"Those Lies About Sandra Dee!"




This article, written by Mike Connolly appeared in the June 1960 issue of Screen Stories Magazine


No really true "inside story" about Sandra Dee can be written, unless the name Ross Hunter is interwoven with it. Ross Hunter is the man who discovered Sandra Dee, signed her to a personal contract, and turned her into a star. He has guided her footsteps to stardom every inch of the way. He is the "older man" in her life, the man whom so many stories have hinted darkly is: "Sandra's one true love."

And, it's all true! But there's nothing "dark" about the relationship between them. The association is as clean and bright as Sandra's sunny smile. The link is as strong and durable as the Rock of Gibraltar.

Ross Hunter once was a star at Columbia Studios. Then he quit acting in favor of a rough, tough climb up the Hollywood ladder to another kind of stardom--that of a producer. He has produced some of Hollywood's finest movies, among them, 1959's multi-Oscar-nominated "Pillow Talk" and "Imitation Of Life".

And because Ross was once a star, Sandra Dee is a star today, and has borne up through the criticism and abuse that the eighteen-year-old Sandra knows she has to be able to take.

The attacks on Sandra have been numerous--and enormous. Here they are in all their pettiness and ugliness.

First: Sandra Dee is vain; she spends hour upon idle hour everyday in front of her make-up mirror, and she is a clothes horse.

Second: Sandra Dee is a strange, neurotic girl, totally unlike the "all-American girl" she plays in most of her movies. She has an "excessive mother relationship" and doesn't date boys her own age more than once, because she is romancing an older man.

Let's put on the stand the first witness for the defense: Ross Hunter.

"You're damn right Sandy's vain about herself." Ross says. "She's also a clothes horse. And she'd better stay that way, or I'll take her across my knees and spank her!"

Sandra, is Ross your Svengali?

"Svengali was that evil man who hypnotized Trilby, wasn't he?" Sandra asks. "No, that's not Ross. Ross is my Pygmalion--the man who turned Galatea from a piece of lifeless clay into a human being. At least, I think I'm on my way to being a human being."

Ross put in: "Sure, I'm that mysterious older man in Sandy's life. Right, Sandy?"

"Right, Uncle Ross!" she agreed.

Then I told Ross, "Let's quit the question-and-answer bit. You take over, and tell the whole thing. Okay?"

Ross Hunter: Okay. Little Sandra Dee became Big Sandra Dee April 23 of this year. That was her eighteenth birthday.

Do you know what turning the eighteenth milestone means to young movie actor or actress? It means the kind of freedom that any other teenager in any walk of life can know. It means the complete breakdown of a California state law that says no juvenile actor may work on a sound stage after four o'clock in the afternoon. It means no more schooling at the studio. It means no more State welfare workers hanging around, watching your every step--making sure you're not overworking; making sure you're keeping up with your studies; cutting you off in the middle of a big scene because the California law says no child may work more than eight hours a day.

It means independence!

I have watched Sandy prepare for that independence. Mary Douvan, her mother, has also watched her, and has helped her "sneak" up on it. Another youngster might have gone wild over the feeling of emancipation, but not Sandy. She met it head on. She was prepared to handle it.

I think Sandy will agree she used to use Mary and myself as "crutches" to get her over the rough spots. More than once, she would get panicky over certain situations, and turn to her mother and me.

Doesn't it seem to you, when most kids start growing up and making decisions for themselves, that ninety per cent of those decisions are wrong? Not Sandy's. Over the past year, I have come to the sneaky conclusion that only five per cent of the decisions Sandy makes on her own are wrong!

Since about nine months before her eighteenth birthday, I watched Sandy steadily grow independent. Remember "The Wild and Innocent", Sandy?

Sandra: You were right, Uncle Ross. I never should have made it. All that heavy eye make-up was wrong. The picture didn't help my career a bit; in fact, it hurt it. Remember when you used to pound away at me and pummel me about staying young as long as I could?

Ross: My exact words were: "An actress should stay young as long as she can, because she's a long time growing old." Mike, try pounding and pummeling that into a sixteen-year-old who's straining at the leash to be eighteen as quickly as she can make it!

Well, we made it. And the "clean, normal, all-American" Sandra Dee is still clean, normal and all-American. I guess it's offbeat casting in this day and age, when so many youngsters appear to be revolting against the old ideas, and rallying 'round the standards of such Queen Bee Beatniks as Tuesday Weld. But staying sweet and sane has paid off for Sandra Dee, because that's the way her public wants her to be.

