Sandra Dee

Sandra Dee (born Alexandra Zuck; April 23, 1942 – February 20, 2005) was an American actress. Dee began her career as a child model, working first in commercials, and then film in her teenage years. Best known for her portrayal of ingénues, Dee earned a Golden Globe Award as one of the year's most promising newcomers for her performance in Robert Wise's Until They Sail (1958). She became a teenage star for her subsequent performances in Imitation of Life and Gidget (both 1959), which made her a household name.[1]

Sandra Dee
Dee in 1959
Born
Alexandra Zuck

(1942-04-23)April 23, 1942
Bayonne, New Jersey, U.S.
DiedFebruary 20, 2005(2005-02-20) (aged 62)
Thousand Oaks, California, U.S.
Resting placeForest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills
Other namesSandra Douvan
EducationHollywood Professional School
OccupationActress, model
Years active1957–1983
Spouse(s)
​
(
m. 1960; div. 1967)
Children1

By the late 1960s, her career had started to decline, and a highly publicized marriage to Bobby Darin (m. 1960–1967) ended in divorce. The year of her divorce, Dee's contract with Universal Pictures was dropped. She attempted a comeback with the 1970 independent horror film The Dunwich Horror, but rarely acted after this time, appearing only occasionally in television productions throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Dee's final years were marred by illness, and she died in 2005 of complications from kidney disease, brought on by a lifelong struggle with anorexia nervosa.

Life and career

1942–1951: Early life

Dee was born Alexandra Zuck on April 23, 1942 in Bayonne, New Jersey,[2] the only child of John Zuck and Mary (née Cymboliak) Zuck, who met as teenagers at a Russian Orthodox church dance. They married shortly afterward, but divorced before Sandra was five years old.[3][4] She was of Carpatho-Rusyn ancestry,[5] and raised in the Russian Orthodox faith.

Her son, Dodd Darin, wrote in his biographical book about his parents, Dream Lovers, that Dee's mother, Mary, and her aunt Olga "were first generation daughters of a working-class Russian Orthodox couple."[5] Dee recalled, "we belonged to a Russian Orthodox Church, and there was dancing at the social events."[5] Alexandra would soon take the name Sandra Dee. She became a professional model by the age of 4 and subsequently progressed to television commercials.

There has been some dispute as to Dee's actual birth year, with evidence pointing to both 1942 and 1944. Legal records, including her California divorce record from Bobby Darin, as well as the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) and her own gravestone all give her year of birth as 1942. In a 1967 interview with the Oxnard Press-Courier, she acknowledged being 18 in 1960 when she first met Bobby Darin, and the couple wed three months later.[6] According to her son's book, Dee was born in 1944, but, having begun modelling and acting at a very young age, she and her mother falsely inflated her age by two years so she could find more work.[5] Dee's parents divorced in 1950, and her mother then married a man who had been sexually abusing Sandra and continued to do so after he married her mother.[7]

1952–1956: Modeling career

Producer Ross Hunter claimed to have discovered Dee on Park Avenue in New York City with her mother when she was twelve years old.[1] In a 1959 interview, Dee recalled that she "grew up fast", surrounded mostly by older people, and was "never held back in anything [she] wanted to do".[8]

During her modeling career, Dee attempted to lose weight to "be as skinny as the high-fashion models", although an improper diet "ruined [her] skin, hair, nails—everything". Having slimmed down, her body was unable to digest any food she ate, and it took the help of a doctor to regain her health. According to the actress, she "could have killed [herself]" and "had to learn to eat all over again".[8] In spite of the damaging effects on her health, Dee earned a generous $75,000 in 1956 ($705,000 today) working as a child model in New York, which she used to support herself and her mother after the death of her stepfather. According to sources, Dee's large modeling salary was more than she would later come to earn as an actress.[7]

1957–1958: Early films and Universal contract

Ending her modeling career, Dee moved from New York to Hollywood in 1957. After studying at the Hollywood Professional School, she graduated from University High School in Los Angeles in June 1958. Dee's onscreen debut was in the 1957 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) film Until They Sail, directed by Robert Wise.[9] To promote the film, Dee appeared in a December issue of Modern Screen in a column by Louella Parsons, who praised the young girl and compared her looks and talent to those of Shirley Temple.[7] Her performance made her one of that year’s winners of the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress.[10]

