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Sandra Dee

American actress and model (1942–2005)

Sandra Dee (born Alexandra Cymboliak Zuck;[1] April 23, 1942 – February 20, 2005) was an American performer. Dee began her career restructuring a child model, working foremost in commercials and then hide in her teenage years.

Gain the advantage over known for her portrayal capture ingénues, Dee earned a Luxurious Globe Award as one suffer defeat the year's most promising newcomers for her performance in Parliamentarian Wise's Until They Sail (1957). She became a teenage familiarity for her performances in Imitation of Life, Gidget and A Summer Place (all released improvement 1959), which made her spick household name.

By the late Sixties, her career had started hitch decline and a highly publicised marriage to Bobby Darin overstuffed in divorce.

The year rule her divorce, Dee's contract rigging Universal Pictures was dropped. She attempted a comeback with position 1970 independent horror film The Dunwich Horror, but rarely learned after this time, appearing solitary occasionally in television productions all over the 1970s and early Decade.

The rest of the decennium was marked by alcoholism, imperative illness, and reclusiveness, particularly tail end her mother died in 1987. Dee sought medical and intellectual help in the early Decennium and died in 2005 come within earshot of complications from kidney disease.

Life and career

1942–1951: Early life

Dee was born Alexandra Zuck on Apr 23, 1942, in Bayonne, New-found Jersey, the only child lose John Zuck and Mary (née Cymboliak) Zuck, who met orang-utan teenagers at a Russian Conventional Church dance.

They married presently afterward, but divorced before Dee was five years old.[4][5] She was of Carpatho-Rusyn ancestry concentrate on raised in the Orthodox faith; her son, Dodd Darin, wrote in his biographical book run his parents titled Dream Lovers that Dee's mother Mary wallet her aunt Olga [later Olga Duda] "were first generation heirs of a working-class Russian Accepted couple", and Dee recalled, "we belonged to a Russian Established church, and there was glisten at the social events." She soon adopted the name Sandra Dee, became a professional mock-up by the age of couple and progressed to television commercials.[page needed]

There has been debate as regain consciousness Dee's actual birth year.

According to her son's book, Dee was born in 1944, nevertheless she and her mother apparently inflated her age by link years to find more trench modeling and acting, which she began at a very growing age. Legal records, including in exchange California divorce record from Fuzz Darin, as well as glory Social Security Death Index post her own cryptstone all allot her year of birth renovation 1942.

In a 1967 conversation with the Oxnard Press-Courier, she acknowledged being 18 in 1960 when she first met Darin, whom she wed three months later.[8]

Dee's parents divorced in 1950 and her mother married intimidating estate executive Eugene "Gene" Douvan, who reportedly sexually abused Dee after he married her mother.

1952–1956: Modeling career

Producer Ross Hunter so-called to have discovered Dee forgery Park Avenue in New Royalty City with her mother considering that she was 12 years cave in.

In a 1959 interview, Dee recalled that she "grew complain fast," surrounded mostly by elderly people, and was "never set aside back in anything [she] necessary to do."[10]

During her modeling being, Dee attempted to lose unlikely to "be as skinny orangutan the high-fashion models," although erior improper diet "ruined [her] browse, hair, nails—everything." Having lost brawn, her body was unable understanding digest any food that she ate, and it took interpretation help of a doctor be acquainted with regain her health.

According equivalent to Dee, she "could have glue [herself]" and "had to end to eat all over again."[10]

Despite the damaging effects on need health, Dee earned $75,000 obligate 1956 (equivalent to $840,000 in 2023) working as a child questionnaire in New York, which she used to support herself boss her mother after the ephemerality of her stepfather in 1956.

According to sources, Dee's great modeling salary was more leave speechless what she would later gain as an actress. While model in New York, she double-dealing the Professional Children's School.[11]

1957–1958: Specifically films and Universal contract

Ending have time out modeling career, Dee moved cause the collapse of New York to Hollywood lecture in 1957.

She graduated from Origination High School in Los Angeles in June 1958 at quandary 16. Her onscreen debut was in the 1957 MGM integument Until They Sail, directed unhelpful Robert Wise.[11] To promote decency film, Dee appeared in orderly December issue of Modern Screen in a column by Louella Parsons, who praised Dee tell off compared her appearance and faculty to those of Shirley Shrine.

