"Who Is She?"

This article, as told to Ralph Benner, appeared in the April 1963 issue of Teen Magazine

Appearing shorter than her 5'4", Sandra Dee stands smiling in her glamorous living room, high above Hollywood's famed Sunset Strip. She's wearing coral capris, and a coral sweater over-blouse. Her only jewelry is a gold chain around her neck with a gold ornament attached. She wears no makeup except lipstick and eye-liner. Her hair is soft, casual, and golden. A firm handshake shows off the pale, pink polish adorning her nails.
She sits down on a huge white sectional, lights a cigarette, and begins to speak. It's obvious she takes great pains with grooming. There are no blemishes whatever on the young star's face. Her skin is fair, smooth, and fresh looking. Her oversized brown eyes gleam brightly and are expressive at just the right moment. Sandra's blonde hair shows no sign of damage due to bleaching, teasing, or too frequent shampoos.
"I don't tease my hair anymore," she explains, "but I do bleach it. I have it washed and set practically every day even when I'm not working because it's a necessity. I never do it myself. I couldn't. My hairdresser comes to the house and does it for me. If something goes wrong with my hair I'm in trouble.
"When Bobby goes on tour, I go with him and so does my hairdresser. She goes everywhere with me and it's an absolute necessity. I can't wear wigs because they don't look right on me. My hair's too thick. Sometimes though, I wear turbans to cover up my hair if it looks disastrous and for some reason I can't get it done. I have turbans to go with practically every outfit I own from slacks to formal evening gowns."
Sandra believes strongly in the fact that teens should be allowed to wear the hair style they like . . . extreme or not extreme. "I never could," she regrets, "because I was always working in a picture. But if I could have had my way, I probably would have worn the most extreme style I could find. Bouffant styles always thrilled me as a girl, but I've grown out of that phase."
The wardrobe of a movie star is a fantastic sight. Sandra keeps three bedrooms filled with clothes hanging from wall to wall. "I get to keep everything I wear in my movies," she explains, "so it doesn't take long to fill up a closet. The clothes Jean Louis designed for me to wear in 'If a Man Answers' will never wear out. I'm sure I'll have them all my life."
Since modeling is second nature to Sandy, clothes sense falls right in line. "I've always been pretty sensible as far as clothes go. I never went through any phases of dressing. I've always kept my skirts and dresses the same length, a little below the knee. In movies, of course, the lengths go up and down."
"I never shop for clothes. If I need a new dress to wear to one of Bobby's openings in Las Vegas, I let my mother and a designer pick out the gowns I'll wear."
Around the house, Sandra wears slacks or dungarees. Suede dresses and coats are her new love and she's constantly buying shoes. During her traveling stints, it takes an army of bellboys to carry Sandy's luggage. "When Bobby and I went on a personal appearance tour for 'If a Man Answers', I had 500 pounds of luggage with me plus the nurse, the baby, and my hairdresser."
The Darins are on tour often because of Bobby's various club engagements. Though Sandra dislikes traveling, she would rather travel than stay home by herself and be lonely.
Lighting another cigarette, the blonde actress speaks rapidly and with a new confidence, not apparent before her marriage. "I don't think I currently have any big problems and I don't plan to set the world on fire. As far as having some big secret life, it's simply not true. I don't object to telling my fans or anyone else what they want to know. I have nothing to hide."
"Fan interest should leave off almost where a friend's interest would. I'd tell a fan a lot of the same things I'd tell a friend. When something becomes personal between me and a member of my family, then I'm not going to tell my best friend either."
"My husband won't allow the press to come into our home and take pictures of the baby. This I agree on. He doesn't like any pictures taken in the house of the two of us or doing a lot of stories together. I respect the fact that he's my husband and the fact he doesn't want to do this so I go along with him. I don't agree with him, but I do it. Now that I'm married I must take a 'we attitude' rather than an 'I attitude.' When 'we' doesn't want the other part to do something then 'I' go along with it."
For a girl who's often reported to be on the 'brink of divorce,' Sandy shows no signs of cooling toward the singer in her life. There are few moments in her life that aren't shared by Bobby. "I'm much more dependent since I've been married," she admits. "Before I was married I had my career, a nice home and friends. But now I very badly need my husband. And of course, my baby."
As the blonde actress smilingly described her 15-month-old son, young Dodd Mitchell Darin crawled rapidly into the room with a busy nurse close behind him. "Look," Sandy gloated as she picked the husky baby up, "isn't he a replica of his father? Ooophs, I think he's chewing on a tooth pick that has nail polish remover on it!" After the tooth pick was removed, Sandy handed Dodd back to the nurse and giggled.
