Dream Lovers: The Magnificent Shattered Lives of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee - by Their Son Dodd Darin Hardcover – September 29, 1994

This book is best for fans of Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin and they were before my time. But "Dream Lovers" is such a fascinating, detailed piece of social history and psychology that it's worth your while. As others have noted, Dodd Darin is unsparing about the troubled people who made up his family - his mother, father and grandmother Mary Douvan - and plows new ground in laying out their incredible flaws yet describing how much he loved them. In the end, Mary Douvan is the most sinister character - in part because Dodd both loved her so much and yet was forced to confront what he calls her "evil." Mary Douvan had to have known her husband was raping Sandra Dee beginning when she was just 8, but for some reason seemingly allowed & encouraged it. Dodd faces what we all have to face at some point if we are as brave as he is; that people can be both good and bad and life is about navigating those qualities in others and ourselves. Pretty damn impressive that Dodd himself turned out so well!

The story is extremely interesting to read especially if you love nostalgia and like to reminisce about old times and the great music way back when . . . Dodd Darin wrote an excellent story about his parents, I just couldn't put the book down. I plan to give the book to a dear friend who loves Bobby Darin and she is so excited. After reading the story I ordered the movie Beyond the Sea (2002) so we can watch it again. I've had a Bobby Darin Collection (CD) of 31 songs and now I'm listening to it again all the time, he was an awesome singer. I was just getting out of high school when Bobby became famous, we loved bopping around to his music. What a story, it is definitely magnificent and so very interesting, extraordinary, and sad. Dodd is to be commended for such honesty and creativeness. Way to go, Dodd!!! I guess you can call me a Dream Lover.

I have just started the book but am very pleased with it. It even arrived days earlier than expected. I would order from this seller again. The book was listed as Good - Used. It looked like it had just been printed.

So very interesting, this bio. Two people - one a flawed and damaged young man with extraordinary musical and theatrical abilities, a real artist. Bobby Darin had natural talents that were astounding, and he had a mind and drive that were unusual. Raised by people both completely supportive, and sacrificing for his sake, as well as faulty and very imperfect human beings. Then, too surrounded by sycophants and exploitative types, along with Darin himself being so unusual, demanding, and idiosyncratic, led to an up and down career and a difficult life. His personal limitations, the illness and emotional traumas are achingly sad.His love, his wife, Sandra Dee -- a lovely young girl, in some ways exploited by the adults around her, and thrust into adulthood with a skewed view of women, females, life roles (and acting roles). She had too much princess-treatment, infantilizing treatment, and controlling dynamics, on the film set, and from the people who should have done better at helping her mature, at truly caring about her. Not near enough of the right kind of support and understanding to help her feel solidly grounded, stronger, as she came into adulthood. Sandra Dee had so much natural ability and sensitivity - the curse and blessing combined. These experiences, and these lacks, led to her downfall ... and her dramatic abilities, and talents, ended up too little explored.Their story could not have been delivered, or written, by anyone better than their son. The candor and honesty, the attempt (fulfilled better than anyone else could have done) for truth is impressive. As the story makes its way into his adulthood, the feeling of a need to support Dodd Darin emotionally, psychologically, and thank him for this work, is compelling. Few authors have had to go through as much as he has to deliver this book.A fascinating story full of triumphs and tragic turns, and, for any young person who has talent and the drive to be in any aspect of the entertainment business and art, a cautionary tale beyond compare. This is a 4.5 star book, with only half a star not given because this reader saves that for truly extraordinary writing.

The toxicity of celebrity, the tremendous energy of the hungry soul to attain it, are on every page of this brilliantly sane book, by Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee’s son, about his star power-couple parents. Dee suffered almost complete stunting, from early childhood, at the hands of a terrified, hungry, clueless mother, predator stepfather. She was ripe for exploitation by Hollywood when her mother took her there and ruled her career. Darin fared slightly better, self- directed to win his way out of poverty and childhood frailty ( rheumatic heart). I always thought he was inexplicably undervalued- I loved his style & vocal chops. But he too was driven by unappeased hunger and got lost. This story is bearable only because it ends in this unflinching, compassionate view of parents by their only child. I’m so glad I read it on an impulse -(Bobby Darin? Give it to me!) It will stay with me a long time.