Obit: Sandra Dee (20 Feb 05, Age 63)

Subject: Obit: Sandra Dee
From: Once Famous
Date: 20 Feb 05 - 08:07 PM

From E Online:


Sandra Dee, Original Gidget, Dies

By Bridget Byrne

Sandra Dee (news), once Hollywood's ideal blonde teen star and the original Gidget, died Sunday morning outside. She was 63.

Dodd Darin, her son from her marriage to the late singer Bobby Darin, told CNN his mother had been on dialysis for four years and was recently hospitalized for kidney failure and pneumonia. She died about 6 a.m. at Los Robles Hospital and Medical Center in Thousand Oaks.

Decades before Britney, Lindsay and Hilary provided endless fodder for Us, Star and People, Sandra Dee was the reigning It Girl, thanks to the beach blanket romp Gidget, the Tammy sequels, the racy melodrama A Summer Place and her marriage to Darin in 1960, when she was just 16 and he was 24. Their romance, breathlessly covered in the day's fanzines, was recreated last year by Kevin Spacey in the movie Beyond the Sea in which Kate Bosworth played Dee.

Dee's wholesome image was so entrenched in pop culture that it was famously spoofed in the Grease song "Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee."

Despite her picture-book early career, Dee struggled later in life with alcoholism, anorexia and depression. She also claimed in a 1991 interview with People that she had been sexually abused by her stepfather.

Dee was born Alexandria Zuck in Bayonne, New Jersey. After her parents divorced and her mother remarried, she was pushed into show business by her mother. Dee modeled and competed in talent shows before attracting Hollywood's attention and being signed as a contract player by Universal Studios.

Her first starring role came as an American teen thrust into the whirl of upper class British society in 1957's The Reluctant Debutante. Her onscreen beau was John Saxon, who also wooed her her in the melodramas The Restless Years and Portrait in Black, in which she played step-daughter to Lana Turner. Dee also played Turner's daughter in the 1959 racial drama Imitation of Life

Although Debbie Reynolds, played the eponymous perky country girl in the hit Tammy and the Bachelor, Dee stepped in for the sequels Tammy Tell Me True and Tammy and the Doctor, which failed to repeat the success of the original.

But by the early '60s she was one of the top box-office attractions and starred as James Stewart's college-age daughter in the comedy Take Her, She's Mine.

After her marriage to Darin, they costarred in Come September, If a Man Answers and That Funny Feeling in 1965. The couple divorced in 1967.

"He just woke up one morning and didn't want to be married any more," Dee once said. She reportedly carried a torch for him the rest of her life, and they remained friends until his death following open-heart surgery in 1973.

Following her divorce to Darin, Universal, figuring her image had been tarnished, dropped her contract.

"I thought they were my friends", she once remarked to the Associated Press. "But I found out on the last picture that I as simply a piece of property to them. I begged them not to make me do the picture, but they insisted." That picture was a comedy titled A Man Could Get Killed.

By her mid-20s, Dee's career was virtually over. She was rarely seen again on screen--her final film role was in the forgettable 1983 drama Lost--but many years later did star with Saxon in a Beverly Hills theatrical production of the two-character play Love Letters. She also appeared in some TV movies in the 1970s, including the original two-hour Fantasy Island.

"She didn't have a bad bone in her body," Steve Blauner, a longtime family friend who represents Darin's estate, told the Associated Press. "When she was a big star in the pictures and a top five [draw] at the box office, she treated the grip the exact same way she treated the head of the studio. She meant it. She wasn't phony."

Dee is survived by her son, Dodd, and two grandchildren.

Subject: RE: Obit: Sandra Dee
From: JennyO
Date: 20 Feb 05 - 09:12 PM

Oh dear, what a shame! It sounds like a sad ending to a rather unhappy life. It's hard to reconcile that with the way I remember her in those old movies - and I do remember them unfortunately - she was only a few years older than me.

I hope she is at peace now. RIP Sandra.

Jenny

Subject: RE: Obit: Sandra Dee
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 20 Feb 05 - 10:36 PM

If it were not the campy musical GREASE - few in the past 25 years would have the slightest clue who she was.

Kidney failure is a kind gentle way to pass on over.

Being acknowledged as the object of the "folky type tune" TAMMY is not a bad adeau to a place like the modern-day MC either.

PAX

Sincerely,

Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Obit: Sandra Dee
From: Peace
Date: 20 Feb 05 - 11:27 PM

A Fan Site

Subject: RE: Obit: Sandra Dee
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Feb 05 - 11:49 PM

Of course we'd know who she is, despite Grease. What a poignant commentary on how the film industry chews up and spits out young people and those who must maintain a certain "image" to remain employable. Much better to be a character actor. Or a man.

So sad.

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: Sandra Dee
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 01:05 AM

I remember seeing her with Peter Ustinov in 'Romanoff(v?) and Juliet' a wacky clone of Peter Sellers' 'The Mouse That Roared'. I wish I could locate the theme tune of the Ustinov movie - a balalaika number in a minor key. Sandra was cute but the tune stays with me 40 years later.

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Obit: Sandra Dee (20 Feb 05, Age 63)
From: JJ
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 10:52 AM

Gargoyle, the song "Tammy" was written for the first Tammy film, which starred Debbie Reynolds.

Subject: RE: Obit: Sandra Dee (20 Feb 05, Age 63)
From: PoppaGator
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 04:31 PM

Besides "Grease," the memory of ex-husband Bobby Darin keeps Sandra's name in the public eye. And, coincidentally enough, there has been a sudden spate of Bobby-Darin-consciousness in US pop culture.

Besides the recently-released biopic "Beyond the Sea" ~ in which Kevin Spacey pulls off an incredible performance as Darin, including some amazing singing ~ there's a decent 2004 book entitled "Bobby Darin: A LIfe," author Michael Seth Starr.

Subject: RE: Obit: Sandra Dee (20 Feb 05, Age 63)
From: Genie
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 10:26 PM

Quote (Stilly River Sage): "Of course we'd know who she is, despite Grease. What a poignant commentary on how the film industry chews up and spits out young people and those who must maintain a certain "image" to remain employable. Much better to be a character actor. Or a man."

Sandra Dee was neither the orginal Tammy nor the original Gidget.

Still, more than anyone else, I think she was "America's Sweetheart" of her era. Yes, "Grease" has whole subplot and song about that cultural phenomenon. (That, in itself, is nothing to sneeze at.)   But I, for one, never saw her as Gidget and remember her more for movies like The Reluctant Debutante, A Summer Place, and the one she did with Rock Hudson and Gina Lolobrigida and Bobby Darin. Her movies have gotta still be playing on AMC and other cable channels.

You're so right, Stilly, that Hollywood really doesn't know what to do with "over the hill" (read "over 25 years old") leading ladies. Women who extend their Hollywood and TV careers into their middle and later years do so by being exceptionally assertive, flexible, and well-connected, I think.

Subject: RE: Obit: Sandra Dee (20 Feb 05, Age 63)
From: Genie
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 07:45 PM

Oops! When I mentioned "whole subplot line," I was thinking of "American Graffiti," not "Grease." My bad.

That movie, I think, immortalized Sandra Dee as an American icon as much as "Grease" did - or more so.

Subject: RE: Obit: Sandra Dee (20 Feb 05, Age 63)
From: Tam the man
Date: 23 Feb 05 - 03:05 PM

It is sad that someone dies, I just hate the bloody picture Grease.
I just wish that someone would get every copy of that picture/cd/video/dvd or whatever else it's on and pile them all up on an island and bloody blow them up. I would be very happy.
Sad about Sandra Dee