Actors - Sandra Dee

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	Actors - Sandra Dee

Sandra Dee (April 23, 1944 – February 20, 2005) was an American film actress best known for her role as "Gidget".

Born Alexandra Zuck to John and Mary Zuck, in Bayonne, New Jersey, Dee, of Rusyn ancestry, was a professional model by the age of four. She progressed to television commercials and then made her first film, Until They Sail, in 1957.

In 1958 she won a Golden Globe Award for "Most Promising Newcomer" (along with Carolyn Jones and Diane Varsi). Her film career flourished, and she became known for her wholesome ingenue roles in such films as Imitation of Life
, Gidget
and A Summer Place
(all in 1959).

Her marriage in 1960 to singer and actor Bobby Darin at the age of 16 kept her in the public eye for much of the decade. She was contracted to Universal Studios, who tried to develop Dee as a mature actress, and the films she made as an adult--including a few with Darin--were moderately successful. They had one son together, who took the name Dodd Mitchell Darin, but in 1967 she and Darin were divorced.

During the 1970s she took very few acting roles, but made occasional television appearances. Her 1950s persona was the inspiration for the song "Look At Me, I'm Sandra Dee," featured in the 1972 Broadway musical Grease. The song later reappeared in the 1978 film version of the play, which starred John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Stockard Channing, Eve Arden, and Sid Caesar.

Dee's adult years were marked by ill health. She admitted that for most of her life she battled anorexia nervosa, depression and alcoholism. In 2000, she reported that she had been diagnosed with throat cancer and renal disease, but it seems that the throat scare was unfounded. Complications from the kidney failure (aka End Stage Renal Disease-ESRD), combined with a bout of pneumonia, led to her death on February 20, 2005, in Thousand Oaks, California.

Although chronologically it would appear she was 60 at the time of her death, it had been widely reported that she was 62 due to her mother's policy of misrepresenting Sandra as two years older to accelerate her career. Because of this, many sources listed her birth year as 1942; adding to the confusion, it was reported that her son, Dodd Darin, said she was 63 at her death (see http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Movies/02/20/dee.obit/). The last New York Times Sunday Magazine for 2005, in its necrology, stated that Dee was 60 at the time of her death, not 62, and factored in the two-year misrepresentation. At the time of her death, she was survived by her son with Bobby Darin--Dodd Darin--and two granddaughters Alexa and Olivia.

Her life with Bobby Darin has been dramatized in the 2004 film Beyond the Sea, in which she was played by Kate Bosworth.

Filmography

The Snow Queen (1957) (voice in 1958 English-dubbed version)
Until They Sail (1957)
The Reluctant Debutante (1958)
The Restless Years (1958)
A Stranger in My Arms (1959)
Gidget (1959)
Imitation of Life
(1959)
The Wild and the Innocent (1959)
A Summer Place
(1959)
Portrait in Black (1960)
Romanoff and Juliet (1961)
Tammy Tell Me True (1961)
Come September (1961)
If a Man Answers (1962)
Tammy and the Doctor (1963)
Take Her, She's Mine (1963)
I'd Rather Be Rich (1964)
That Funny Feeling (1965)
A Man Could Get Killed (1966)
Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding (1967)
Rosie! (1967)
The Dunwich Horror (1970)
East of Marsa Matruh (1971)
Lost (1983)

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Sandra Dee ]

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Actors - Sandra Dee

Filmography

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