I remember what happened when I introduced Sandra to the public in her first picture, The Restless Years, after which Sandra went on loan-outs to other studios for Until They Sail, The Reluctant Debutante and Gidget, and then she returned to her own studio for Stranger in My Arms, Imitation of Life and now, Portrait in Black. What happened? We got letters from the public, the likes of which I have never read!

Remember when Mary Pickford was called "America's Sweetheart?" Mary was the Queen of the Movies because she represented everything that was wholesome in American life. I can quote one of those letters from memory, Mike. It sums up the thousands we received at the studio about Sandra. It said: Thanks for giving us another America's Sweetheart. We haven't had one since Debbie Reynolds quit being "Tammy" and started playing sophisticated parts. Thanks, U-I, for a sweet, wholesome Sandra Dee.

Sometimes Sandy seems set on following in Debbie's footsteps. It'll be over my dead body, believe me! In Portrait in Black, Sandy plays Lana Turner's stepdaughter; Lloyd Nolan portrays Sandy's father; and John Saxon, her boy friend. Sandy, tell Mike about those make-up and wardrobe tests you made for the picture.

Sandra: Well, Mike, I made a real mess of it. Ross let me have a free hand with the tests. After he saw the screenings, he called me into his office and told me that as long as I was going to be the soubrette lead, hairdresser and make-up girl, all rolled into one, there was no reason why he should have to hire a regular hairdresser and make-up man! Why hire regulars, he asked, when I was turning it into a Do-It-Myself picture? "I'm willing to fire your hairdresser and make-up man," he told me, "but I will have to fire them in your name, Sandy, because you've made the decision on how you want to look in the picture. Besides, it'll save me a lot of hairdressing and make-up bills !"

Well, I immediately got the message. I broke down and cried, and vowed that I would never again try to tell the experts how to do my hair and make-up. "I'll let them do anything they want to me, Uncle Ross," I promised. "It's their job, not mine."

Ross: The first day Sandy arrived in Hollywood, I laid down The Ross Hunter Law to her. I told her never to appear in public unless she wore a clean, beautiful dress, unless her hair was combed, and unless her make-up was perfect. Matter of fact, I can't claim originality for it. It's the old Hollywood formula; the same formula that made glamour queens out of such stars as Joan Crawford, Lana Turner, Barbara Stanwyck and Greta Garbo. In other words, live in a glass house and let your fans look all they want--but don't let them touch!

That's why I got such a kick when I read a statement last year from Joan Crawford herself--something to the effect that the only new young star in the business who can "make it" as a glamour star is Sandra Dee.

Sandra: And that's why I'll continue, God willing, to do what Uncle Ross tells me to do--meaning all the things that the public expects of a star.

Ross: Such as?

Sandra: Such as not posing for magazine layouts that show me washing dishes. And may I add that, aside from "acting like a star," I just plain don't like to wash dishes; so why should I pretend by posing for kitchen photos!

Ross: Sandy loves being a movie star. I guess just about any teenager you could name would love it, so that's not very unusual, is it? Sandy's unusual in that she does what very few of them do: she works at being a star, off the screen as well as on.

Sandra: Speaking of which, I've got a date with my hairdresser right now! Mind if I leave you gentlemen?

Both Ross and I reluctantly said no. Sandy took off in The Patented Sandra Dee Swirl, then stopped in flight just as suddenly as she had taken off, to add: Besides, Mike, Uncle Ross knows more about this monster he created than she knows.

Ross: Maybe Sandy's right. But don't minimize Sandy's mother, Mike, when you sit down to write about Sandy. Mary Douvan is more than "just a mother" to Sandy. She is also Sandy's best friend another reason Sandy is such a solid, both-feet-on-the ground citizen.

Some people might think it's bad for a youngster to become a star, but it isn't true in Sandy's case. It might be bad for a baby star--the kind of child star whose childhood is sacrificed by a stage mother for a career that mother wanted for herself. Mary isn't a stage mother. Sandy isn't a baby star. Sandy had her childhood, back East. She was in her teens when she came to Hollywood. Stardom has been good for her.

Marriage? She's still too young for it, and she knows it. Like I told you, she works at her craft. She has made one picture after another, with hardly any time off. The reason she doesn't date much is because she's been busy making movies.

I don't think I'm talking out of school, Mike, when I say the boy Sandy likes best is Bill Gargaro Jr., the eldest son of Betty and Bill Gargaro. Bill Sr. is one of the owners of the Beverly Hills Club. One columnist got wind of a story that Sandy was dating Bill Jr.'s brother Dean, and phoned Sandy to check it. Sandy said, "Dean is seventeen. Bill Jr. is nineteen. Dean's too young for me. If you've read those stories about how I dote on older men, you must surely know I date Bill; he's a year older than I am--and I do dig older men!"

