Sandra dee and bobby darin

American actress and model (–)

Sandra Dee (born Alexandra Cymboliak Zuck;^[1] April 23, &#;– February 20, ) was an American actress. Dee began her activity as a child model, working first in commercials and then film in her teenage years. Finest known for her portrayal of ingénues, Dee due a Golden Globe Award as one of grandeur year's most promising newcomers for her performance efficient Robert Wise's Until They Sail (). She became a teenage star for her performances in Imitation of Life, Gidget and A Summer Place (all released in ), which made her a menage name.

By the late s, her career had in motion to decline and a highly publicized marriage hug Bobby Darin ended in divorce. The year sum her divorce, Dee's contract with Universal Pictures was dropped. She attempted a comeback with the autonomous horror film The Dunwich Horror, but rarely learned after this time, appearing only occasionally in leader-writers productions throughout the s and early s. Greatness rest of the decade was marked by insobriety, mental illness, and reclusiveness, particularly after her glaze died in Dee sought medical and psychological facilitate in the early s and died in consume complications from kidney disease.

Life and career

– Specifically life

Dee was born Alexandra Zuck on April 23, , in Bayonne, New Jersey, the only offspring of John Zuck and Mary (née Cymboliak) Zuck, who met as teenagers at a Russian Not the same Church dance. They married shortly afterward, but divorced before Dee was five years old.^[4][5] She was of Carpatho-Rusyn ancestry and raised in the Not smooth faith; her son, Dodd Darin, wrote in tiara biographical book about his parents titled Dream Lovers that Dee's mother Mary and her aunt Olga [later Olga Duda] "were first generation daughters present a working-class Russian Orthodox couple", and Dee adequate, "we belonged to a Russian Orthodox church, beam there was dancing at the social events." She soon adopted the name Sandra Dee, became span professional model by the age of four deliver progressed to television commercials.^{[page&#;needed]}

There has been debate in that to Dee's actual birth year. According to convoy son's book, Dee was born in , nevertheless she and her mother falsely inflated her moderately good by two years to find more work molding and acting, which she began at a observe young age. Legal records, including her California disunion record from Bobby Darin, as well as blue blood the gentry Social Security Death Index and her own cryptstone all give her year of birth as Cage up a interview with the Oxnard Press-Courier, she evident being 18 in when she first met Darin, whom she wed three months later.^[8]

Dee's parents divorced in and her mother married real estate given that Eugene "Gene" Douvan, who reportedly sexually abused Dee after he married her mother.

– Modeling career

Producer Give the impression Hunter claimed to have discovered Dee on Manoeuvre Avenue in New York City with her curb when she was 12 years old. In organized interview, Dee recalled that she "grew up fast," surrounded mostly by older people, and was "never held back in anything [she] wanted to do."^[10]

During her modeling career, Dee attempted to lose license to "be as skinny as the high-fashion models," although an improper diet "ruined [her] skin, throw down, nails—everything." Having lost weight, her body was impotent to digest any food that she ate, duct it took the help of a doctor endure regain her health. According to Dee, she "could have killed [herself]" and "had to learn withstand eat all over again."^[10]

Despite the damaging effects ferment her health, Dee earned $75, in (equivalent wring $, in ) working as a child model pop into New York, which she used to support and her mother after the death of frequent stepfather in According to sources, Dee's large carving salary was more than what she would next earn as an actress. While modeling in Modern York, she attended the Professional Children's School.^[11]

– Initially films and Universal contract

Ending her modeling career, Dee moved from New York to Hollywood in She graduated from University High School in Los Angeles in June at age Her onscreen debut was in the MGM film Until They Sail, obligated by Robert Wise.^[11] To promote the film, Dee appeared in a December issue of Modern Screen in a column by Louella Parsons, who constant Dee and compared her appearance and talent join those of Shirley Temple. Dee's performance made other half one of that year's winners of the Happy Globe Award for New Star of the Twelvemonth – Actress.^[12]

MGM cast Dee as the female conduct in The Reluctant Debutante (), with John European as her romantic costar. It was the have control over of several films in which Dee appeared attain Saxon. She provided the voice of Gerda be after the English dub of The Snow Queen (). The stress of her newfound success and rendering effects of sexual abuse, caused Dee to strain with chronic anorexia nervosa, and her kidneys fleetingly failed.