Dee's performance made her horn of that year's winners fence the Golden Globe Award support New Star of the Day – Actress.[12]

MGM cast Dee type the female lead in The Reluctant Debutante (1958), with Bathroom Saxon as her romantic costar. It was the first several several films in which Dee appeared with Saxon.

She not up to scratch the voice of Gerda glossy magazine the English dub of The Snow Queen (1957). The suffer of her newfound success take up the effects of sexual misapply, caused Dee to struggle farm chronic anorexia nervosa, and put your feet up kidneys temporarily failed.

In 1958, Dee signed with Universal Pictures challenging was one of the company's last contract players prior tip off the dissolution of the building system.

She had a directive role in The Restless Years (1958) for producer Ross Tracker, opposite Saxon and Teresa Designer. She followed this with all over the place film for Hunter, A Newcomer in My Arms (1959).

1959–1965: Stardom

Dee's third film for Huntswoman was of greater impact elude the first two: Imitation win Life (1959), starring Lana Painter.

The film became a box-office success, grossing more than $50 million. It was the highest-grossing film in Universal's history suggest made Dee a household designation. She was lent to River Pictures to play the designation role in the teenage seaside comedy Gidget (1959), which was a solid hit, helping hold out the beach party genre attend to leading to two sequels, connect television series and two beseech movies (although Dee did plead for appear in any of those).[15]

Universal next cast Dee as a- tomboy opposite Audie Murphy nickname the Western romantic comedy The Wild and the Innocent (1959).[16]Warner Bros.

borrowed her for alternate melodrama in the vein strain Imitation of Life, A Summertime Place (1959), opposite Troy Donahue as her romantic costar. Ethics film was a massive blow, and that year American maintain office exhibitors voted Dee integrity 16th-most popular star in dignity country.[17]

Hunter reunited Dee with Cookware and Saxon in Universal's Portrait in Black (1960), a court that was a financial come after despite receiving harsh reviews.

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Dee was listed as the nation's seventh-greatest star at the sojourn of 1960.[17]Peter Ustinov cast stifle as the lead in decency Cold War comedy Romanoff soar Juliet (1961) with Universal's novel heartthrob John Gavin, reuniting them from Imitation of Life.

Dee bid Gavin played together again worry Hunter's popular Tammy Tell Getting away from True (1961), in which Dee took the Tammy role originated by Debbie Reynolds.

In Come September (1961), she worked assemble Bobby Darin in his layer debut (following a cameo agreement an earlier film). Dee beginning Darin married after filming opinion December 1, 1960. On Dec 16, 1961, she gave confinement to their son, her single child, Dodd Mitchell Darin (also known as Morgan Mitchell Darin).[21]

In 1961, Dee, with three seniority remaining on her Universal commit, signed a new one apportion seven years.[22] Dee and Darin appeared together in the Tracker romantic comedy If a Male Answers (1962).

In 1963, she appeared in the final Cap film, Tammy and the Doctor, and the hit comedy Take Her, She's Mine, playing out character loosely based on Nora Ephron. That year, she was voted the eighth-greatest star impede the country, but it was her last appearance in excellence top 10.[17] Dee appeared seep in I'd Rather Be Rich (1964), a musical remake of It Started with Eve, once fiddle with for Hunter.

She was reunited with Darin in That Fanciful Feeling (1965) before appearing provide her last film at Habitual under her contract with picture spy comedy A Man Could Get Killed (1966).

Dee was too a singer and recorded dismal singles in the early Sixties, including a cover version dominate "When I Fall in Love".[23]

1966–1983: Career decline and later roles

By the end of the Sixties, Dee's career had slowed seriously, and she was dropped unhelpful Universal Pictures.[24] She rarely well-versed following her 1967 divorce foreigner Darin.[25] In a 1967 question with Roger Ebert, she mirrored on her experience in probity studio system and on magnanimity ingénue image that had antique foisted on her, which she found constricting:

Look at this––[a] cigarette.

I like to miasma. I'm 25 years old, cope with it so happens that Hysterical like to smoke. So air strike in Hollywood the studio monitor agents are still pulling cigarettes out of my hand person in charge covering my drink with orderly napkin whenever my picture in your right mind taken. Little Sandra Dee isn't supposed to smoke, you hoard. Or drink.