Those stories about my "romance" with Sandy started one night when young Bill was busy with his studies, and couldn't take Sandy to a premiere. He phoned to apologize. Sandy told him: "Okay, Bill, you study and I'll get Uncle Ross to take me."

I don't know--maybe the stories started earlier than that! Now that I think it over, the "Sandy-Ross Thing"--Sandra Dee's "affair" with an Older Man!--might have started in 1957, the year I signed her.

I had gone to New York to find a cast for The Restless Years, because I hadn't found the right players for the parts in Hollywood. I headed directly for the office of Maurice Bergman, Universal-International's New York casting director, in the U-I film exchange on Manhattan's Film Row. When I got out of the cab, I saw a girl standing on the sidewalk.

I noticed her immediately. Anyone would have noticed her; believe me, you would have to be blind not to! She looked waiflike, pathetic, like Lillian Gish in that silent movie, Orphans of the Storm. And yet, there was something chic about her, something that made her stand out in the crowd. Whatever it was, she had more of it than any girl I had ever seen in my life.

It turned out that she was waiting for her agent, who was supposed to meet her there and escort her into the building to meet Maurice Bergman. It also turned out that the pathetic, waif-like quality was very real, since Sandy's stepfather, Eugene Douvan, had only recently passed away.

Well, I beat her agent to it. I walked up to Sandy, introduced myself, told her I was visiting New York from Hollywood to find a cast for The Restless Years, and asked her to do a reading for me. Sandy was smart even then, at which time she was only fifteen years old. Because, later, she told me she thought I was a "real kook." I asked why. She explained, "Because you looked too young to be a Hollywood producer!"

Well, she finally read for the part, and she was great. I told the big bosses at U-I just how great I thought she was. I raved on and on about her. Oh, I tell you, I was very big with the bosses---they didn't sign her!

But I promised Sandy I would give her a whack at that role if it was the last thing I ever did. That meant a screen test. Screen tests are very expensive. I must have been out of my mind!

Three months later, after Sandy had decided once and for all that I really was the kook she had pegged me for in the first place, I screen tested her for the role. She got it--and I got her; I signed her to a personal contract, with me, not with U-I. Then, like an idiot, a few months later, I turned that contract over to U-I. Now Sandy and I are both employees of U-I. However, we expect to make many more pictures together, not only for U-I but also after our contracts with the Studio terminate. When and if that day arrives, we plan to make independent pictures, with Sandy starring and her Uncle Ross producing.

Every studio in town wants Sandy for one picture or another, but her next picture will be for U-I, where her fan mail is now ahead of Rock Hudson's, believe it or not! One reason for that, I believe, is the way she works with her fans. She types letters to them, and personally signs them.

Her next picture won't be produced by me, but by Peter Ustinov, who also wrote it and will co-star with Sandy. It's Romanoff and Juliet, based on Peter's famous stage play. Need I say I got great personal pleasure out of the cable Peter sent to our U-I bosses from his home in Switzerland? It read: You can write your own contract with me if I can get Sandra Dee to play Juliet. Sandra was impressed by the wire, but it didn't make her hat size any bigger.

Sandy has a credo, Mike. Fans come first and foremost in all of her plans. Nothing-believe me, nothing--is more important than those fans of hers. As a result, there are times you can't park near her home because of them. And I guess I don't have to tell you that the new home she bought is a typical movie star's home.

I went to that typical movie star's home the night of my Pillow Talk premiere, to pick up Sandy and Mary. They were part of the big party I had asked to be with me on what was to be one of the happiest evenings of my life. We almost didn't make it; at least fifty of Sandy's fans were lined up outside her home, and we had fifteen minutes to make it.

There we stood gnawing our nails, while Sandy signed all the autograph books in sight. And she made that decision herself! If I'd had my way, I would have hollered, "Scram, all of you. You're ruining my big night!"

We finally made it to the theater, fifteen minutes late. As we pulled up under the marquee, she squeezed my arm, flashed that typical Sandra Dee smile, and said, "You told me something once, Uncle Ross, that I've never forgotten. You said, 'Sandy, don't ever do things to please yourself. Do them to please your fans. Remember they are the ones who pay your grocery bills. They also pay all the bills for those beautiful clothes you love to buy at Magnin's and Saks.' Remember, Uncle Ross?"

Believe it or not, Mike, she gave those words back to me exactly as I had given them to her.

I'm the older man in her life, all right. Look sharply--I just sprouted another gray hair.



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