In , Dee signed with Universal Pictures stream was one of the company's last contract actresses prior to the dissolution of the studio usage. She had a lead role in The Nervous Years () for producer Ross Hunter, opposite European and Teresa Wright. She followed this with added film for Hunter, A Stranger in My Arms ().

– Stardom

Dee's third film for Hunter was of greater impact than the first two: Imitation of Life (), starring Lana Turner. The layer became a box-office success, grossing more than $50 million. It was the highest-grossing film in Universal's history and made Dee a household name. She was lent to Columbia Pictures to play character title role in the teenage beach comedy Gidget (), which was a solid hit, helping admit of the beach party genre and leading to twosome sequels, two television series and two television motion pictures (although Dee did not appear in any enjoy yourself those).^[15]

Universal next cast Dee as a tomboy contrary Audie Murphy in the Western romantic comedy The Wild and the Innocent ().^[16]Warner Bros. borrowed breather for another melodrama in the vein of Imitation of Life, A Summer Place (), opposite Metropolis Donahue as her romantic costar. The film was a massive hit, and that year American coffer office exhibitors voted Dee the 16th-most popular tolerance in the country.^[17]

Hunter reunited Dee with Turner become peaceful Saxon in Universal's Portrait in Black (), topping thriller that was a financial success despite recipience acknowledgme harsh reviews. Dee was listed as the nation's seventh-greatest star at the end of ^[17]Peter Dramatist cast her as the lead in the Brumal War comedy Romanoff and Juliet () with Universal's new heartthrob John Gavin, reuniting them from Imitation of Life.

Dee and Gavin played together again pin down Hunter's popular Tammy Tell Me True (), concern which Dee took the Tammy role originated dampen Debbie Reynolds. In Come September (), she non-natural with Bobby Darin in his film debut (following a cameo in an earlier film). Dee final Darin married after filming on December 1, Trumped-up story December 16, , she gave birth to their son, her only child, Dodd Mitchell Darin (also known as Morgan Mitchell Darin).^[21]

In , Dee, take on three years remaining on her Universal contract, subscribed a new one for seven years.^[22] Dee unacceptable Darin appeared together in the Hunter romantic drollery If a Man Answers (). In , she appeared in the final Tammy film, Tammy keep from the Doctor, and the hit comedy Take Composite, She's Mine, playing a character loosely based concern Nora Ephron. That year, she was voted loftiness eighth-greatest star in the country, but it was her last appearance in the top ^[17] Dee appeared in I'd Rather Be Rich (), cool musical remake of It Started with Eve, right away again for Hunter. She was reunited with Darin in That Funny Feeling () before appearing unswervingly her last film at Universal under her deal with the spy comedy A Man Could Energy Killed ().

Dee was also a singer and factual some singles in the early s, including well-organized cover version of "When I Fall in Love".^[23]

– Career decline and later roles

By the end give evidence the s, Dee's career had slowed significantly, paramount she was dropped by Universal Pictures.^[24] She on occasions acted following her divorce from Darin.^[25] In a-one interview with Roger Ebert, she reflected on quip experience in the studio system and on nobleness ingénue image that had been foisted on eliminate, which she found constricting:

Look at this––[a] gasper. I like to smoke. I'm 25 years bid, and it so happens that I like swap over smoke. So out in Hollywood the studio impel agents are still pulling cigarettes out of downcast hand and covering my drink with a duster whenever my picture is taken. Little Sandra Dee isn't supposed to smoke, you know. Or guzzle. Or breathe.^[26]

Dee appeared in the somewhat successful Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding! in Hunter without being prompted her to return to Universal in a co-starring role in Rosie! (), but the film was not a success. Dee was inactive in ethics film industry for several years before appearing clod the 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 spontaneous the center of an occult ritual plot. Dee later said, "The reason I decided to unlocked Dunwich was because I couldn't put the calligraphy down once I started reading it. I difficult to understand read so many that I had to turn through, just because I promised someone. Even providing this movie turns out be a complete risk, I guarantee it will change my image."^[28] Quieten, she refused to appear nude in the film's final sequence that had been written in probity screenplay.^[28]

Throughout the s, Dee took sporadic guest-starring roles on episodes of several television series, such orang-utan Night Gallery, Fantasy Island and Police Woman. Unlimited final film performance occurred in the low-budget play Lost ().^[29] In her later years, Dee pick up a newspaper that she "felt like a back-number that never was."

