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Sandra Dee

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Sandra Dee
from the Imitation of Life trailer (1959)
Birth name	Alexandria Cymboliak Zuck
Born	April 23 1942(1942-04-23) Bayonne, New Jersey, United States
Died	February 20 2005 (aged 62) Thousand Oaks, California

Sandra Dee (April 23 1942 - February 20 2005) was an American film actress best known for her portrayal of Ingenues.

1 Birth and background
2 Career
3 Personal life
4 Dodd Darin's book
5 Filmography
6 TV Work
7 Cultural References
8 External links

Birth and background

Born Alexandria Cymboliak Zuck to John and Mary (née Cymboliak) in Bayonne, New Jersey, who later divorced. Her mother was of Rusyn ancestry. Abbreviated as "Sandra", she became a professional model by the age of four and subsequently progressed to television commercials. Sandra Dee made her first film, Until They Sail, in 1957. There was some confusion as to her actual birth year, with evidence pointing to both 1942 and 1944, however Intelius indicates 1942 (see Intelius search).

Career

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). 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, and the 1978 film version.

Personal life

Her marriage in 1960, aged 18, to singer/actor Bobby Darin kept her in the public eye for much of the decade. She was under contract to Universal Studios, which tried to develop Dee into 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. (Bobby Darin died of heart disease on December 20 1973.) 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, it was reported that she had been diagnosed with a myriad ailments, including throat cancer and renal disease. It was later learned that the former (the cancer scare) was unfounded, but the latter (renal or kidney disease) was indeed true. Complications of End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD), combined with pneumonia, led to her death on February 20 2005, at the Los Robles Hospital & Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, California. She was 62, although some reports at the time indicated she was 60. Sandra Dee is interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Hollywood Hills, not far from her mother, Mary C. Douvan, who died on December 27 1987. Dee is survived by son Dodd, her only child with Bobby Darin, daughter-in-law Audrey and two granddaughters, Alexa (a version of her grandmother's birth name, Alexandria) and Olivia Darin.

Dodd Darin's book

In 1994, Dodd wrote a book about his parents, Dream Lovers: The Magnificent Shattered Lives of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee, in which he chronicled his mother's anorexia, drug and alcohol problems and her claim that she had been sexually abused as a child by her stepfather, Eugene Douvan. Her life with Bobby Darin was dramatized in the 2004 film Beyond the Sea, in which Kevin Spacey played Bobby Darin and Dee was played by Kate Bosworth.