Born: 14 May 1936
Died: 20 December 1973 (aged 37)
Real name: Walden Robert Cassotto
Darin was born in Harlem in New York. His maternal grandfather was a supposed mobster and would die in prison a year before Bobby was born. His mother was only 17 when he was born and he would end up being passed off as her younger brother. As a teenager he learned to play a number of instruments. At college he studied drama but dropped out to pursue an acting career. He adopted the stage name Darin after the actor Darren McGavin who played Mike Hammer on a TV show. In 1955 he met Don Kirshner and the 2 began writing jingles together and this led to him moving into song writing. He would write songs for Connie Francis and became romantically involved with her, but her father did not approve of him and the relationship floundered. He moved to Atco Records and on top of writing songs, he began recording. His first success came in 1958 with a song called ‘Splish Splash’ which went to number 3 in the US. He would go on to see a total of 41 US Hot 10 hits including a number 1 hit with ‘Mack The Knife’. He would manage 18 UK chart hits with both ‘Dream Lover’ and ‘Mack The Knife’ topping the charts there. Darin suffered from poor health throughout his life and in 1971 he had an implant of two artificial valves in his heart. Two years later he developed an infection in one of the valves and would die soon after having surgery without regaining consciousness.
| Date of entry | Song | Peak (weeks at 1) | Weeks |
| 01-Jan-1967 | If I Were A Carpenter | 5 | 10 |
| Total hits | 1 | ||
| Total weeks | 10 |
| Biggest climber awards | 1 |
| Star rater climbs | 3 |
| Biggest fallers | 0 |
| Weeks with oldest in the charts | 0 |
| Longest run in the charts (weeks) | 10 |
| Weeks with more than 1 in the charts | 0 |
| Biggest gap between hits (weeks) | 0 |
| Top 30 points ranking | =762 |
| Top 20 points ranking | =719 |
| Top 30 points | 202 |
| Top 20 points | 102 |
SA Singles Charts 