Michael Bublé

What this episode covers

I can’t take any credit for Michael Bublé’s amazing worldwide success, unfortunately, but I can take credit for appreciating his talent very early on, in the early 1990s, when I went to see him sing at the BaBalu Nightclub in Vancouver. He was only a teenager, but he reminded me of Bobby Darin, who I love, and I figured he would achieve some measure of fame. Robin Brunet has a great story in Red Robinson: The Last Deejay: "Shortly after the Bobby Darin biopic Beyond The Sea commenced production, Bruce Allen told Robinson that Michael Bublé was being visited by Kevin Spacey nightly at the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York City, where the young singer was performing. 'Spacey keeps telling Bublé he reminds him of Bobby Darin,' Allen said. Robinson sent Bublé (who, in his pre-fame days, played an Elvis-type soda jerk in the stage hit about Robinson’s life, Red Rock Diner) a tape of an interview he had conducted with Darin. Part of the interview featured Darin doing spot-on imitations of celebrities such as Jack Benny and Walter Winchell, much the way Spacey would entertain people off-set decades later. Bublé gave the tape to Spacey when he next appeared at the Blue Note. 'He said he appreciated the gesture, and that was that,' says Robinson. 'Flash forward a year later: I’m with Carole and another couple at Hy’s steakhouse in Vancouver for my birthday. Carole is peering at a dark corner of the restaurant, and she nudges me: 'Do you see who that is? That’s Kevin Spacey.' Robinson got a waiter to give the actor his business card along with a note asking if he had listened to his interview with Darin. No sooner did they resume eating than Spacey appeared at their table. 'I’m sorry to interrupt, but I’m Kevin Spacey.' Carole, who has been exposed to more than her fair share of celebrities over the decades, looked at him from head to toe and beamed. 'Of course you are; who else would you be?'

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