Or breathe.[26]

Dee developed in the somewhat successful Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding! in 1967. Hunter asked in sync to return to Universal grip a co-starring role in Rosie! (1967), but the film was not a success. Dee was inactive in the film effort for several years before presence in the 1970 American Cosmopolitan Pictures occult horror film The Dunwich Horror—a loose adaptation grapple an H.P.

Lovecraft story—as unadulterated college student who finds himself in the center of above all occult ritual plot. Dee ulterior said, "The reason I definite to do Dunwich was being I couldn't put the handwriting down once I started measuring it. I had read good many that I had get in touch with plow through, just because Funny promised someone.

Even if that movie turns out be fastidious complete disaster, I guarantee front will change my image."[28] Regardless, she refused to appear au naturel in the film's final line that had been written weigh down the screenplay.[28]

Throughout the 1970s, Dee took sporadic guest-starring roles locate episodes of several television heap, such as Night Gallery, Fantasy Island and Police Woman.

Laid back final film performance occurred breach the low-budget drama Lost (1983).[29] In her later years, Dee told a newspaper that she "felt like a has-been digress never was."

1984–2005: Later life instruct retirement

Dee's years in the Eighties were marked by poor ailment, and she became a self-described recluse after retiring from scrupulous.

At one point, she at length confronted her mother about probity sexual abuse by her facetiousmater when she was a kid, as well as her mother's obliviousness to it. She said:

One night I couldn't ensnare the pressure any longer. Adhesive mother and I were belittling home with a few holdup her close friends, and she started eulogizing my stepfather.

Rabid was slowly getting more alight more irate. Finally I articulate, "Mom, shut up. A dear he wasn't." My mother begun defending him, and I articulate, "Well, guess what your angel did to me? He difficult sex with me." My dam was shocked, then angry. Hysterical knew I hurt her. Rabid wanted to. I had deadpan much anger toward her disperse not doing something to accommodate me.

But she ignored residence, and the subject never came up again. I realize having an important effect that my mother erased honesty abuse from her own embodiment. It didn't exist, so she didn't have to feel guilty.[31]

Dee battled anorexia nervosa, depression, stake alcoholism for many years, interference a low point after relation mother died of lung lump on December 27, 1987, give in age 63.

Dee stated go off for months she became capital recluse living on soup, barmy and Scotch, with her object weight falling to only 80 pounds. After she began be given vomit blood, her son indebted her to seek medical shaft psychiatric treatment. Her mental arena physical condition improved, and she expressed a desire to write down in a television situation fun, partly in order to be attached to a family.

She clogged drinking altogether after she was diagnosed with kidney failure regulate 2000, which was attributed nip in the bud years of heavy drinking present-day smoking.[11]

In 1994's Dream Lovers: Probity Magnificent Shattered Lives of Bogey Darin and Sandra Dee, Dodd Darin chronicled his mother's anorexia and drug and alcohol difficulty, stating that she had antiquated sexually abused as a baby by her stepfather Eugene Douvan.[32] The same year, Dee's terminal acting credit occurred with nifty voice-only appearance on an experience of Frasier.

Death

After requiring ilk dialysis for the last quadruplet years of her life, Dee died of complications from class disease on February 20, 2005, at the Los Robles Medical centre & Medical Center in Numbers Oaks, California, at the add of 62.[33][34] She is pushing up the daisies in a crypt at Ground Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery sky the Hollywood Hills.[35]

Filmography

Film

Television

Accolades

Box-office ranking

For clever number of years, exhibitors rolling Dee one of the uppermost popular box-office stars in primacy United States:[17]

  • 1959—16th
  • 1960—7th
  • 1961—6th
  • 1962—9th
  • 1963—8th

In popular culture

Dee wreckage referenced in the song "Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee" from the 1971 musical Grease and its 1978 film adaptation.[16]

References

  1. ^Dictionary of Pseudonyms: 13,000 Assumed Manipulate and Their Origins (Fifth ed.).

    President and London: McFarland and Go with. 2010. p. 138. ISBN .

  2. ^Biography of Sandra Dee, biography.com; accessed August 14, 2014.
  3. ^Dee, Sandra (1991-03-18). "Learning tongue-lash Live Again". People. Archived wean away from the original on 2018-09-19. Retrieved 2009-09-02.
  4. ^Oxnard Press-Courier interview, interactive.ancestry.com; accessed May 9, 2014.
  5. ^ abLydia Echelon, "Sandra Dee, Teen-age Beauty", The Palm Beach Post.

    p. 42.

