"Bobby Is An Idol To Me"
Page two of article
"Bobby is an idol to me, and I want to do anything I can to make him happy. When Bobby and I disagree about something, we compromise. For instance, Bobby wants to buy a ranch for us. I'm not crazy about the idea, but since it means a lot to him, I've given it my blessing. He thinks our present home is too small. But since I like it, we're not selling it. We'll live in it, but instead of going to Palm springs for vacations, we'll spend them on the ranch."
When Sandy and Bobby first married, they were determined to keep their professional and personal lives completely separate. "Darin, Sandra bar
home life to world," big bold newspaper headlines announced. It was difficult to get pictures of the two of them together, impossible to get home layouts.
"They want to keep something for themselves," friends said--and you couldn't really blame them. Then Universal-International got the bright idea of co-starring them as boy and girl who fall in love and get married in "If A Man Answers." They were both the right types!
While co-starring in this film, they tried to keep their private and public lives separate. Bobby had his dressing room; Sandra had hers. During the day, they treated each other as co-stars. It was only after 6 p.m. that Sandy became Mrs. Darin.
Since they were co-stars, they were naturally photographed together. "I'd look like an airedale if I objected to being photographed with my co-star," admitted Bobby.
On the set of the picture, when Sandy appeared in a minimum amount of clothes for the scene in which she models for Bobby, the grips all began whistling. Russell Metty, the cameraman, sat up and said, "You're a woman, not a baby now, Sandra."
Sandy wouldn't have been human if she hadn't been pleased with the effect she had on the people she'd grown up with.
"She was delighted," said Ross Hunter. "She knows she's a woman now--and she likes it. She had more fun on 'If A Man Answers' than in any other picture she has ever made. It was the film where she crossed the bridge from girlhood to womanhood."
I told Sandra that I thought she looked sexier and slimmer in "If A Man Answers" than I'd ever seen her.
"The slimness is an illusion," she said. "I'm not slimmer. I'm no thinner than I was previously. But people remember the way I looked in 'Tammy, Tell Me True,' when I was pregnant. Naturally, I was heavier then.
"Before I was married, when I made 'Gidget' I was thinner than now. I was also thinner in 'Imitation Of Life.' I've grown up. If I look different, it's because my glands and hormones are those of a woman, not a girl."
Sandy claims she's four pounds heavier than she was before she became pregnant with Dodd Mitchell--but never has she been more seductive looking.
I asked her if a married woman should try to have more or less sex appeal than a single girl. "Why less?" she asked. "When a wife is attractive, her husband is really flattered, just as a wife is flattered if women find her husband attractive. I'm pleased when I sit in an audierice where Bobby is performing and women say that my husband is fascinating and charming.
Let them admire him. I know he is mine.
"I believe in a woman dressing well if she can afford it. If I wear slacks, they're good slacks; if I wear a blouse, it's a good blouse. However, I don't believe that sex appeal has anything to do with a woman's body or her clothes. Sex appeal can exist in a nurse's costume. I think Sophia Loren has sex appeal not only in a low cut dress, but even more in a peasant skirt and blouse or in a man's bathrobe on the screen.
"Men are often more conservative about their wives' clothes than about their sweethearts'. Before we were married, if I wore a low cut dress Bobby would say, 'Oh that's pretty.' After we were married, when I put on a V-necked sweater, he made me put a scarf over it. Once, when we were at the Copacabana in New York, I wore a mink coat all evening because he felt my dress was too low cut."
Not that Sandy ever dresses in extreme taste. Her necklines are never too low; her dresses are never too tight. But Bobby, the former sophisticate, is conservative where his wife is concerned.
At first, she tried to adapt herself to his tastes. Now, however, she has found that it's best to meet the situation with calm and humor. If he says, "Honey, that's too low cut," she's apt to smile, and just go ahead and wear what pleases her fancy. It's not that she loves Bobby less; it's just that she understands him better.
I asked Sandy if she had found the message of "If A Man Answers" true. The film is based on the idea of a young wife whose great secret of handling a husband comes from a book on training dogs.
"I think the idea in the film is very funny," giggled Sandy. "The picture's a comedy, but there's some truth in the idea. If you let the leash go for a little while, you hold a man better."
"Marriage should never be a trap. When I was 16 I thought I didn't want to get married. I felt that I'd much prefer dating
--knowing that the man was free to choose me or someone else. I didn't want a husband who would feel that it was his duty to take me out.
"In a way I was right. Marriage is great, but the minute you make your husband feel that going out with you is a duty, then taking you out becomes a nuisance. I don't believe in demanding that your husband take you out, or that he mow the lawn or change the baby's diapers. I don't believe in asking him to help you with the cooking, either. I wouldn't ask Bobby to do it, any more than I'd ask him to change Dodd's diapers.
