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Teens' screen dream

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Actress Sandra Dee dead at age 63

LOS ANGELES - Actress Sandra Dee, the blond beauty who attracted a large teen audience in the 1960s with films such as Gidget and Tammy and the Doctor and had a headlined marriage to pop singer Bobby Darin, died Sunday (Feb. 20, 2005). She was 63.

Ms. Dee died at 5:57 a.m. at Los Robles Hospital & Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, said Cynthia Mead, nursing supervisor. She died of complications from kidney disease after nearly two weeks in the hospital, said Steve Blauner, a longtime family friend who represents Darin's estate. Blauner said Ms. Dee had been on dialysis for about four years.

"She didn't have a bad bone in her body," he said in a phone interview. "When she was a big star in the pictures and a top five 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."

The family expected to hold private funeral services.

At Universal Studios, Ms. Dee was cast mostly in teen movies such as The Reluctant Debutante, The Restless Years, Tammy Tell Me True and Take Her She's Mine.

Occasionally, she was able to do secondary roles in other films, such as Imitation of Life, A Portrait in Black and Romanoff and Juliet.

After a one-month courtship, Ms. Dee married Darin in Elizabeth, N.J., in 1960. A son, Dodd Mitchell Darin, was born to the couple the following year.

In 1965, with her divorce from Darin dampening her teen appeal, Dee was dropped by Universal.

"I thought they were my friends," she said in an interview that year with the Associated Press, referring to her former bosses. "But I found out on the last picture (A Man Could Get Killed ) that I was simply a piece of property to them. I begged them not to make me do the picture, but they insisted."

Born Alexandra Zuck on April 23, 1941, in Bayonne, N.J., Ms. Dee became a model while in grade school.

In a mid career interview, she explained her name change: "I used to sign vouchers and signout sheets with "Alexandra Dee.' Somehow it stuck." When she was signed to her first film, she said, "Sandra Dee was the name they gave me."

Ms. Dee made an independent film Rosie! (1968), starring with Rosalind Russell, but her movie career dwindled after that.

Her name was resuscitated in 1978 with the film Grease, which featured the song Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee mocking her squeaky-clean image. But Ms. Dee didn't mind, Blauner said.

"She always had a big laugh about it. She had a great sense of humor," he said.

Blauner said her favorite films were the ones she made with Darin. Despite their divorce, he remained the love of her life, Blauner said.

In a March 1991 interview with People magazine, Ms. Dee said she was sexually abused as a child by her stepfather and pushed into stardom by her mother. Ms. Dee, who turned to pills and alcohol, said she hit bottom after her mother died in 1988.

"I couldn't function," she told People, adding that she began drinking more than a quart of scotch a day as her weight fell to 80 pounds. She said she stayed home almost constantly for three years.

Ms. Dee credited her son with helping her turn her life around. She began seeing a therapist regularly and hoped to land a job on a TV series.

Kate Bosworth portrayed Ms. Dee in last year's movie Beyond the Sea, a biography of Darin.

Actor Kevin Spacey, who played Darin the film, has said Ms. Dee approved of the movie. "She called me ... and said she loved it," he said last year.

[Last modified February 21, 2005, 01:32:19]