Sandra Dee
| Sandra Dee | |
|---|---|
Dee in 1961
|
|
| Born |
Alexandra Zuck April 23, 1942 Bayonne, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Died | February 20, 2005 (aged 62) Thousand Oaks, California, U.S. |
| Cause of death | Kidney failure |
| Resting place | Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills, California, U.S. |
| Other names | Sandra Douvan |
| Education | Hollywood Professional School |
| Occupation | Actress, model |
| Years active | 1957–1983 |
| Spouse(s) | Bobby Darin (m. 1960–67); divorced; 1 child |
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 , 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.
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 the age of 62 of complications from kidney disease, brought on by a lifelong struggle with anorexia nervosa.
Dee was born Alexandra Zuck in Bayonne, New Jersey, in 1942, 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.
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.
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