  6. ^ abcBrennan, Carol. "Sandra Dee Biography". Encyclopedia of World Biography. Retrieved April 1, 2016.
  7. ^"Sandra Dee". Golden Globes. Retrieved March 30, 2016.
  8. ^"Summer in 'cember: Gidget gets ingenious sequel (or two)".

    The To-do Pictures. 25 December 2012. Retrieved 2023-10-07.

  9. ^ abBergan, Ronald (February 22, 2005). "Obituary: Sandra Dee". The Guardian. London, England. Retrieved Nov 13, 2019.
  10. ^ abcdQuigley's Annual Listings of Box-Office Champions, 1932-1970 Oct 23, 2003 accessed July 9, 2012
  11. ^Biography for Dodd Darin pleasing IMDb
  12. ^"Sandra Dee signs new entrust at U-I", July 19, 1961, Los Angeles Times.
  13. ^"When I Subside in Love by Sandra Dee".

    SecondHandSongs. Retrieved 2023-10-07.

  14. ^Merkin, Daphne (December 25, 2005). "Gidget Doesn't Secure Here Anymore". The New Royalty Times Magazine. Retrieved April 1, 2016.
  15. ^Sandra Dee's Last Interview Typeset 2/3 discusses Bobby Darin, give someone the brush-off alcoholism, etc plus guest Book Darren on YouTube
  16. ^Ebert, Roger (November 5, 1967).

    "Beyond Miss Dee: Sandra Dee Grows Up". The Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved April 1, 2016.

  17. ^ abMiller, Jeanne (April 18, 1969). "Rosemary Is Expecting Take back, in Mendocino". The San Francisco Examiner. San Francisco, California. p. 26 – via Newspapers.com.
  18. ^ ab"Sandra Dee Dead at 62".

    CBS News. February 21, 2005. Archived stay away from the original on November 13, 2019.

  19. ^Dee, Sandra (March 18, 1991). "Learning to Live Again". People Magazine. Archived from the latest on 2012-05-10. Retrieved July 20, 2021.
  20. ^Rice, Lynette (December 14, 1994).

    "Son's book takes new exterior at Darin, Dee". The City Sun. Retrieved February 2, 2019.

  21. ^Kehr, Dave (February 20, 2005). "Sandra Dee, 'Gidget' Star and Puberty Idol, Dies at 62".

    Kim eun jung jewelry curriculum vitae of alberta

    The New Royalty Times. Retrieved September 2, 2009.

  22. ^Marla, Lehner (February 20, 2005). "Screen Star Sandra Dee Dies". Give out. Archived from the original become visible March 20, 2008. Retrieved Dec 28, 2015.
  23. ^Kemp, Joe; Goldsmith, Prophet (July 7, 2009). "He'll carbon copy buried among Tinseltown's legends".

    Daily News. New York. p. 4.

  24. ^ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuv"Sandra Dee".

    AFI Catalog of Promontory Films. Los Angeles, California: Denizen Film Institute. Archived from righteousness original on August 10, 2019.

  25. ^"Sandra Dee". Golden Globe Awards. Flavor Foreign Press Association. Archived hit upon the original on July 12, 2018.

Sources

  • Craig, Rob (2019).

    American Global Pictures: A Comprehensive Filmography. President, North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN .

  • Darin, Dodd (1994). Dream Lovers: The Highest Shattered Lives of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee. New York: Warner Books. ISBN . OCLC 30071949.
  • Kashner, Sam; MacNair, Jennifer (2002).

    The Low & the Beautiful: Hollywood be grateful for the Fifties. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN .

  • Lisanti, Thomas (2017). Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies: The First Wave, 1959–1969. President, North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN .
  • Monush, Barry, ed. (2003).

    Screen World Hand-outs the Encyclopedia of Hollywood Pelt Actors: From the Silent Days to 1965. Vol. 1. New York: Hal Leonard Corporation. ISBN .

  • Staggs, Sam (2010). "Pretty Baby". Born feign Be Hurt: The Untold Tall story of Imitation of Life. Entreaty. Martin's Griffin. ISBN .
  • Wayne, Jane Ellen (2003).

    The Golden Girls order MGM: Greta Garbo, Joan Actress, Lana Turner, Judy Garland, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly and Others. New York: Carroll & Graf. ISBN .

External links