MGM cast her as the female lead in The Reluctant Debutante (1958), with John Saxon as her romantic co-star was, the first of several films they made together. She provided the voice for The Snow Queen (1957). Despite or because of her newfound success, and the effects of sexual abuse, Dee continued to struggle with anorexia nervosa, which led to her kidneys temporarily shutting down.[7]

In 1958, Dee was signed with Universal Pictures, and was one of the company's last contract players prior to the dissolution of the old studio system[11] She had a lead role in The Restless Years (1958) for producer Ross Hunter, opposite Saxon and Teresa Wright. She followed this with another for Hunter, A Stranger in My Arms (1959).

1959–1965: Stardom
Dee in Imitation of Life (1959)

Dee's third film for Hunter had the biggest impact: Imitation of Life (1959), opposite Lana Turner.[1] The film became a wild box office success, grossing over $50 million.[12] At the time, it was Universal Pictures's highest-grossing film in history, and made Dee a household name.[1] She was subsequently loaned to Columbia Pictures to play the titular role in the teenage beach comedy Gidget (1959),[13] which was a solid hit, helping spawn the beach party genre and leading to two sequels, two television series and two television movies (although Dee did not appear in any of these). For a complete change of pace, Universal cast her opposite Audie Murphy in a Western romantic comedy, The Wild and the Innocent (1959), playing a tomboy.[14] Warner Bros. borrowed her for another melodrama in the vein of Imitation of Life, A Summer Place (1959), opposite Troy Donahue as her romantic co-star. The film was a massive hit, and that year U.S. box office exhibitors voted her the 16th most popular star in the country.[15]

Hunter reunited Dee with Lana Turner and John Saxon in Universal's Portrait in Black (1960), a thriller that was a financial success despite receiving harsh reviews.[16] Dee was the nation's seventh biggest star at the end of 1960.[15] Peter Ustinov used her as the lead in the Cold War comedy Romanoff and Juliet (1961). Her romantic co-star was Universal's new heartthrob John Gavin, reuniting them from Imitation of Life.[17]

Dee and Gavin played together again in producer Hunter’s Tammy Tell Me True (1961), where Dee took over the Tammy role originated by Debbie Reynolds.[17] It was popular; even more so was Come September (1961), where she worked with Bobby Darin in his major film acting debut (following a cameo in an earlier movie). She and Darin married after filming, on December 1, 1960.[18] On December 16, 1961, she gave birth to their son, Dodd Mitchell Darin (also known as Morgan Mitchell Darin).[19]

In 1961, Dee still had three years on her Universal contract. She signed a new one for seven years.[20] The newlyweds Dee and Darin appeared together in the Hunter romantic comedy If a Man Answers (1962). She appeared in the final "Tammy" film, Tammy and the Doctor (1963). She had another big hit in the comedy Take Her, She's Mine (1963),[17] playing a character loosely based on Nora Ephron. That year, she was voted the 8th biggest star in the country; it would be her last appearance in the top ten.[15] I'd Rather Be Rich (1964)[17] was a musical remake of It Started with Eve, once again for producer Ross Hunter. She was reunited with Darin in That Funny Feeling (1965), then appeared in her last film at Universal under her contract with the spy comedy, A Man Could Get Killed (1966).[17] Dee was also a singer and recorded some singles in the early 1960s including a cover version of 'When I Fall In Love'.

1966–1983: Career decline and later roles
Dee and Dean Stockwell in The Dunwich Horror (1970)

By the end of the 1960s, Dee's career had slowed significantly, and she was dropped by Universal Pictures.[21] Dee rarely acted following her 1967 divorce from Bobby Darin.[22] In a 1967 interview with Roger Ebert, Dee reflected on her experience in the studio system, and on the ingénue image that had been foisted on her, which she found constricting:

Look at this––[a] cigarette. I like to smoke. I'm 25 years old, and it so happens that I like to smoke. So out in Hollywood the studio press agents are still pulling cigarettes out of my hand and covering my drink with a napkin whenever my picture is taken. Little Sandra Dee isn't supposed to smoke, you know. Or drink. Or breathe.[23]

