"Her New Life"

This article, by Greg James, appeared in the September 1962 issue of Motion Picture Magazine

It took Sandra Dee five years to grow up on the screen. But I saw her do it in half an hour the other day.
Appropriately, the "instant maturity" took place while we were discussing the growing up of Sandra Dee.
As she entered her dressing room trailer in a sound stage at Universal-International, fresh from the set of "Tammy and the Doctor," she looked like the living inspiration for that "strawberries-and-cream complexion" cliche.
Strawberry-like: Her suit, of a pink cotton-and-silk Swiss fabric. Her pink pumps, repeated topside in a pink hair ribbon that held her cornsilk-yellow ponytail.
Cream-like: Her matchless complexion.
Although I referred to Sandra as a woman a moment ago, the vision that walked through the door looked more like a girl, though her age in the picture is about eighteen.
She sat down at her mirrored dressing table, on which were taped a congratulatory telegram from an exhibitors' magazine concerning her boxoffice achievements and a small snapshot of pudgy-faced Dodd Mitchell Darin, who'll be celebrating his first birthday at about the time you read this. Frankly, I took a good, close look at the picture, since the Darins haven't allowed Dodd to be photographed for publication. Just as Sandra has said, he's like a miniature of Bobby, but with traces of Sandra too. In other words, a cute, healthy baby who, like most babies, looks like his folks.
Sandra, noting my interest, explained why the Darins don't want to have Dodd's picture published. And her reasons seemed to make very good sense.
"If the baby's willing to sit for a picture in a few years, fine. But I'd like it to be his decision. When he's five years old and goes to school, I don't want the other kids to laugh at him because I'm in the business and he's been posing for publicity pictures. So I think he should have a say in the matter---and right now he's too young to say anything!"
"Mind you," Sandra said, as she began removing her makeup, "I don't think this business is going to hurt my child, my husband or myself. I've grown up in showbusiness and I like it.
"But, on the other hand, I think that having a husband and baby has actually helped me in a career sense, because the experience has helped to make me a better actress!"
She smiled confidentially. "In fact, that's what I want to be known as now---an actress. Before I was married, I just wanted to be known as a movie star. Being a star is still very important to me . . . but my attitude toward my work has become much more serious, and I think more mature.
"Getting married and having a baby has made me realize that I have more responsibilities now--not only to my husband and child, but to myself. I respect myself more now, and I like myself better now. Frankly, I wasn't crazy about myself a year or two ago. Perhaps I was drifting. But now everything has a purpose. And I realize that I'm not as selfish as I thought I was, or as spoiled as I thought I was." She laughed. "I couldn't be!"
"Before, there was nothing for me to give myself to except this business. And I found out that the business wasn't enough. Not for me, anyway. I know now that I wouldn't be happy in showbusiness without a husband and baby, without any outside interest. It's like having chocolate cake for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It's too much--there has to be something else on your diet, too, no matter how much you may like chocolate cake. There has to be a balance. Otherwise you'll get sick!"
"Do you think that's one of the reasons you got married-because you knew there was something missing from your life?"
She shook her head· "Not at all. I didn't realize it until later. I got married because I fell in love, and only later did I see how one-sided my life had been."
Sandy's hairdresser came in and put her hair up in rollers as our conversation continued.
"Why did your marriage make you think about being an actress, rather than just a movie star?" I asked.
"I guess, Number one, that I wanted to make my husband proud of me---and, Number two, I wanted to make myself proud of me!" she grinned. "I realized, after I married, that there was more to life than getting dressed up in a fox stole or a mink coat, and wearing a lot of jewelry. There were the basic values... getting up with someone every morning, and if he doesn't feel well, knowing that you're the one he's going to ask for an aspirin . . . knowing that another human is counting on you as a person.
"Suddenly I realized how little of myself I had been giving to others, not only in my personal life but at the studio. So, although I was devoting all my time to my career before, I now actually have more of a drive to advance in my career. But I want to advance by improving myself, and not just for the sake of my career. As I said, I want to make my husband proud of me, too."
"You speak of improving yourself. Are you studying in any way?"
"No, I don't believe that you can study to improve your acting. I've never studied. I'm trying to improve as I work. I don't believe anybody can teach you how to say 'Good morning,' 'I love you,' or anything. The important thing is knowing the character, and nobody can teach you that. You have to understand it for yourself. That's the way you learn about life, too, really .... You have to learn by living it. You can't learn about life out of a book. In fact, I guess that learning about life by living it--through getting married and having a baby--has helped to make me a better actress, a better person."
