Sandra Dee

Actor · born 23 April 1942 · Bayonne, New Jersey, USA

Sandra Dee (born Alexandra Zuck; April 23, 1942 – February 20, 2005) was an American actress. Dee began her career as a child model, working first in commercials, and then film in her teenage years. Best known for her portrayal of ingénues, Dee earned a Golden Globe Award as one of the year's most promising newcomers for her performance in Robert Wise's Until They Sail (1958). She became a teenage star for her performances in Imitation of Life and Gidget (both 1959), which made her a household name.

By the late 1960s, her career had started to decline, and a highly publicized marriage to Bobby Darin ended in divorce. The year of her divorce, Dee's contract with Universal Pictures was dropped. She attempted a comeback with the 1970 independent horror film The Dunwich Horror, but rarely acted after this time, appearing only occasionally in television productions throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. The rest of the decade was marred by alcoholism, mental illness, plus near total reclusiveness, particularly after her mother died in 1988. Afterwards she sought medical and psychological help in the early 1990s, and died in 2005 of complications from kidney disease, brought on by lifelong anorexia nervosa.

Where to start: Imitation of Life (1959).