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Beyond the Sea Latest News

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The life of crooner/actor Bobby Darin is presented as part fact, part fiction and much fantasy. It is framed around a biopic being filmed about and starring Darin as himself, with he being surrounded by many of his lifelong entourage from the Bronx. In that fantasy, the young actor portraying him as a child in the biopic emerges as his true younger self, questioning, knowing all, if his adult self wants the biopic to be all sugar and roses, as is the want of his manager, Steve Blauner, or if he wants to tell the truth. Regardless, what is presented of his life includes: his sickly childhood - where he was not expected to survive past his teens - with his vaudevillian mother, Polly Cassotto, his musical mentor, and his much older sister, Nina Cassotto, both who ultimately lived vicariously through his fame; his early singing career where the ultimate goal was not to rival but surpass the fame of Frank Sinatra; the meeting of who would become his wife, already famous actress Sandra Dee - his costar in his first movie role - he needing to win over her protective stage mother, Mary Douvan, to get to Sandra; their turbulent marriage due to the competing priorities of work and family, and their respective egos not allowing each to celebrate the other's success; his turn to political activism in the late 1960s during the changing times when his style of music was no longer in vogue; what affected his thoughts of running for political office himself; and how he tried to reinvent his singer self in the early 1970s.

Spacey's Spacy Co-Starlet

When Kevin Spacey was pitching Beyond the Sea — his biopic about '50s pop idol Bobby Darin, which opens tomorrow — the big Hollywood studios all asked him the same question: "Who's heard of Bobby Darin?" As it turns out, Spacey's costar in the film, Kate Bosworth, had the same reaction when she first met with Spacey to discuss the project. "He told me, 'I'm doing this movie about Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee,'" the 21-year-old actress remembers. "I was like, 'Sandra Dee from Grease? You're making a remake of Grease?' He said no and then drew me into their story." Despite her lack of firsthand knowledge about yesteryear's teen heartthrobs — and the fact that Dee is mentioned in a Grease song but wasn't actually in the movie — Bosworth was Spacey's first choice for the part. That's largely because, he says, of her "mature face." According to Spacey, her grown-up look helped overcome

Thu, Dec 16, 2004

Brenda Blethyn's Broadway Dreams

Since her breakout role in 1996's Secrets & Lies, Brenda Blethyn has found steady work in both British and American films. Next up, she appears in Kevin Spacey's Beyond the Sea as '50s crooner Bobby Darin's mother. Despite her big-screen success, this theater veteran's heart still belongs to the stage. "I love the theater," says the 58-year-old actress, who's currently headlining with Sopranos star Edie Falco on Broadway in a revival of Marsha Norman's acclaimed play 'night, Mother. "The show is going fabulously well. We've had a standing ovation every single performance, except for one when the air-conditioning was up too high. There's a lot of laughter. You'd be forgiven for thinking it was a comedy — and then you hear it kind of turn. It's just a wonderful play." The Broadway gig is a dream come true for Blethyn, a regular fixture on the London stage since the '70s, when she joined the pre

Wed, Dec 1, 2004