"This nutty kid was sleeping at Bobby's taping session yesterday at Capitol Records and as long as the music kept going it was fine. But as soon as they turned the tapes off he woke up. He's so used to noise all day long in this house that he can't sleep well if it's quiet. When he was three weeks old he used to sleep on a table at the Flamingo hotel in Las Vegas where Bobby was appearing. As soon as the band stopped playing he woke up."
Turning the conversation to music, Sandy insists she has no musical ability at all. "The record that I made," she laughs, "sold ten copies and my family bought seven of them."
Her favorite songs are Broadway show tunes and she enjoys seeing music performed live in the theater and at concerts. Sammy Davis' album, "What Kind of Fool Am I?" can be heard often on her stereo. "I don't like to listen to Bobby write music because he plays the same notes over and over," she claims, "but I love to go to his recording sessions."
The movie-star role she plays fits Sandy like a comfortable sweater. "To be honest, I really don't take my career seriously. I do feel a responsibility to appear in movies the public enjoys, but outside of that, it's still just fun to me. I don't worry about critics because I don't think I've ever gotten praise in a picture yet from the critical viewpoint."
A typical work day in the life of Sandra Dee goes something like this:
5 A.M. Gets up; feeds and plays with the baby until 6 A.M.
6 A.M. Studio car arrives to pick Sandra up and drive her to the studio.
6:30 A.M. Arrives at make-up department. Has hair styled and make-up applied.
9 A.M. On set. Body make-up for arms, legs, etc.
9: 30 A.M. Shooting begins.
12:30 P.M. Lunch.
l:30 P.M. Back on set until quitting time around 6:30 P.M.
6:30 P.M. Studio car drives Sandra home.
7 P.M. Arrives home, plays with baby, has dinner, goes to bed.
Sandy apologetically claims, "I'd hate to be caught wearing what I usually wear to the studio in the morning. Sometimes I have on slacks with a bandana tied around my head, but often I just wear a bathrobe!"
At home, the Darins differ from most Hollywood glamour couples. "We rarely get dressed up to go out," Sandy explains. "We'd rather have a few couples in. Last Saturday night we played 'Clue,' a mystery game, for about 8 hours. It was 3:30 in the morning when everyone went home."
Their house is a well-balanced design of contemporary and modern. Bobby's den is decorated with antiques and their bedroom is done in modern. A favorite room is the projection room, done in Japanese modern, where Sandy and Bobby run off movies every week-end. "My favorite movie is 'The Snows of Kilimanjaro'' Sandy laughs, "so I run this every chance I get." The entire house is carpeted luxuriously in alternating white and red carpets. Outside there's a huge play yard where the baby as well as the Darins work out on swings, and a basketball court.
The kitchen is off-limits as far as Sandra's concerned. Regardless of what has been written about Miss Dee as a cook, she limits herself to one dish, meat loaf, which she prepares on the cook's night off. "Bobby's the real chef of the family," Sandy boasts, "but the trouble is that he makes everything, including Japanese food, taste Italian."
If there's ever a very special day when the Darins have no appointments to keep, Sandy has her plans worked out for the perfect 24 hour spree. "I'd like to sleep until noon," she begins, "then get my husband up and go to breakfast. After that we could go horseback riding, then come home and play basketball, which we're both very good at. Then I'd make us some sundaes with my new soda fountain. The rest of the time we'd spend just resting." Unfortunately, days like these are few and far between for the busy Darins.
The only trouble Bobby gives Sandy is about her constant talking. "Bobby's always throwing me out of the room when he's working because I talk too much," Sandy giggles. "I keep saying to him, 'Bob, you don't have to answer me if you don't want to, I just want to talk. Sometimes after we've gone to bed, he'll begin to snore, and I'll say, "Bob, do you mind if I talk to you for a minute? I can't sleep.' So I just keep talking and poor guy--he sleeps."
When Bobby's away and Sandra's not working, she reads and takes Dodd shopping in Beverly Hills. "I have a little buggy for him and I push him all over. Every store in Beverly Hills knows him by name, we're out so often together."
Unlike many actresses, Sandra has terrible stage fright. She often gets hives when doing a personal appearance. "I'm only at home in front of a movie camera, and I only want to make movies as long as it's fun. So far my career has been happy, but I do have a job here at home, so I'll never get too serious about my work."
Sandra Dee has changed since she won millions of fans playing the lovable "Gidget." The round, pouty cheeks are no more. The laughing, high pitched voice is lower, huskier. The girlish freedom has been replaced by wifely responsibility. The ingenue is now a mother and one of the three top female stars in Hollywood. Only Doris Day and Elizabeth Taylor outrank this star at the box office.
On April 23 of this year the former teenage model will turn 21. Behind her lies a wealth of glamour, excitement, fun, and experience that most women won't equal in a lifetime.
With new maturity she seems ready and able to guide her future life along a path paved with happiness and success.

Cover of Teen Magazine



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