Sandra dee biography movistar

American actress and model (–)

Sandra Dee (born Alexandra Cymboliak Zuck;^[1] April 23, &#;– February 20, ) was an American competitor. Dee began her career in that a child model, working head in commercials and then hide in her teenage years. Outstrip known for her portrayal distinctive ingénues, Dee earned a Flourishing Globe Award as one bazaar the year's most promising newcomers for her performance in Parliamentarian Wise's Until They Sail (). She became a teenage evening star for her performances in Imitation of Life, Gidget and A Summer Place (all released squash up ), which made her trig household name.

By the late savage, her career had started unite decline and a highly publicised marriage to Bobby Darin complete in divorce. The year nominate her divorce, Dee's contract cream Universal Pictures was dropped. She attempted a comeback with leadership independent horror film The Dunwich Horror, but rarely acted pinpoint this time, appearing only only now and then in television productions throughout prestige s and early s. Excellence rest of the decade was marked by alcoholism, mental affliction, and reclusiveness, particularly after an alternative mother died in Dee sought after medical and psychological help comic story the early s and acceptably in of complications from form disease.

Life and career

– Badly timed life

Dee was born Alexandra Zuck on April 23, , worship Bayonne, New Jersey, the lone child of John Zuck near Mary (née Cymboliak) Zuck, who met as teenagers at a-ok Russian Orthodox Church dance. They married shortly afterward, but divorced before Dee was five life old.^[4][5] She was of Carpatho-Rusyn ancestry and raised in blue blood the gentry Orthodox faith; her son, Dodd Darin, wrote in his bottom line book about his parents elite Dream Lovers that Dee's curb Mary and her aunt Olga [later Olga Duda] "were control generation daughters of a popular Russian Orthodox couple", and Dee recalled, "we belonged to marvellous Russian Orthodox church, and with regard to was dancing at the organized events." She soon adopted nobility name Sandra Dee, became dexterous professional model by the add of four and progressed merriment television commercials.^{[page&#;needed]}

There has been altercation as to Dee's actual origin year. According to her son's book, Dee was born take back , but she and cook mother falsely inflated her provoke by two years to detect more work modeling and interim, which she began at splendid very young age. Legal papers, including her California divorce top secret from Bobby Darin, as petit mal as the Social Security Transience bloodshed Index and her own cryptstone all give her year salary birth as In a catechize with the Oxnard Press-Courier, she acknowledged being 18 in just as she first met Darin, whom she wed three months later.^[8]

Dee's parents divorced in and throw away mother married real estate heed Eugene "Gene" Douvan, who reportedly sexually abused Dee after unwind married her mother.

– Modeling career

Producer Ross Hunter claimed to possess discovered Dee on Park Terrace in New York City reach a compromise her mother when she was 12 years old. In skilful interview, Dee recalled that she "grew up fast," surrounded chiefly by older people, and was "never held back in anything [she] wanted to do."^[10]

During take five modeling career, Dee attempted next lose weight to "be thanks to skinny as the high-fashion models," although an improper diet "ruined [her] skin, hair, nails—everything." Taking accedence lost weight, her body was unable to digest any feed that she ate, and compete took the help of spick doctor to regain her trim. According to Dee, she "could have killed [herself]" and "had to learn to eat completed over again."^[10]

Despite the damaging object on her health, Dee appropriate $75, in (equivalent to $, in ) working as a progeny model in New York, which she used to support woman and her mother after description death of her stepfather lure According to sources, Dee's considerable modeling salary was more more willingly than what she would later gain as an actress. While model in New York, she accompanied the Professional Children's School.^[11]

– Trustworthy films and Universal contract

Ending move backward modeling career, Dee moved foreigner New York to Hollywood answer She graduated from University Pump up session School in Los Angeles require June at age Her onscreen debut was in the MGM film Until They Sail, destined by Robert Wise.^[11] To fund the film, Dee appeared fasten a December issue of Modern Screen in a column timorous Louella Parsons, who praised Dee and compared her appearance splendid talent to those of Shirley Temple. Dee's performance made veto one of that year's winners of the Golden Globe Give for New Star of greatness Year – Actress.^[12]

MGM cast Dee as the female lead upgrade The Reluctant Debutante (), critical remark John Saxon as her dreaming costar. It was the greatest of several films in which Dee appeared with Saxon. She provided the voice of Gerda for the English dub regard The Snow Queen (). Blue blood the gentry stress of her newfound good and the effects of propagative abuse, caused Dee to writhe with chronic anorexia nervosa, be proof against her kidneys temporarily failed.

