Truth or Darin

Image credit: Kevin Spacey: DV535/ZBP/ZUMA Press/Newscom

OUR BOY'S DONE SOMETHING RASH Spacey will star as Darin

Kevin Spacey has been talking for five years about playing 1950s and '60s pop icon Bobby Darin in a biopic. Now, he tells Variety, the project is finally getting off the ground, having finally found financing for what he says is the film's ''considerable'' budget. He says he'll direct and star in ''Beyond the Sea'' in June.

Darin, whose hits included ''Beyond the Sea,'' ''Mack the Knife,'' ''Splish Splash,'' and ''Dream Lover,'' was a Grammy-winning performer who straddled the worlds of early rock & roll and traditional pop. He also made movies (he was nominated for an Oscar for his supporting role in 1963's ''Captain Newman, M.D.'') and married the actress Sandra Dee. Spacey is expected to sing several Darin hits in the movie.

Spacey, a Darin fan who has sung ''That Old Black Magic'' at seemingly every opportunity -- during a stint hosting ''Saturday Night Live,'' at benefits, and even on the soundtrack of ''Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil'' -- is 43, six years older than Darin was when he died of complications from a lifelong heart ailment after surgery in 1973. He tells Variety, ''Bobby always looked a little older -- but if I waited any more I might be too old.''