"Bobby happens to love cooking, and he cooks when he feels like it. I usually hate the kitchen. Knowing how I hate it, he rarely demands that I do any cooking. Once in a while, when I feel like it, I turn out a masterpiece. One Saturday when Bobby was doing the Bob Hope show, I made a turkey casserole with mushrooms, spices, onions and creamed spinach. Bobby said it was the best thing he ever ate.
"We have a very good cook who usually does our cooking. Bobby isn't difficult about meals except when he isn't feeling well. When he doesn't feel good he wants the weirdest food-- mustard, mayonnaise and tuna fish--and he'll have nobody prepare it but me. Our nurse mustn't make it; Roosevelt, our handy man, mustn't--I'm the only one, he says.
"Once, when he wasn't feeling well, he said he wanted eggs over easy, in which you can't break the yolks. I didn't know how to make them, but he wouldn't have anyone else cook them for him.
"I said to Bobby, 'Can't it be scrambled eggs?'
"He said, 'No, I want them real soft.'
"'But I'll make scrambled eggs that are soft,' I promised.
"'No, they wouldn't be soft enough. It's got to be eggs over easy,' insisted Bobby.
"I broke the first yolk, then another and another. Altogether I went through a dozen eggs. Finally I made perfect eggs. I said, 'See the eggs. Aren't they gorgeous?' Then I threw them out. I'm sure that the moment I broke the first yolk Bobby knew what was coming."
"These kids are handling their problems well," a close friend said. "Sandy looks at life today with a more mature look than she had before she was married. Now responsibilities are part of her life.
"The first completely independent act of her life was buying and decorating her Beverly Hills home three years ago. It was white and pink and powder blue inside. It was the kind of a house that Sandra had always dreamed of having, with an all-white living room and a white piano."
There's no white piano in the living room of her home now. The house is basically a masculine home. You feel that the house, with its large white chairs, its oversized sofa, its deep woods and thick carpets, has been decorated with the idea
of pleasing Bobby.
"At 14, when she entered the movies, Sandy was living in a dream world," another friend said. "She was a very trusting girl. She was eager to be a
glamorous personality, but she didn't have a chance to go to a lot of parties and go on a lot of dates. She thought the world was good and pure and wonderful.
"Now she has dropped the so--called baby fat not only physically but also mentally. She was always eager to grow, but it wasn't easy for her. She got ideas and followed them, whether they were right or wrong. At one time she got the idea that a bouffant hairdo meant being grown up, and tried that for a while. Her mentors at the studio finally persuaded her to go back to a simple hairdo. She once thought it important to wear a lot of eye make-up. Now she's learned not to exaggerate make-up.
"She still has a long way to go to grow up but she knows it. She reads almost every well-known novel. She not only read 'The Agony And The Ecstasy' but did research on the life of Michelangelo.
"Right now she is going through a bewildering period. Her eyes have been opened to lots of things she never knew existed. Lack of kindness in others amazes her. She has never said an unkind thing about anybody. When columnists write about Bobby and her unkindly, she is bewildered.
"Sure, they're trying to cope with difficult problems. His hours are fantastic. But she wants to be with him, and he with her. When she was making 'Tammy And The Doctor,' Bobby gave up a six-week tour that would have netted him $200,000 just to be with Sandy.
"Theirs is a good marriage. Sandy is growing up. She is facing responsibilities beautifully. Though she has a nurse for the baby, she is with Dodd all the time except when working. She feeds Dodd herself.
"She is more thoughtful of people than ever before. A few years ago, if she wanted to give someone a gift, she'd have her mother shop for it. It was one of the many chores her mother was happy to do for her. But Sandy now feels that she herself should choose the gifts she gives other people. She does her own shopping now.
"She shows her gratitude to people in many ways. Her hairdresser goes with her on all her tours. The hairdresser told me how thoughtful Sandy is. When they're on tour, Sandy arranges to have theatre and movie tickets left for her, so that she never has to spend a lonely evening.
Sandy sums up the changes in herself: "The biggest change in me is that I've learned to understand my own life. I'm not referring to the situation in Laos or Algeria, but I do my best to understand my own world. My personal world consists of motion pictures, my husband, my son, my house--but not in that order.
"I don't think that I'll ever completely understand Bobby, nor do I ever want to. If I understood him completely, living with him would be like living with myself. But I think I've grown with each day of marriage. And I do understand Bobby and Baby Dodd better than I did at first. Bobby and I argue five times a day, but that doesn't mean anything--I even argue with my baby six times a day.
"With each argument, Bobby and I understand each other better. And it is only when you really try to understand another person, that you are able to receive as well as give love fully."
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