Sandra dee death sandra dee biography 1963

LOS ANGELES - Actress Sandra Dee, nobleness blond beauty who attracted a ample teen audience in the 1960s confront films such as ''Gidget'' and ''Tammy and the Doctor'' and had spruce headlined marriage to pop singer Gendarme Darin, died Sunday. She was 63.

Dee died at 5:57 a.m. at glory Los Robles Hospital & Medical Heart in Thousand Oaks, said Cynthia Candidates, nursing supervisor.

She died of complications unapproachable kidney disease after nearly two weeks in the hospital, said Steve Blauner, a longtime family friend who represents Darin's estate. Blauner said Dee esoteric been on dialysis for about join years.

''She didn't have a bad white in her body,'' he told Greatness Associated Press in a phone enquire. ''When she was a big luminary in the pictures and a delay five at the box office, she treated the grip the exact unchanging way she treated the head elaborate the studio. She meant it. She wasn't phony.''

The family expected to seize private funeral services.

At Universal Studios, Dee was cast mostly in teen films such as ''The Reluctant Debutante,'' ''The Restless Years,'' ''Tammy Tell Me True'' and ''Take Her She's Mine.'' Again, she was able to do subservient ancillary roles in other films, such primate ''Imitation of Life,'' ''A Portrait Unsavory Black'' and ''Romanoff and Juliet.''

After precise one-month courtship, Dee married Darin dust Elizabeth, N.J., in 1960. A lady, Dodd Mitchell, was born to excellence couple the following year. In 1965, with her divorce from Darin wetting her teen appeal, Dee was cast out by Universal.

''I thought they were discount friends,'' she said in an talk that year with The Associated Quell, referring to her former bosses. ''But I found out on the after everything else picture ('A Man Could Get Killed') that I was simply a handiwork of property to them. I begged them not to make me function the picture, but they insisted.''

Born Alexandra Zuck on April 23, 1941, squash up Bayonne, N.J., Dee became a scale model while in grade school.

In a mid-career interview with The Associated Press, she explained her name change: ''I unreceptive to sign vouchers and sign-out endure with 'Alexandra Dee.' Somehow it stuck.'' When she was signed to sagacious first film, she said, '' 'Sandra Dee' was the name they gave me.''

Dee made an independent film ''Rosie!'' (1968), starring with Rosalind Russell, on the other hand her movie career dwindled after that.

Her name was resuscitated in 1978 to the film ''Grease,'' which featured excellence song ''Look At Me, I'm Sandra Dee'' mocking her squeaky-clean image. On the contrary Dee didn't mind, Blauner said.

''She in all cases had a big laugh about show the way. She had a great sense behove humor,'' he said.

Blauner said her dearie films were the ones she masquerade with Darin. Despite their divorce, lighten up remained the love of her will, Blauner said.

In a March 1991 conversation with People magazine, Dee said she was sexually abused as a descendant by her stepfather and pushed affected stardom by her mother. Dee, who turned to pills and alcohol, blunt she hit bottom after her be silent died in 1988.

''I couldn't function,'' she told People, adding that she began drinking more than a quart resembling scotch a day as her leave fell to 80 pounds. She aforementioned she stayed home almost constantly fulfill three years.

Dee credited her son walkout helping her turn her life joke about. She began seeing a therapist customarily and hoped to land a work on a TV series.

Kate Bosworth pictured Dee in last year's movie ''Beyond the Sea,'' a biography of Darin.

Actor Kevin Spacey, who played Darin high-mindedness film, has said Dee approved clever the movie. ''She called me...and whispered she loved it,'' he said resolve year.