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Sandra Dee

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Full Name
  
Alexandra Zuck

Years active
  
1957–1994

Cause of death
  
Name
  
Sandra Dee


Other names
  
Sandra Douvan

Role
  
Actress

Occupation
  
Actress, model

Children
  
Dodd Mitchell Darin

Sandra Dee Sandra Dee Wikipedia the free encyclopedia


Born
  
April 23, 1942 (
1942-04-23
)

Resting place
  
Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills, California

Spouse
  
Bobby Darin (m. 1960–1967)

Buried
  
Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, California, United States

Movies
  
Similar People
  
Bobby Darin, Dodd Mitchell Darin, Troy Donahue, James Darren, John Gavin

Died
  
February 20, 2005 (aged 62) Thousand Oaks, California, U.S.

Known for
  
Imitation of Life, Until They Sail, Gidget, A Summer Place, Tammy Tell Me True, Take Her She's Mine

Alma mater
  
Professional Children's School

Education
  
University High School

Nationality
  
American

Sandra dee s last interview pt 1 3 discuesses her alcoholism anorexia nervosa sexual abuse etc


Sandra Dee (born Alexandra Zuck; April 23, 1942 – February 20, 2005) was an American actress. Dee began her career as a child model, working in commercials before transitioning to 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.

Contents

Sandra Dee Gidget Sandra Dee Photo 7525393 Fanpop

By the late 1960s, her career had started to decline, and a highly publicized marriage to Bobby Darin (m. 1960–1967) ended in divorce. She rarely acted after this time, and her final years were marred by illness. She died in 2005 at age 62 of complications from kidney disease, brought on by a lifelong struggle with anorexia nervosa.

Sandra Dee Sandra Dee on Pinterest Bobby Darin Gina Lollobrigida

Sandra dee troy donahue tragic summer


Early life

Sandra Dee Actress Sandra Dee dies at age 63

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

Sandra Dee LOOK AT ME IM SANDRA DEE ClassicMovieChatcom The

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." Dee recalled, "we belonged to a Russian Orthodox Church, and there was dancing at the social events." 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. 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. According to this version, this explains why 1942 was listed as her birth year in official studio press releases. It does not however explain why her gravestone, which had to have been commissioned by her son, her only child and sole immediate survivor, gives 1942 as her year of birth. Dee's parents divorced in 1950, and her mother then married a man who reportedly sexually abused Dee.

Modeling

Producer Ross Hunter claimed to have discovered Dee on Park Avenue in New York City with her mother when she was twelve years old. 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".

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".

In spite of the damaging effects on her health, Dee earned a generous $75,000 a year working as a teen 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.

Hollywood films

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 Until They Sail (1957), directed by Robert Wise. 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. She won a Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress, along with Carolyn Jones and Diane Varsi for her performance in the film.

MGM cast her as the female lead in The Reluctant Debutante (1958), supporting Rex Harrison and Kay Kendall; her romantic co-star was John Saxon, with whom she would make several films. She provided the voice for The Snow Queen (1957). Despite her newfound success, Dee continued to struggle with anorexia nervosa, which led to her kidneys temporarily shutting down.

Universal

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. 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).

Stardom

Her third film for Hunter had the biggest impact: Imitation of Life (1959), opposite Lana Turner. The film became a wild box office success. At the time, it was Universal Pictures's highest-grossing film in history, making Dee a household name.

Columbia Pictures borrowed her to play the titular role in the teenage beach comedy Gidget (1959), 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. It was not particularly popular. However, another melodrama in the vein of Imitation of Life, A Summer Place (1959), made at Warners, was a massive hit. Dee starred opposite Troy Donahue, Dorothy McGuire and Richard Egan. That year, US box office exhibitors voted her the 16th most popular star in the country.

Hunter reunited her with Lana Turner and John Saxon in Universal's Portrait in Black (1960), a reasonably popular thriller. Dee was the nation's seventh biggest star at the end of 1960. 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. Gavin played opposite her again in Tammy Tell Me True (1961) for Hunter, where Dee took over the role originated by Debbie Reynolds. It was popular; even more so was Come September (1961), with Rock Hudson, Gina Lollabrigida and Bobby Darin. She and Darin married after filming on December 1, 1960.

The newlyweds Dee and Darin appeared in the romantic comedy If a Man Answers (1962) together for Ross Hunter. There was another "Tammy" film, Tammy and the Doctor (1963), opposite Peter Fonda; the series ended. She had another big hit as the daughter of James Stewart in the comedy Take Her, She's Mine (1963), 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.

I'd Rather Be Rich (1964) was a musical remake of It Started with Eve with Robert Goulet, once again for producer Ross Hunter. She was reunited with Darin in That Funny Feeling (1965), then wound up her contract at Universal with a spy comedy, A Man Could Get Killed (1966), which starred James Garner.

Decline and later roles

By the end of the 1960s, Dee's career had slowed significantly, and she was dropped by Universal Pictures. Dee rarely acted following her 1967 divorce from Bobby Darin. In a 1967 interview with Roger Ebert, Dee reflected on her experience in the studio system, and on the ingenue 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.

She made a comedy at MGM, Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding! (1967) which was a mild success. Ross Hunter asked her back at Universal to support Rosalind Russell in Rosie! (1968) but it was not a success. Dee was inactive in the film industry for several years before appearing in the American International Pictures occult horror film The Dunwich Horror (1970) as a student who finds herself in the center of a Satanic ritual plot. The film was based on the story by H.P. Lovecraft.

Throughout the 1970s, Dee took roles sporadically on several television series, making brief appearances in Night Gallery, Fantasy Island and Police Woman. Her final film performance was in the drama Lost (1983). In her later years, Dee told a Newark, New Jersey newspaper that she "felt like a has-been that never was."

Last years

Dee's later adult years were marked by poor health, and she became a self-described recluse. 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.

Death

Complications from kidney disease led to her death on February 20, 2005, at the Los Robles Hospital & Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, California at the age of 62. She is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Hollywood Hills. Dee was survived by her son, her daughter-in-law, and two granddaughters.

Personal life

Dee's marriage to Bobby Darin in 1960 kept her in the public eye for much of the decade. They met while filming Come September, which was released in 1961. She was under contract to Universal Studios, which tried to develop Dee into a mature actress, and the films she made as an adult—including a few with Darin—were moderately successful. On 16 December 1961, they had one son, Dodd Mitchell Darin (also known as Morgan Mitchell Darin). She and Darin divorced in 1967 but continued to live together. Bobby Darin died at age 37 in 1973. She never remarried.

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 her claim that she had been sexually abused as a child by her stepfather, Eugene Douvan.

  • One of the popular songs of the Broadway musical and movie Grease (1978) is "Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee", in which the rebellious Rizzo satirizes new girl Sandra Dumbrowski (Sandra Dee Olson in the film) and her clean-cut image, likened to Sandra Dee's (the character's name is thus a play on the real-life actress). According to a family friend, Dee "always had a big laugh about it."
  • Dee's life with Bobby Darin was dramatized in the film Beyond the Sea (2004), in which Kevin Spacey played Darin and Dee was played by Kate Bosworth.
  • She is referenced in the Rodney Crowell song "I Ain't Living Long Like This" ("I live with Angel she's a roadhouse queen, makes Texas Ruby look like Sandra Dee")
  • She is also referenced in the Badly Drawn Boy song "One Last Dance" ("To this day I'm lovin' you, we know what we wanna do. I am your Troy Donahue and you are my Sandra Dee")
  • Box office rating

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

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

    Sandra Dee Wikipedia


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