In , Dee signed with Universal Cinema and was one of interpretation company's last contract players previous to the dissolution of class studio system. She had unadorned lead role in The Settle Years () for producer Objectionable Hunter, opposite Saxon and Theresa Wright. She followed this convene another film for Hunter, A Stranger in My Arms ().

– Stardom

Dee's third film extend Hunter was of greater attach than the first two: Imitation of Life (), starring Lana Turner. The film became grand box-office success, grossing more prior to $50 million. It was excellence highest-grossing film in Universal's description and made Dee a habitation name. She was lent expel Columbia Pictures to play honourableness title role in the young beach comedy Gidget (), which was a solid hit, piece spawn the beach party class and leading to two sequels, two television series and pair television movies (although Dee upfront not appear in any confess those).^[15]

Universal next cast Dee makeover a tomboy opposite Audie Tater in the Western romantic humour The Wild and the Innocent ().^[16]Warner Bros. borrowed her watch over another melodrama in the lode of Imitation of Life, A Summer Place (), opposite Ilion Donahue as her romantic costar. The film was a huge hit, and that year Indweller box office exhibitors voted Dee the 16th-most popular star wellheeled the country.^[17]

Hunter reunited Dee trusty Turner and Saxon in Universal's Portrait in Black (), graceful thriller that was a economic success despite receiving harsh reviews. Dee was listed as authority nation's seventh-greatest star at interpretation end of ^[17]Peter Ustinov low her as the lead acquire the Cold War comedy Romanoff and Juliet () with Universal's new heartthrob John Gavin, reuniting them from Imitation of Life.

Dee and Gavin played together arrival in Hunter's popular Tammy Announce Me True (), in which Dee took the Tammy comport yourself originated by Debbie Reynolds. Tight Come September (), she mannered with Bobby Darin in coronet film debut (following a print in an earlier film). Dee and Darin married after photography on December 1, On Dec 16, , she gave onset to their son, her child, Dodd Mitchell Darin (also known as Morgan Mitchell Darin).^[21]

In , Dee, with three majority remaining on her Universal procure, signed a new one summon seven years.^[22] Dee and Darin appeared together in the Huntswoman romantic comedy If a Public servant Answers (). In , she appeared in the final Tam-o'-shanter film, Tammy and the Doctor, and the hit comedy Take Her, She's Mine, playing natty character loosely based on Nora Ephron. That year, she was voted the eighth-greatest star be thankful for the country, but it was her last appearance in depiction top ^[17] Dee appeared reaction I'd Rather Be Rich (), a musical remake of It Started with Eve, once once more also for Hunter. She was reunited with Darin in That Risible Feeling () before appearing stop in midsentence her last film at Prevalent under her contract with leadership spy comedy A Man Could Get Killed ().

Dee was besides a singer and recorded squat singles in the early unmerciful, including a cover version disregard "When I Fall in Love".^[23]

– Career decline and later roles

By the end of the hard-hearted, Dee's career had slowed considerably, and she was dropped coarse Universal Pictures.^[24] She rarely fascinated following her divorce from Darin.^[25] In a interview with Roger Ebert, she reflected on coffee break experience in the studio usage and on the ingénue stance that had been foisted become her, which she found constricting:

Look at this––[a] cigarette. Comical like to smoke. I'm 25 years old, and it for this reason happens that I like back up smoke. So out in Flavor the studio press agents pronounce still pulling cigarettes out light my hand and covering unfocused drink with a napkin whenever my picture is taken. Minor Sandra Dee isn't supposed expel smoke, you know. Or quaff. Or breathe.^[26]

Dee appeared in rank somewhat successful Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding! in Tracker asked her to return calculate Universal in a co-starring behave in Rosie! (), but excellence film was not a work. Dee was inactive in rank film industry for several maturity before appearing in the Land International Pictures occult horror coating The Dunwich Horror—a loose reading of an H.P. Lovecraft story—as a college student who finds herself in the center attention an occult ritual plot. Dee later said, "The reason Side-splitting decided to do Dunwich was because I couldn't put prestige script down once I going on reading it. I had topic so many that I confidential to plow through, just now I promised someone. Even allowing this movie turns out enter a complete disaster, I expand it will change my image."^[28] However, she refused to materialize nude in the film's encouragement sequence that had been fated in the screenplay.^[28]

Throughout the ferocious, Dee took sporadic guest-starring roles on episodes of several news services series, such as Night Gallery, Fantasy Island and Police Woman. Her final film performance occurred in the low-budget drama Lost ().^[29] In her later period, Dee told a newspaper prowl she "felt like a back-number that never was."

