Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin:

Truth On Tape: Sandy Talks About Her Fights With Bobby

A taped interview by MODERN SCREEN's Dick Strout, well-known radio interviewee whose "Hollywood Profiles" is broadeast over 800 stations. This article appeared in the April, 1963 issue of Modern Screen Magazine.

Sometimes the things that Bobby wants are not the same things I want.
We figure somebody's got to give--or the marriage will give.
So, one of us gives. I used to be the balky one. But I made a marvelous discovery: it's easier to give in. I win more.
Like our differences of opinion about the ranch. What a bone of contention that was. Bobby wants at least six acres of wide open spaces and horses and that kind of thing. He's been a city boy all his life, so this ranch idea is heaven to him.
Me, it's not my way of life. I was raised as a city girl; I still am one. I ride, but I can live without it, too. And it's killing me to think of living out in the country.
So how do we settle it?
We're looking at ranches! I figure what's the use of fighting it.
Why try to win all the victories in our marriage? When I gave in to Bobby about the ranch, I didn't lose a thing. I gained. Bobby is so grateful to me that he just can't do enough for me.
Marriage can't be a battleground where one or the other has to win every skirmish. I'd just as soon lose a few. In the end, I win more. I gain a husband who thinks I'm a living doll just because I conceded. It's worth it.
So that's one segment of our marriage today. Even though we disagreed originally on the ranch, it never became a battle royal. But columnists tried to read another meaning into it. Naturally, we can't plan on buying a big ranch without disposing of the house we're already in. When we told some people that we were thinking of putting our home up for sale, the columnists screamed that we were selling the house because we were splitting up.
How ridiculous! The house we live in has always been a temporary home for us. Bobby bought it when I was pregnant and had no chance to see it. It's too small for us. It really is--it's on a hill and not a big enough backyard for the baby, or the babies we plan to have in the future--say in a year or two from now.
When we read that we're heading for a divorce, we have mixed emotions. We try to laugh it off, but actually we're upset. It's an eerie feeling to read that you're about to get a divorce from your husband---particularly when you're having coffee with him that very moment on your second anniversary. That's what happened to us. Bobby and I were in New York, alone together in our hotel room having breakfast, feeling very cozy and pleasurable because we were able to be together on our anniversary. And it wasn't easy! Bobby'd given up a $25,000 engagement that week just so that he could be with me for our anniversary.
I picked up the paper and started to read it. "Guess what, honey," I said. "We split up." Bobby buttered his roll and said, "Well, that's a nice present for our wedding anniversary."
We tried to kid about it, but it's no fun. It's like reading you've just died.
Bobby doesn't look like a softie, but he is. And he's mush in the baby's hands. We always travel with the baby, unless Bobby's on a series of back-breaking onenighters.
This last time, Bobby and I had to go out on two separate tours at the identical time for our picture, If A Man Answers. We took different parts of the country. We couldn't divide the baby. I let Bobby have him. I knew Bobby'd be lost being without either the baby or me. And he'd been out on so many one-nighters without the baby, I figured, let him have Doddie this time. The baby is his boy. Bobby has a real need to have our son with him.
That was a concession on my part, too, because I'm pretty lost without the baby, too. But I felt I had to do what I did. I'm kind of proud that I did it. It's a far cry from the way I used to handle myself only a year ago. You know the way brand new mothers sometimes have a tendency to be over-protective with a new baby, as though he was made of glass, and they forget they have a husband who needs attention, too. That was me. I made that mistake.
Shortly after the baby was born, Bobby suggested we go to our house in Palm Springs for the weekend. Just the two of us--a rest, a second honeymoon. Once we got into our house in the desert, I had a sinking feeling. How could I stay away from my baby for one whole night? Bobby thought I was being silly and wouldn't drive back home that night, as I wanted to. It was good for the two of us to get away and find ourselves again, he thought. But I was used to having my own way. I was very emotional, too. So I stalked out to the car, determined to drive home alone that very night.
Once inside the car I started to cry. After I cried a bit I went back into the house again. Bobby was very understanding. I think if he'd run after me after I got into the car, or if he had given in to me and turned back home again, our marriage might have gone off on a cockeyed slant right then and there.
We had our weekend together. It was glorious. I discovered my husband all over again. I relaxed and didn't worry about the baby. I learned a lesson: parenthood shouldn't deprive two people of romance. It's good for Bobby and me to get away together now and then.
Bobby is first. The baby second. That's a funny way to put it, because I guess they're both firsts in my heart, but in different ways. In other words, if there had to be a choice, I'd choose to go with Bobby. A nurse can take care of the baby temporarily. God forbid that anybody else could take my place with Bobby!
