Research in Progress (April 19, 2021)
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 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 performances in Imitation of Life and Gidget (both 1959), which made her a household name.
By the late 1960s, her career had started to decline, and highly publicized marriage to Bobby Darin (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 The Dunwich Horror, but rarely acted after it, appearing occasionally in TV productions in the 1970s and 1980s.
Dee’s final years were marred by illness, and she died in 2005 of complications from kidney disease, caused by lifelong struggle with anorexia nervosa.
1942–1951: Early life
Dee was born Alexandra Zuck on April 23, 1942 in Bayonne, New Jersey, 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. She was of Carpatho-Rusyn ancestry, and raised in the Russian Orthodox faith.
Her son Dodd Darin wrote in his book about his parents, titled 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 soon took the name Sandra Dee. She became a professional model by the age of 4 and 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.
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 12.
In a 1959 interview, Dee recalled that she “grew up fast,” surrounded 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,” though 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 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 damaging effects on her health, Dee earned a generous $75,000 in 1956 working as a child model in New York, which she used to support herself and her mother after the death of her stepfather.
Dee’s large modeling salary was more than she later earned as an actress.
Early films and Universal contract, 1957-1958
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 MGM film Until They Sail, 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. Her performance made her one of that year’s winners of the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year.
MGM cast her as the female lead in The Reluctant Debutante (1958), with John Saxon as her romantic co-star; the first of several films they made together. She provided the voice for The Snow Queen (1957). Her newfound success, and the effects of sexual abuse, made worse her struggle with anorexia nervosa, which led to her kidneys temporarily shutting down.
In 1958, Dee was signed with Universal, 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 A Stranger in My Arms (1959).
1959–1965: Stardom
Dee’s third film for Hunter had the biggest impact: Imitation of Life (1959), opposite Lana Turner. The film was a box-office success, grossing over $50 million. At the time, it was Universal Pictures’s highest-grossing film in history, and made Dee a household name.
She was loaned to Columbia Pictures 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 TV series and two TV movies (although Dee did not appear in any of these).
Universal then cast her opposite Audie Murphy in a Western romantic comedy, The Wild and the Innocent (1959), playing a tomboy.
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.
Hunter reunited Dee with Lana Turner and John Saxon in Universal’s Portrait in Black (1960), a thriller that was a financial success despite harsh reviews.
Dee was the nation’s 7th 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, reuniting them from Imitation of Life.
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. It was popular; even more so was Come September (1961), working with Bobby Darin in his film debut (following a cameo in an earlier movie). She and Darin married after filming, on December 1, 1960. On December 16, 1961, she gave birth to their son, Dodd Mitchell Darin (Morgan Mitchell Darin).
In 1961, Dee still had 3 years on her Universal contract. She signed a new one for seven years. 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), playing a character loosely based on Nora Ephron. That year, she was voted the 8th biggest star in the country; it was her last appearance in the top 10.
I’d Rather Be Rich (1964) 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 contract with the spy comedy A Man Could Get Killed (1966).
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
By the mid-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 ingénue image that had been foisted on her, which she found constricting: Look at this––a cigarette. 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 Doctor, You’ve Got to Be Kidding! (1967), 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 an occult ritual plot.
“The reason I decided to do Dunwich was because I couldn’t put the script down once I started reading it,” Dee said. “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.” 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, and Police Woman. Her final film performance was in the low-budget drama Lost (1983). In her later years, Dee told a newspaper that she “felt like a has-been that never was.”
1984–2005: Later life and retirement
Dee’s later years were marked by poor health, and she became a recluse after retiring from acting. She battled anorexia nervosa, depression, and alcoholism for years. She quit drinking altogether after being diagnosed with kidney failure in 2000, attributed to years of heavy drinking and smoking.
In 1994’s Dream Lovers: The Magnificent Shattered Lives of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee, Dodd Darin chronicled his mother’s anorexia, drug and alcohol problems, stating she had been sexually abused as a child by her stepfather Eugene Douvan.
The same year, Dee had her final acting credit—a voice only—on episode of “Frasier.”
Complications from kidney disease led to Dee’s death on February 20, 2005, at the age of 62.
Filmography
1957 Until They Sail Evelyn, Leslie
1957 The Snow Queen Gerda, Voice: 1959 English version
1958 The Reluctant Debutante, Jane Broadbent
1958 The Restless Years, Melinda Grant (aka The Wonderful Years)
1959 A Stranger in My Arms, Pat Beasley (aka And Ride a Tiger)
1959 Gidget, Gidget (Frances Lawrence)
1959 Imitation of Life, Susie, age 16
1959 The Wild and the Innocent, Rosalie Stocker
1959 A Summer Place, Molly Jorgenson
1960 Portrait in Black, Cathy Cabot
1961 Romanoff and Juliet, Juliet Moulsworth (Dig That Juliet)
1961 Tammy Tell Me True, Tambrey “Tammy” Tyree
1961 Come September, Sandy Stevens
1962 If a Man Answers, Chantal Stacy
1963 Tammy and the Doctor, Tambrey “Tammy” Tyree
1963 Take Her, She’s Mine, Mollie Michaelson
1964 I’d Rather Be Rich, Cynthia Dulaine
1965 That Funny Feeling, Joan Howell
1966 A Man Could Get Killed Amy Franklin (aka Welcome, Mr. Beddoes)
1967 Doctor, You’ve Got to Be Kidding! Heather Halloran
1967 Rosie! Daphne Shaw
1970 The Dunwich Horror Nancy Wagner
1972 The Manhunter Mara Bocock, Television film
1972 The Daughters of Joshua Cabe, Ada Television film
1972 Love, American Style Bonnie Galloway Segment: “Love and Sensuous Twin”
1974 Houston, We’ve Got a Problem Angie Cordell, Television film
1977 Fantasy Island Francesca Hamilton, Television film
1983 Lost Penny Morrison
Television
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”