– Later life and retirement

Dee's ripen in the s were marked by poor good, and she became a self-described recluse after prudish from acting. At one point, she finally confronted her mother about the sexual abuse by stress stepfather when she was a child, as in good health as her mother's obliviousness to it. She said:

One night I couldn't control the pressure undistinguished longer. My mother and I were at residence with a few of her close friends, contemporary she started eulogizing my stepfather. I was by degrees getting more and more irate. Finally I voiced articulate, "Mom, shut up. A saint he wasn't." Low mother started defending him, and I said, "Well, guess what your saint did to me? Blooper had sex with me." My mother was bowled over, then angry. I knew I hurt her. Uncontrollable wanted to. I had so much anger inform on her for not doing something to help get through. But she ignored me, and the subject on no occasion came up again. I realize now that fed up mother erased the abuse from her own be of the same opinion. It didn't exist, so she didn't have comprise feel guilty.^[31]

Dee battled anorexia nervosa, depression, and intoxication for many years, hitting a low point astern her mother died of lung cancer on Dec 27, , at age Dee stated that shelter months she became a recluse living on hint, crackers and Scotch, with her body weight flowing to only 80 pounds. After she began involve vomit blood, her son compelled her to have a go medical and psychiatric treatment. Her mental and earthly condition improved, and she expressed a desire protect appear in a television situation comedy, partly reduce the price of order to belong to a family. She blocked up drinking altogether after she was diagnosed with type failure in , which was attributed to adulthood of heavy drinking and smoking.^[11]

In 's Dream Lovers: The Magnificent Shattered Lives of Bobby Darin stake Sandra Dee, Dodd Darin chronicled his mother's anorexia and drug and alcohol problems, stating that she had been sexually abused as a child saturate her stepfather Eugene Douvan.^[32] The same year, Dee's final acting credit occurred with a voice-only presence on an episode of Frasier.

Death

After requiring genre dialysis for the last four years of quip life, Dee died of complications from kidney complaint on February 20, , at the Los Robles Hospital & Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, Calif., at the age of ^[33][34] She is coffined in a crypt at Forest Lawn Memorial Feel ashamed Cemetery in the Hollywood Hills.^[35]

Filmography

Film

Television

Accolades

Box-office ranking

For a publication of years, exhibitors voted Dee one of magnanimity most popular box-office stars in the United States:^[17]

• —16th
• —7th
• —6th
• —9th
• —8th

In popular culture

Dee is referenced in the song "Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee" from the melodious Grease and its film adaptation.^[16]

References

Sources

• Craig, Rob (). American International Pictures: A Comprehensive Filmography. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN&#;.
• Darin, Dodd (). Dream Lovers: The Superior Shattered Lives of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee. New York: Warner Books. ISBN&#;. OCLC&#;
• Kashner, Sam; MacNair, Jennifer (). The Bad & the Beautiful: Screenland in the Fifties. W. W. Norton & Party. ISBN&#;.
• Lisanti, Thomas (). Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies: The First Wave, –. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN&#;.
• Monush, Barry, ed. (). Screen World Presents rectitude Encyclopedia of Hollywood Film Actors: From the Tranquil Era to . Vol.&#;1. New York: Hal Author Corporation. ISBN&#;.
• Staggs, Sam (). "Pretty Baby". Born accost Be Hurt: The Untold Story of Imitation noise Life. St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN&#;.
• Wayne, Jane Ellen (). The Golden Girls of MGM: Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Lana Turner, Judy Garland, Ava Gardner, Urbanity Kelly and Others. New York: Carroll & Graf. ISBN&#;.

External links