Bobby Rydell cheated death 10 years ago —
but on Tuesday, death finally caught up with him.
The Philadelphia-born singer, christened Robert Louis Ridarelli, died from pneumonia a few weeks before his 80th birthday.
The 1950s teen idol, who matured into a master interpreter of songs, was at death’s door in 2012. That’s when a last-minute liver and kidney transplant saved his life. The health struggles made him appreciate his life and music even more.
“Of course,” Rydell told me in an interview in The Villages after a show in 2016. “If I would have passed away in the OR, that would have been one thing. Now…I’m still able to do what I love to do—and that’s performing. Because if that would have stopped, I probably would have taken a gun and shot myself. But now I have a second chance.”
Bobby Rydell not only had a wonderful life but a glorious career that lasted nearly seven decades.
The kid who came of age with rock and roll –with songs like “Wild One,” evolved into a smooth, sophisticated singer with hits like “Volare.”
Even in the twilight of his life, Rydell knew how to put on a show and please an audience. That was evident in 2016, when –despite the flu – he played The Sharon in The Villages.
It was a remarkable effort by a tough, South Philly kid who understood what a performer owes an audience.
Before the show he took a needle where it hurts.
“I visited a clinic here and it really helped me,” Rydell said on stage, in a hoarse voice with a sore throat, having been sick for two days. “They gave me a Z-Pak; some B-12 and a shot in the butt. I’m a mess.”
I’ve covered many concerts, but this effort was special, close to courageous. “Rydell’s gritty and inspired performance came from the heart – not the meds,” I wrote.
Clark Barrios, popular Villages’ singer, told me: “Tonight, Bobby Rydell showed what being a professional entertainer is all about. He wasn’t feeling well, and he was hurting. But Bobby knows the show must go on. I think every young performer learned a lesson tonight. That was a great performance by a real pro.”
After the show, I was able to talk to Rydell. A few days before, I had reviewed his deeply moving, brutally honest biography “Teen Idol on the Rocks,” co-written with Allan Slutsky.
The book details his rise to fame with Dick Clark and hits like “Swinging School,” “We Got Love” and “Forget Him.” He was part of the pre-Beatles teen-idol era, with singers like Frankie Avalon and Fabian.
Rydell also earned immortality in the musical “Grease” where the high school is called “Rydell High.” He appeared with Ann Margret and Dick Van Dyke in the 1963 film “Bye Bye Birdie.”
Rydell told me, ironically, that one of his favorite songs, “is one I never do. It’s called ‘I’ll Never Dance Again.’ It was a great record but I never do it. I don’t have an arrangement of it.”
Rydell’s life grew dark in the 1990s and early 2000s, when his wife, Camille, was in the final stages of cancer. She died in 2003.
“I began drinking heavily, particularly after my shows,” Rydell wrote. “I was enjoying my new, alcohol-fueled lifestyle….I had no answers for the way I was living my life.”
Rydell’s life began to turn around in 2009, when he married Linda Hoffman. He wrote that he was still drinking, but in 2012, was able to kick booze. In the summer of that year, Rydell was told he had only a few weeks to live. In July, a 21-year old woman named Julia was killed when hit by a car.
She donated her organs. Rydell received them, and part of her liver was donated to a 4-year old girl. Both survived. “I never met Julia but I call Julia my special angel,” Rydell told me.
He became a crusader for people to sign-up to donate their organs, when they renew their driver licenses.
“Do it for me,” Rydell said on stage. “I know from personal experience that it truly is the gift of life.”
After his show in The Villages, I asked Rydell to try and put Julia’s sacrifice in perspective.
“Listen, I’m 74, I’ve lived my life. I would have been dead in two weeks if I didn’t get a liver. But what I’m most proud of is Assiah (Phinisee, the little girl who also had the transplant).”
“Assiah was only four years old. She didn’t live her life. Now, she’s got a new liver, and she can live her life.”
Rydell’s life was so much deeper and challenging than it appeared. The transplant changed him, but the essence of the man was his music, and that remained the same.
“Bobby is eternally grateful to be alive,” Allan Slutsky, who co-wrote Rydell’s book, told me. “But Bobby still has a daily fight with his demons, and it’s a struggle. A lot of things that happened to him in his life have left scars.”
On a Villages’ stage, Rydell, struggling with the flu, displayed the power of music and the will of a man that showed much more than talent. “Bobby’s a fighter,” Alan Slutsky said.
“You grow up in South Philly, and you have to be street-wise,” Rydell told me. “You have to know how to handle yourself.”
He did just that for most of his life and the past 10 years are a testament to the man and his music.
Bobby Rydell wasn’t about to blow his new lease on life “I’ve got this second chance and of course it means more,” Rydell said with a smile that glowed with grace and gratitude.