"Since you feel you've improved as an actress recently, I imagine you feel your best performances have been your most recent ones."
She nodded. "I think my best performance to date is in 'If a Man Answers,' and I think that 'Tammy and the Doctor' will be a much better picture than 'Tammy Tell Me True,' which I made just after I got married."
"What did you try to accomplish in 'If a Man Answers'"?
"I tried to be more grown-up! I tried to be twenty years old, instead of the usual seventeen."
"Do you want to leave your teen roles behind?"
She shook her head vehemently. "No. Not necessarily! I won't say that I wouldn't play even a fourteen-year-old if it was a good part, and by the same token, I'd play a twenty-three-year-old if the role was good. It's just that in playing a twenty-year-old I feel I had to bridge the gap between the teen years and adulthood. And I think I did it. This girl isn't a child, but a married woman." She smiled mischievously, "And of course, the clothes helped!"
"Did you try to change your voice at all for 'If a Man Answers,' to make you sound older than you'd sounded before?"
"No. It wasn't necessary. After all, I am twenty. However, in 'Tammy and the Doctor,' I do change my voice. I made it higher and younger, since Tammy is younger than I. Not that I minded that! In fact, I'd liked the idea of going from the one picture to the other, and the one age to the other. It made me feel more versatile."
By now she had removed all her makeup with cold cream. But this was one movie star who didn't need makeup to look beautiful, although her face was now paler, of course.
Her words, too, were very mature now as she said, "Whatever age I play, I now understand one thing: This business isn't as easy as I thought it was going to be. But because of that, it's a heck of a lot more fun--because anything you think is a pushover, you can become bored with."
"In what ways isn't it as easy as you expected?"
"Well, I've realized since my child was born that I myself am not a child anymore. I realize it, and I'm glad of it. I realize that now the studio expects twice the stamina from me---and twice the talent! But I'm glad. I used to be able to say, 'I'm tired,' and I wouldn't have to work anymore. I suppose I still could, but I don't want to, because I'll be disappointing a lot of people."
"How do you see yourself and Bobby in relation to showbusiness?"
"In my case, my husband comes first, my child second and my career third. In his case, because he's a man, being happy with his family means being happy in his work. A man has to be happy with his job in order to be happy with his family. That's why, although I hate to be apart from Bobby, I could never say to him, 'Don't go on the road.' He wouldn't go, but I wouldn't really be happy, because I'd know he wasn't doing what a man must do--his work.
"However," she added, "just because I place my career third, don't think it isn't important to me! It is. I'm ambitious. If I didn't think I could be the biggest, I wouldn't stay in this business. I don't say I will be, but I have to reach for the top and try to be."
"What do you mean 'the biggest?'" I asked.
"I mean a person of stature in this business. There are certain people we call the biggest stars--Cary Grant, Lana Turner--and I'd like to be like them someday."
"Have you ever thought that you'd like to win an Academy Award?"
"Not really, except to think that if it ever comes it will be later. It's the biggest recognition you can get in this business, so naturally you'd feel privileged if you won it."
"How do you feel about yourself as an actress right now?"
"I like to think of myself as a piece of putty in the director's hands," she said. "It gives me pleasure when he says, 'I want the scene played this way,' and I can do it. I get pleasure out of understanding the way he wants it played, and even greater pleasure in seeing it happen that way on the screen when the scene has been filmed. Being able to create a role the way the director wants it--that gives me real satisfaction.
"Mind you," she added, "I don't like to have him tell me how to read a particular line--just how the scene should be played."
"What directors have helped you most?" I asked.
"Henry Levin helped me a lot, on 'If a Man Answers.' I think he has a very good understanding of a young woman. And Delmar Daves was a great help when I was doing 'A Summer Place,' because he has a wonderful understanding of young girls. On that picture I needed help to bridge the gap from early teens to middle teens on the screen, and in 'If a Man Answers' I needed to bridge the gap from teenager to young woman. And both directors happened to be excellent in those respects."
"Are you trying to leave the teenage image behind you?" I asked.