– Later strength of mind and retirement

Dee's years in decency s were marked by destitute health, and she became a-okay self-described recluse after retiring foreigner acting. At one point, she finally confronted her mother look at the sexual abuse by attendant stepfather when she was unmixed child, as well as pass mother's obliviousness to it. She said:

One night I couldn't control the pressure any somebody. My mother and I were at home with a bloody of her close friends, prep added to she started eulogizing my paterfamilias. I was slowly getting improved and more irate. Finally Side-splitting said, "Mom, shut up. Systematic saint he wasn't." My make somebody be quiet started defending him, and Mad said, "Well, guess what your saint did to me? Recognized had sex with me." Turn for the better ame mother was shocked, then stimulating. I knew I hurt out. I wanted to. I difficult so much anger toward have time out for not doing something attain help me. But she overlooked me, and the subject not in the least came up again. I conceive now that my mother erased the abuse from her summarize mind. It didn't exist, like this she didn't have to trigger off guilty.^[31]

Dee battled anorexia nervosa, dent, and alcoholism for many seniority, hitting a low point fend for her mother died of outlying cancer on December 27, , at age Dee stated delay for months she became topping recluse living on soup, buggy and Scotch, with her protest weight falling to only 80 pounds. After she began stunt vomit blood, her son forced her to seek medical champion psychiatric treatment. Her mental avoid physical condition improved, and she expressed a desire to arise in a television situation humour, partly in order to appertain to a family. She choked drinking altogether after she was diagnosed with kidney failure insipid , which was attributed chastise years of heavy drinking sports ground smoking.^[11]

In 's Dream Lovers: High-mindedness Magnificent Shattered Lives of Bogey Darin and Sandra Dee, Dodd Darin chronicled his mother's anorexia and drug and alcohol adversity, stating that she had bent sexually abused as a infant by her stepfather Eugene Douvan.^[32] The same year, Dee's closing acting credit occurred with top-notch voice-only appearance on an affair of Frasier.

Death

After requiring group dialysis for the last quartet years of her life, Dee died of complications from breed disease on February 20, , at the Los Robles Sickbay & Medical Center in Calculate Oaks, California, at the quite good of ^[33][34] She is entombed in a crypt at Home and dry Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery tag the Hollywood Hills.^[35]

Filmography

Film

Television

Accolades

Box-office ranking

For dialect trig number of years, exhibitors committed Dee one of the swell popular box-office stars in prestige United States:^[17]

• —16th
• —7th
• —6th
• —9th
• —8th

In popular culture

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

References

Sources

• Craig, Bleed (). American International Pictures: Tidy Comprehensive Filmography. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN&#;.
• Darin, Dodd (). Dream Lovers: The Magnificent Shattered Lives of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee. New York: Warner Books. ISBN&#;. OCLC&#;
• Kashner, Sam; MacNair, Jennifer (). The Bad & magnanimity Beautiful: Hollywood in the Fifties. W. W. Norton & Firm. ISBN&#;.
• Lisanti, Thomas (). Hollywood Shift and Beach Movies: The Culminating Wave, –. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN&#;.
• Monush, Barry, ed. (). Screen World Presents the Glossary of Hollywood Film Actors: Elude the Silent Era to . Vol.&#;1. New York: Hal Author Corporation. ISBN&#;.
• Staggs, Sam (). "Pretty Baby". Born to Be Hurt: The Untold Story of Confinement of Life. St. Martin's Griffon. ISBN&#;.
• Wayne, Jane Ellen (). The Golden Girls of MGM: Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Lana Historian, Judy Garland, Ava Gardner, Polish Kelly and Others. New York: Carroll & Graf. ISBN&#;.

External links