Though Dee found the book painful, she supported and approved of the project. Spacey recently told Associated Press that Dee had approved of the film and told him she "loved it."ĭodd Darin, Dee and Darin's only child, wrote a book about his famous parents in 1994, "Dream Lovers: The Magnificent Shattered Lives of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee," in which he detailed, among other things, his mother's anorexia, drug and alcohol problems.
The real-life headline-and-limelight couple had a stormy but passionate marriage from 1960 until their divorce in 1967. Though the actress' sparkling, perky image made America's teenage boys want to date her and teenage girls want to be her, Dee told interviewers over the years that her real life involved continuing struggles with anorexia, drug use and alcoholism.ĭee, who had been off-camera for decades, received fresh attention last year with the release of "Beyond the Sea," a biopic about her late husband, with Kevin Spacey playing Darin and Kate Bosworth portraying Dee. Nevertheless, when members of a certain generation remember Gidget and her innocent beach bonfires, to this day, they think of Dee.
And when the charming "teens meet surf, sand and each other" story was translated to television in 1965, it was Sally Field in the title role. Unlike Darren, Dee never made the "Gidget" sequels. Somehow they knew the boys would always treat her with proper respect. Teens and their parents alike hoped that she would make the right coming-of-age decisions between the rough-cut surfer played by Cliff Robertson and Moondoggie, played by James Darren.
The demure yet sensual Dee tugged America's heartstrings as the girl plus midget - Gidget - in the seminal film of that name in 1959. The actress had been hospitalized for the last two weeks for treatment of kidney disease, and had developed pneumonia, said Steve Blauner, a spokesman for Dee's son, Dodd Mitchell Darin. She was 62.ĭee died at Los Robles Hospital and Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, Calif., said nursing supervisor Cynthia Mead. Sandra Dee, the blond all-American girl-next-door whose star turns as "Gidget" and "Tammy" made her a teen idol in the 1960s, a status reinforced by her Hollywood marriage to pop singer Bobby Darin, died Sunday.
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