"No!" she said firmly. "There's nothing wrong with it. As I said, I'll play a teenage role if it's good. At the same time, I don't want the public to think of me as a teenager. I want them to think of me as a young woman who can play teen parts or adult parts. Because at twenty I feel I can understand both."
"Do you see yourself as a 'personality' actress--an actress whose own personality shows up on the screen--or do you see yourself as an actress who submerges herself in the part?" I asked.
"A personality!" she said. "I want to be a good actress, but to me acting is play. You are acting. It's make-believe. You don't have to sink yourself into the part. I play-act at being the character. I don't make myself into the character.
"I know there are two schools of thought on that," Sandra admitted. "There is a school of concentrating so hard on the role that you're that person almost constantly--for twelve to fourteen hours at a time, while you're on the set. I belong to the other school. When I come out of a scene, I'm not Tammy anymore. True, there's a change from my real personality, but not a complete change. And it only lasts during the scene, and then it stops. I enjoy being me between scenes, so that I can keep a balance and remember who the heck I am!"
"In other words, you change your personality somewhat, but you want people to recognize you up there on the screen--not to come out of the theater afterwards and say, 'Gee, I didn't even know that was Sandra Dee!'"
"That's right. I'm not in this business to hide."
"Just why are you in it?"
Without hesitation she said, "First of all, because it's a very lucrative business. I do enjoy having my beautiful clothes, having a hairdresser--being, lets say, spoiled. I don't think it's an unpleasant thing to be spoiled, and I don't think it's made a nasty person out of me."
She grinned. "There's another reason for my being in this business. I'm just an old hambone at heart! I like acting. I like seeing a character come to life. It's a thrill for me. A writer would get that thrill out of putting something down on paper, and a carpenter would get it out of seeing a house rise. My thrill comes from acting.
"To me," she said, growing philosophical, "acting has always been two eyes. When I look at somebody, I can tell from their eyes whether they're lying or telling the truth, whether they're happy or unhappy. Of course, there's more to it than that--the rest of the face and the body help--but it's centered in the eyes." Her own brown eyes were serious as she spoke.
"What do you like least about acting?" I asked.
"Posing for still pictures, for one thing," she said which surprised me, since Sandra started as a model. "Also, dubbing dialogue for scenes while they're projected on an overhead screen. You have to do that when something goes wrong with the sound. I hate the terrible times in between scenes, when you have to wait for a setup. [That is, for a camera shot to be set up, which involves placement of the camera and arrangement of the lights.] But most, I dislike the ridiculous hour you have to get up---5 A.M., in my case."
"You've spoken about the way that marriage has made you feel more responsible toward your work. Can you tell me how your desire to improve has shown up in your work?" I asked.
"The main difference is that I listen now--I listen to the other person in a scene. I can't tell you how important that is! I find that I do much better work if I listen to the other actors. Actually, I've only started doing this in the past two or three months, but it's paid off not only in helping me to give a better performance, but in keeping me from being thrown for a loss when someone else says his lines differently from the way they are in the script. I can ad lib a little now if that happens."
Sandra's increased sense of responsibility has come at a highly appropriate time when she finds a bigger percentage of the burden of the picture placed on her.
"In 'If a Man Answers,' I realized that suddenly I wasn't playing anybody's daughter or anybody's sister or anybody's little girl friend anymore. I was the star of the picture, with top billing. The woman I've really idolized as a star is Lana Turner. And now the man who'd been designing her clothes was designing mine. The cameraman who'd worked on her pictures was working on mine. The same producer was producing mine. I had the key role in the picture, and the key people at the studio were working with me. That's when I decided that making a picture couldn't be a breeze anymore--not with that much responsibility!"
The hairdresser had finished her work, and now Sandra's own light blonde hair fell softly around her head in a chic, sophisticated style. She wore almost no makeup--just a touch of lipstick---and needed no more. For already Tammy was gone, and a young woman was in her place.
I stepped out of the dressing room trailer while Sandra changed into the dress she was going to wear home. A few moments later she emerged, wearing a slim metallic gray sheath. It was the final touch--the transformation was complete. The girl who had grown up on the screen had repeated the feat in the space of a half hour, in person.
It's a measure of Sandra Dee's versatility and increasing ability that she can retain the innocence of a teenager and combine it with the wisdom of a young woman, both on and off the screen. And many a star in Hollywood undoubtedly envies her for it! She is well on her way toward becoming, as she would put it, "the biggest."


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