totally disappointed it wasn’t available for the Nook, though. What’s up with that? #1 on the NYT Bestseller List, and you can’t download it? Sheesh. Guess I’ll have to just open the thing and turn the pages myself. The nerve. Anyway, I’ll provide a review in the near future. I know there’s no magic bullet in this fight, but what I heard yesterday suggests that there are ways to move emotional roadblocks that habitually impede progress. That would be a step in the right direction for many of us.

Hey, it’s Tubesday. One day closer to school starting. It’s this time of year when I’d just as soon get the days overwith so I can get going. May as well jump into the fire right now as delay the inevitable. Hot tea, soup, and a bowl of oatmeal all day yesterday, and I still feel like ten miles of bad road. That just bites, honestly. Maybe it’s a tooma.

FO