 Bobby Darren's brilliance, brashness, and good looks made him one of the country's top singers. In 1973, he entered Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles on December 11th to undergo open heart surgery to replace the two mechanical heart valves he had been fitted with in January 1971. A four-person surgical team spent the entire evening of December 19th working on fixing his injured heart. On December 20th, 1973, in the wee hours of the morning, Darren passed away in the recovery area without regaining consciousness. He was 37 at the time of his death.