I don't have any formalized rules on how to keep my husband happy. I know there are lots of words written on that, but I go by the heart, the instinct, not the rules. Bobby and I are emotional, excitable people. We blow off steam. We behave the way we do because that's the way we are. And so we make a lot of mistakes, too. And have fights over them.
But when two people are motivated by impulse the way Bobby and I are, there's nothing phony in our relationship. We know where we stand with each other. I love my husband and I want to keep him, I try to get up in the morning with him when he leaves for his office (he keeps regular office hours even when he's not making a picture). I don't put on make-up, or even slip into a glamorous negligee, the way it says in the books a wife should look. I slip into a robe, no make-up because that's the way I am early in the morning. I'm sleepy--too sleepy to put stuff on my face, not even lipstick. Bobby says he likes me without make-up, so that's no problem.
So, okay, I get a minus for not dolling up in the morning for my husband. But on the plus side, I regard Bobby as a man instead of a husband. In other words, he is not a husband tied to me by a marriage paper, but he is my boy friend whom I want to please, whose love I want to hold, a man who still thrills me. I don't take him for granted.
I like to look pretty for him when he comes home. But more than that, I like to look happy when he comes home. Bobby responds to a happy woman. I hate to badger him with complaints the minute he steps inside the door. He has moods himself. When he comes home grumpy, I shut up. I resist the urge to ask him questions. I know myself how it is. If I feel tense after a day at the studio and someone keeps asking me what's the matter, what's the matter, I want to fling something ....
That's why I can understand Bobby so well. If I leave him alone, the mood will disappear. Sometimes he has to work it off some way, like playing pool in our den.
I compromise with him in tolerating his likes and hobbies: his stereo all over the house, his tapes and his golf balls in the house, all the card games here and the pool table which takes up the whole room in our den. Honestly. It killed me when Bobby first moved the pool table into the den. There was hardly room for anything else. But he's crazy about pool. Smiles and coos over that billiard table the way a baby does over a rattle. What could I do? I let him teach me to play pool so that I can play with him. I'm not in his class, but at least, we can both be together around a pool table.
This doesn't make me a plaster saint as a wife, by any means.
It was only a year ago that I was doing the silliest thing. It's a wonder we didn't break up then. How lucky for us ....
Why, when I think back---I wonder how Bobby put up with me. After a fight---any kind of fight; big or small---I'd get mad and take bag and baggage and leave. Immediately. Just like that. With the baby and the nurse. Over such silly things! I'd make a big thing out of nothing. If Bobby looked cross, or we wanted to watch different TV shows, up went my temper and out I'd shoot--to Mom's. I'd ring my mother's bell at night, bag under one arm, baby under the other. She'd say, What---again?"
Then at three in the morning, I'd wake my mother and say, "I can't sleep in bed alone," and I'd leave for home again.
When I'd walk into the house, Bobby'd be up watching the late show or sitting in bed, and he'd pretend nothing much had happened and he'd say casually, "Did you have fun?" This killed me. Whenever I'd storm out of the house with bag and baby, he never ran after me. Not once. I knew he couldn't stand to see me leave, but Bobby's smart. He played it cool. He knew if he ran after me just once, I'd do it all the time.
When I discovered I couldn't get a rise out of him with these shenanigans, the fun went out of it. So I cut them out. Now if we have a fight, we fight it out like adults. We talk about it and explode and clear the air--and one of us compromises. It's the only way.
We were both spoiled when we married. I was the darling of my own world until I married Bobby, and Bobby's used to being kingpin of his house. So--like voom! The only thing that saved us from a permanent clash is that I like to look up to my husband and respect him.
But I must say, I thought some of his requests were too, too much. We had a big do over whether I should bring dinner in to him. I told him that since we had a maid I didn't think I should have to bring dinner in to my husband. That didn't go over with Bobby. He's old-style that way.
Bobby wanted me to serve him meals, even with the maid sitting in the kitchen. That was his idea of married life. But I wasn't used to that. I've been used to being waited on myself! I knew nothing about cooking or serving. Why, the first time I had to make breakfast for Bobby (and I mean had to--he insisted upon it) I ruined nine eggs before I could make one decent dish of sunnysides. My mother was over then. I kept saying, "Bobby, let my mother do it. I can't cook eggs. She knows how." No. Bobby wanted his wife to make breakfast for him.
He had a point. But I didn't see it at that time. I had a point, too, but he couldn't see my point of view, either.