She made a comedy at MGM, Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding! (1967) which was a mild success. Ross Hunter asked her to come back to Universal in a co-starring role in Rosie! (1967). The film was not a success. Dee was inactive in the film industry for a few years before appearing in the 1970 American International Pictures occult horror film The Dunwich Horror—a loose adaptation of an H. P. Lovecraft story—as a college student who finds herself in the center of a Satanic ritual plot.[24] "The reason I decided to do Dunwich was because I couldn't put the script down once I started reading it," Dee commented. "I had read so many that I had to plow through, just because I promised someone. Even if this movie turns out be a complete disaster, I guarantee it will change my image."[25] However, Dee refused to be nude in the film's final sequence, which was written in the screenplay.[25]

Throughout the 1970s, Dee took roles sporadically on episodes of several television series, appearing in Night Gallery, Fantasy Island,[2] and Police Woman. Her final film performance was in the low-budget drama Lost (1983).[26] In her later years, Dee told a Newark, New Jersey newspaper that she "felt like a has-been that never was."[27]

1984–2005: Later life and retirement

Dee's later years were marked by poor health, and she became a self-described recluse after retiring from acting.[27] She battled anorexia nervosa, depression, and alcoholism for many years. She quit drinking altogether after being diagnosed with kidney failure in 2000, attributed to years of heavy drinking and smoking.[9]

In 1994, Dodd Darin published a book about his parents, Dream Lovers: The Magnificent Shattered Lives of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee, in which he chronicled his mother's anorexia, drug and alcohol problems, and that she had been sexually abused as a child by her stepfather, Eugene Douvan.[28] The same year, Dee had her final acting credit—a voice only appearance—on an episode of Frasier.

Death
Crypt of Sandra Dee at Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills

Complications from kidney disease led to Dee's death on February 20, 2005, at the Los Robles Hospital & Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, California at the age of 62.[29][30] She was interred in a crypt at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Hollywood Hills, California.

Filmography

Film
Year Title Role Notes Ref.
1957 Until They Sail Evelyn Leslie [31]
1957 The Snow Queen Gerda Voice: 1959 English version [31]
1958 The Reluctant Debutante Jane Broadbent [31]
1958 The Restless Years Melinda Grant Alternative title: The Wonderful Years [31]
1959 A Stranger in My Arms Pat Beasley Alternative title: And Ride a Tiger [31]
1959 Gidget Gidget (Frances Lawrence) [31]
1959 Imitation of Life Susie, age 16 [31]
1959 The Wild and the Innocent Rosalie Stocker [31]
1959 A Summer Place Molly Jorgenson [31]
1960 Portrait in Black Cathy Cabot [31]
1961 Romanoff and Juliet Juliet Moulsworth Alternative title: Dig That Juliet [31]
1961 Tammy Tell Me True Tambrey "Tammy" Tyree [31]
1961 Come September Sandy Stevens [31]
1962 If a Man Answers Chantal Stacy [31]
1963 Tammy and the Doctor Tambrey "Tammy" Tyree [31]
1963 Take Her, She's Mine Mollie Michaelson [31]
1964 I'd Rather Be Rich Cynthia Dulaine [31]
1965 That Funny Feeling Joan Howell [31]
1966 A Man Could Get Killed Amy Franklin Alternative title: Welcome, Mr. Beddoes [31]
1967 Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding! Heather Halloran [31]
1967 Rosie! Daphne Shaw [31]
1970 The Dunwich Horror Nancy Wagner [31]
1972 The Manhunter Mara Bocock Television film [17]
1972 The Daughters of Joshua Cabe Ada Television film [17]
1972 Love, American Style Bonnie Galloway Segment: "Love and the Sensuous Twin"
1974 Houston, We've Got a Problem Angie Cordell Television film [17]
1977 Fantasy Island Francesca Hamilton Television film [17]
1983 Lost Penny Morrison [26]

Television
Year Title Role Notes Ref.
1971–1972 Night Gallery Ann Bolt / Millicent/Marion Hardy 2 episodes
1972 The Sixth Sense Alice Martin Episode: "Through a Flame Darkly"
1978 Police Woman Marie Quinn Episode: "Blind Terror"
1983 Fantasy Island Margaret Winslow Episode: "Eternal Flame/A Date with Burt"
1994 Frasier Connie (voice only) Episode: "The Botched Language of Cranes"

