25. She Played Cruel Games
In a bid to get Darin’s attention any way she could, Dee acted out. She would do things like tell him his toupee was crooked just before he went on stage, or cause scenes and cry whenever she got the chance—albeit usually because Darin was trying to make her cry. Still, when someone asked her why she was always in the middle of the drama, Dee sniped, “To stir things up. I’m bored”.
Before long, it all reached a fever pitch.
26. He Accused Her Of Cheating
Dee and Darin quickly grew apart thanks to these outbursts. With this distance came suspicion, especially after the birth of their son, Dodd, in 1961. In particular, Darin became paranoid that Dee was having an affair with her Tammy and the Doctor co-star Peter Fonda. Although Dee swore until her dying day that they were merely friends, Darin wouldn’t listen—and he got an ice-cold revenge.
27. Her Husband Was A Coward
Darin was so sure Dee was cheating on him, he played a nasty end game. He told her he was divorcing her—but he didn’t stop with just that. Apparently unable to face up to Dee himself, Darin got a minion to break the news for him instead. It was an incredibly cowardly way to learn of the split, but Dee had to accept it all the same. Except it got messier.
28. She Had A Messy Breakup
Dee and Darin couldn’t even do divorce in a clean way. Their initial separation didn’t last long, and they went back to each other for the sake of their love and for their son Dodd…and then this didn’t last either. They separated again, for the last time, in 1966. This go-around, the reason was even more ridiculous than before.
29. He Wouldn’t Let Her Talk To Men
Darin and Dee tried briefly to change their dynamic, but it always ended the same way. In fact, Darin was now more paranoid than ever. The instigating event in their final split was when he simply saw Dee talking to Warren Beatty at a party. And guess what? This time he had his psychiatrist tell her they were through.
Unfortunately, the end of Dee’s relationship with Darin also spelled the end of many other things in her life.
30. Her Studio Fired Her
In the late 1960s, Dee experienced more disheartening upheavals. Namely, as she grew older and was no longer the fresh-faced, innocent beauty, audiences stopped coming to her films. It wasn’t long before her studio, Universal, dropped her unceremoniously from their roster. In response, Dee started truly spinning out of control.
31. She Was Through With Her Image
Up until now, Sandra Dee had kept most of her private issues extremely private, playing the good girl everyone wanted her to be. But then she made a bitter public revelation. In a 1967 interview with Roger Ebert where she openly smoked, she sneered, “Little Sandra Dee isn't supposed to smoke, you know. Or drink. Or breathe”.
Tragically, she had more trials coming.
32. She Was A Scream Queen
Dee tried desperately to keep working during this time, but her roles were slim. Playing somewhat to type, she took a part as a hapless college girl in the supernatural film The Dunwich Horror—though she did refuse the script’s direction to appear without her clothes in the final scenes of the movie.
Still, none of this moved the needle on her career or her personal life. Actually, she started moving backward.
33. Her Ex Moved On
It wasn’t enough that Dee’s life was falling apart—but her ex-husband Bobby Darin wasn’t making it any better. While Dee never remarried and never got over Darin, he sure tried to move on quickly. Soon after their split, he met secretary Andrea Yeager, marrying her in 1973. Dee had to deal with her emotions about this, yes, but that wasn’t all she had to deal with.
34. She Couldn’t Stay Away
Darin did try to get on with his life, but fate had much different plans in store for him. His heart, which had never been good, was now beginning to give out on him. In 1971, he received two artificial valves—and even though Darin was with Yeager at the time, it was Dee he kept going to for comfort during these upsets.
As Dee said, “Bobby kept coming back. And always with an illness”. Things quickly got complicated.
35. She Took Him Back
As Darin’s health began failing, so too did his marriage, and he and Andrea Yeager split in October of 1973 after only a few months together as husband and wife. But there was a more scandalous reason for the split. With Darin always at her door, Dee eventually let him back into her heart, and they rekindled their relationship. It would only end in tragedy.
36. Her Love Destroyed Himself
In December of 1973, Bobby Darin put his life right on the line. Although he knew he was supposed to take antibiotics before any medical visits, the egotistical Darin went to the dentist without any prescribed protection anyway. The results were chilling. He developed sepsis throughout his body, and the illness ravaged one of his artificial heart valves.
Knowing he was in deep trouble, Darin checked himself into the hospital. It was a swift decline from there.
37. He Made A Final Goodbye
By then, Darin was so sick from sepsis, he began developing dementia, and barely understood where he was while he was in the hospital. He did manage one heartbreaking act of loyalty. Remembering it was his son Dodd’s birthday, he called the boy from the hospital and wished him a tearful—if confused—happy birthday.
Within days, Darin would have surgery on his heart. All Dee could do was pray.