Such idiotic things we used to do. Like my making a meat loaf for him once. We were in the East then; Bobby was working in a club. It was quite a job for me to bake that old meat loaf in the hotel kitchenette, but I did it hoping Bobby would love me for it. Oh, how I struggled over it. Only thing is I didn't tell him about it. It was to be a surprise. He called me from the club and said, "Take a cab, honey, and meet me at the club for dinner." I was stubborn as a mule--still didn't tell him I'd cooked him a meat loaf. I was furious--threw the meat loaf down the disposal. When I got to the club I was still burning mad. Poor Bobby. How could he have read my mind? Idiot stuff like that I'd do ....
It takes time for two hot-headed people like ourselves to get together on the differences that bother us. My cooking still won't win any prizes, but if Bobby likes me to cook for him, I do it, now and then. Normally the cook cooks, and I make a fuss over Bobby and go into the kitchen and serve the food. It makes him feel good and it makes me feel good, too.
Whenever I do anything nice for Bobby, I must say he tries to do double for me. For instance, he'll eat anything I cook, and some of it looks pretty miserable. But you'd think it had been prepared by Oscar of the Waldorf. So it occurs to me that the idea of my cooking for him means more to him than the food itself. This is marriage to Bobby--having a woman take care of him.
And if he loves me enough to want that, then I've learned to give in on little things. When we were in New York a few months ago, I went out on a shopping binge and bought out the shops on those new low-heeled shoes. I'm crazy about clothes, and I loved those shoes. Bobby looked at them and said, "Take them off. They're awful." And do you know, I took them off and sent them back--all of them. It may seem like nothing, but nobody ever ordered me around like that. In the old days I'd have snapped right back at him and said, "I like them and I'll wear them!" And we'd have been off on another silly quarrel.
We've learned to understand each other. That's a milestone. And we've learned to think of each other's feelings. That's another giant step.
On that last New York trip, Bobby came back to the hotel room in a dudgeon late one afternoon, all upset about something that had gone wrong, and decided on the spur of the moment that we should leave for home that very night.
Well, here I am with five-hundred pounds of luggage for my tour, plus a baby, plus a nurse, plus a hairdresser, plus all their clothes and my husband's things. How could I move that fast? I was about to say something real nasty to Bobby when I looked at his face, and I saw real misery there. Something very upsetting had happened to him that day, and he wanted to get home fast. Instead of being angry, my feelings went out to him. I put my arms around him and said, "Whatever you say." I was surprised to hear myself say something so thoughtful. So was Bobby, I guess. He softened. We made it for the next morning, instead.
I stayed up all night packing and had one hour's sleep, but we traveled home as a family. Bobby hates to fly; he flew for me. So that's something, too.
Nothing's one-sided with us any more. There was the opening of a folk-singing team called Bud and Travis, whom Bobby knows and likes. He wanted to go; I wanted to stay home and finish trimming our tree. He didn't raise a fuss. He gave in to me on that round.
There are other times when I feel like getting dressed up and going out to a nice restaurant, and Bobby'd just as soon eat a hamburger off a tray. Sometimes he'll say "Well, if you want to go out that much, let's go ...." Sometimes, he'll insist on staying home, and I've got to give in.
In the old days I'd blow up over nothing. Like once Bobby said he was coming home from a business meeting at seven and would take me out to dinner. He called at seven and said he was detained an hour. He kept calling every half-hour and said he was going to be late. It was thoughtful of him to call me as he did, but I didn't see it that way then. I was boiling. I was so mad I flew the coop. Went to dinner by myself and then spent the night at my mother's.
None of that kid stuff now.
Really, I'm lost without Bobby. I lean on him; he's given me a new perspective on living. I used to work to support the house before I was married, because I was the breadwinner. With all the glamor of my career, it was still tense and a little grim because of the necessity of working. Now I work, but Bobby's the breadwinner.
He puts up with a lot of silliness in me. I'm impractical. I buy too many clothes, too much jewelry and I'm always losing things. I lost a pair of shoes once and don't ask me how it happened, but I did. That's me. Bobby thinks I should know something about money for my own benefit. Some nights he'll start talking to me about taxes and I get so bored I become absolutely loathesome. I pick up a magazine and I say uh, uh, and why he doesn't hurl the checkbook at me I don't know.
And, strangely enough, I am moodier than he is, although most people think it's the other way around. I get into deep moods and I will sit for hours thinking the world's coming to an end. Bobby will say, "What's the matter?" It bothers him, and he comes over and puts his arm around me and kisses me and I feel good.
We've learned to live with each other, but we've learned that too much togetherness is too much. That's why we don't want to make any more pictures together. It's nice for each of us to come home and have some surprises to talk about.
We made that decision not to work together in order to help our marriage. So columnists jumped on that, too--said we weren't going to work together any more because we couldn't stand each other.
Oh well, you can't please everybody. But as long as Bobby and I are trying to please each other, that's all that counts.

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