Accolades
Award Category Year Nominated work Result Ref.
Golden Globe Award Most Promising Newcomer - Female 1958 Until They Sail Won [32]
Laurel Award Top Female New Personality 1959 — Won
Top Female Comedy Performance 1960 Gidget 5th place [33]
Top Female Star — 14th place
1961 — 5th place
1962 — 11th place
Top Female Comedy Performance 1963 If a Man Answers 4th place
Top Female Star — 6th place
Top Female Comedy Performance 1964 Take Her, She's Mine 4th place
Top Female Star — 7th place
1965 — 9th place
1966 — 10th place
1967 — 14th place

Box office rating

For a number of years, exhibitors voted Dee one of the most popular box office stars in the United States:[15]

  • 1959—16th
  • 1960—7th
  • 1961—6th
  • 1962—9th
  • 1963—8th
gollark: The thing shipped with potatOS uses events, timing *and* memory addresses.
gollark: Yes, I suppose technically the state has absolutely no effect on what it does, hmmm.
gollark: muahahaha.
gollark: ```lualocal function statefulize(fn) local state = 0 return function(...) state = state + 1 fn(...) endend```
gollark: \so it's probably fine.

References
  1. Kashner & MacNair 2002, p. 268.
  2. Monush 2003, p. 158.
  3. Biography of Sandra Dee, biography.com; accessed August 14, 2014.
  4. Dee, Sandra (1991-03-18). "Learning to Live Again". People. Retrieved 2009-09-02.
  5. Darin 1994, pp. 27–30.
  6. Oxnard Press-Courier interview, interactive.ancestry.com; accessed May 9, 2014.
  7. Kashner & MacNair 2002, p. 269.
  8. Lydia Lane, "Sandra Dee, Teen-age Beauty", The Palm Beach Post. p. 42.
  9. Brennan, Carol. "Sandra Dee Biography". Encyclopedia of World Biography. Retrieved April 1, 2016.
  10. "Sandra Dee". Golden Globes. Retrieved March 30, 2016.
  11. Kashner & MacNair 2002, p. 270.
  12. Kashner & MacNair 2002, p. 267.
  13. Kashner & MacNair 2002, p. 272.
  14. Bergan, Ronald (February 22, 2005). "Obituary: Sandra Dee". The Guardian. London, England. Retrieved November 13, 2019.
  15. Quigley's Annual List of Box-Office Champions, 1932-1970 October 23, 2003 accessed July 9, 2012
  16. Wayne 2003, p. 187.
  17. Monush 2003, p. 185.
  18. Staggs 2010, p. 154.
  19. Biography for Dodd Darin on IMDb
  20. "Sandra Dee signs new contract at U-I, July 19, 1961, Los Angeles Times.
  21. Merkin, Daphne (December 25, 2005). "Gidget Doesn't Live Here Anymore". The New York Times. Retrieved April 1, 2016.
  22. Sandra Dee's Last Interview Pt 2/3 discusses Bobby Darin, her alcoholism, etc plus guest James Darren on YouTube
  23. Ebert, Roger (November 5, 1967). "Beyond Miss Dee: Sandra Dee Grows Up". The Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved April 1, 2016.
  24. Craig 2019, p. 138.
  25. Miller, Jeanne (April 18, 1969). "Rosemary Is Expecting Again, in Mendocino". The San Francisco Examiner. San Francisco, California. p. 26 – via Newspapers.com.
  26. "Sandra Dee Dead at 62". CBS News. February 21, 2005. Archived from the original on November 13, 2019.
  27. Kashner & MacNair 2002, p. 274.
  28. Rice, Lynette (December 14, 1994). "Son's book takes new look at Darin, Dee". The Baltimore Sun. Retrieved February 2, 2019.
  29. Kehr, Dave (February 20, 2005). "Sandra Dee, 'Gidget' Star and Teenage Idol, Dies at 62". The New York Times. Retrieved September 2, 2009.
  30. Marla, Lehner (February 20, 2005). "Screen Star Sandra Dee Dies". people.com. Retrieved December 28, 2015.
  31. "Sandra Dee". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. Los Angeles, California: American Film Institute. Archived from the original on August 10, 2019.
  32. "Sandra Dee". Golden Globe Awards. Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Archived from the original on July 12, 2018.
  33. Lisanti 2017, p. 37.

Sources
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