38. She Lost The Love Of Her Life
At Darin’s surgery, a team of doctors worked tirelessly for six hours to save the 37-year-old singer and love of Dee’s life, then wheeled him into the recovery room to wait and see. But there was no miracle: Darin passed on December 19, 1973, without ever waking up from surgery. The aftermath for Sandra Dee was almost unimaginable.
39. She Was In A Panic
When Dee heard the news of her ex-husband’s passing, she was beside herself with grief. More than that, her son Dodd was staying over at his friend’s house, and Dee was all alone. Panicked, Dee called the boy’s mother—who just so happened to be Kay Gable, actor Clark Gable’s widow—in the middle of the night and said she was coming to get Dodd.
Kay managed to talk Sandra down and convince her to wait until tomorrow, saying, “Believe me, he’ll know for the rest of his life what happened”.
40. She Was A “Has Been”
The next years of Sandra Dee’s life were an uphill climb. As her son Dodd later admitted, “My mom never recovered” from the loss of Bobby Darin. Plus, although she tried to busy herself by taking on a series of guest roles, her career continued to flounder. Heartbreakingly, it was around this time that Dee famously said, “I feel like a has been that never was”.
Eventually, Dee had enough.
41. She Became A Recluse
By the 1980s, Dee had all but retired from acting. Only, it was much worse than that. She turned herself into a near recluse, focusing only on raising her son Dodd and trying not to fight with her mother Mary, who was still around and still imposing her will on everything. After all, all Dee had now was her family…but she wouldn’t have that for long.
42. Her Mother Dealt Her A Deathbed Insult
In the late 1980s, Dee’s mother began suffering from lung cancer, and everyone could tell the end was near. When Mary finally did pass, she managed to get in one final insult to her daughter. Reportedly, the old woman told her grandson Dodd on her deathbed: “Don’t be a victim as I was. Don’t waste your life cleaning up after [Sandra]”.
Despite these vicious words, Dee came completely unraveled at her mother’s end.
43. She Fell Apart
Dee was only barely holding it together—and then came the implosion. She had always struggled with eating and drinking, but after her mother’s death, she gave over entirely to her demons. Dee confessed once that during this time she lived only on “soup, crackers, and Scotch,” and her weight plummeted to nearly nothing. Her rock bottom was terrifying.
44. Her Son Had An Intervention
Dee’s son Dodd watched in horror at his mother’s breakdown, but when she began vomiting blood he knew he had to act. He got her to seek both mental and physical rehabilitation, which almost certainly saved her life. She slowly began to improve, even expressing an interest in acting again. In the end, though, Dee’s demons were just too strong.
45. She Ruined Her Body
After this excruciating period in the 1980s, Dee didn’t fully quit drinking, though she did curb it, and still continued smoking. Then again, no matter what she did now, the damage to her body was irreparable. So when she hit middle age, she got a disturbing diagnosis. Years of mistreatment had forced her body into kidney failure, and she now needed dialysis.
Although this pushed Dee to finally stop drinking once and for all, she had precious few years left to enjoy a sober life.
46. She Died Young
In 2005, Sandra Dee was only in her very early 60s, but suffering from horrible complications of kidney disease that no amount of dialysis could fix. On February 20 of that year, she died in hospital at the age of 62, surprising many fans who still thought of her as that fresh-faced girl.
But how had Dee’s life gone so wrong? Well, in 1994, her son Dodd wrote a memoir about his parents, Dream Lovers. It finally revealed Dee’s darkest secret to the world.
47. She Had A Deep, Dark Secret
There was an unspeakable sin running through Dee’s life. One she only confided to her husband Bobby Darin after they had split up and to her son Dodd when he was no longer a boy. One that had destroyed her life since she was five years old.
As Dodd confesses, shortly after marrying into the family, Sandra’s stepfather Eugene Douvan intimately mistreated her and did so for years. Tragically, that’s just the beginning.
48. Her Mother Didn’t Believe Her
According to Dee, in her later years, she finally worked up the courage to tell her mother about Douvan’s behavior. Her mother’s reply was ice cold. Reportedly, Mary at first refused to believe that Douvan was anything but a saint to her daughter. When Sandra brought it up again, she was completely silent. With this revelation, however, Dee’s whole life changes.
49. Her Trauma Shaped Her Life
To the casual viewer, Sandra Dee is just a cinema good girl gone rotten. But this revelation explains so much of her pain—her premature development, her inability to take care of her body, and her difficulties in her relationships. But Dee is also not just what Eugene Douvan did to her, and Dodd’s memoir makes that clear in other ways.
50. She Should Have Been Proud
Although Dee’s mother never protected her, she did her best to protect her son Dodd. In turn, he grew up to be both a devoted son and a loving father. Writing when Dee was still alive, Dodd admitted, “In her mind, unless she was Sandra Dee, who had a major career…she was nothing”. But he also said, “I would love for her to be able to feel good about herself and to take some pride in what she has accomplished”.
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