"103 Things You Never Knew About Sandra Dee"
The caption reads: "That isn't a chenille rug Sandra is cuddling. Believe
it or not, it's her toy poodle!
All Sandra's fans know her big brown eyes and adorable smile, but there's much
more to this pert and pretty actress than that. So we've asked her to tell us -- and you,
her fans -- all the things that no one knows.
She would rather eat in the car in a
drive-in than go to the fanciest
restaurant in town.
She sang the harmony to a religious hymn at nine months
old -— before she could walk -— in her mother's
arms at the Russian Orthodox Church.
She once showed up for a studio portrait sitting wearing a different color
nail polish on each finger.
She likes mountains, fruits, the smell
of fresh-baked bread, coffee houses,
polishing silver and ironing clothes.
She has never been in love. "I must
have had 40 crushes, though, mostly
on movie stars."
She notices a fellow's hands before
anything else about him. "The way he
uses them tells me a lot about his
gentleness- I like a good firm handshake. It makes me feel that he really
wants to meet me."
She likes to take friends to restaurants, order weird food combinations
for them and see that they eat them.
She can't abide tub baths, soft drinks,
necklaces, cluttered kitchens and
kitchen odors, bees, girls in slacks,
modern painting and avocados. Though
a model and an actress, she dislikes
having her picture taken.
Her pet peeve is for anyone to interrupt a conversation -— especially her
own.
She doesn't believe in first-date kissing. She won't kiss a boy goodnight
simply because it's time to say goodnight.
She hasn't discovered the secret of
identifying with boys and girls her own
age. "I have no close friends in Hollywood, none at all. Lorna Gillam, a
model my age, is my closest friend, but
she lives in New York."
She flutters and flits in her interests,
her experiments and her moods. And
it worries her. "Sometimes I think I
must he plain nuts."
She was born in Bayonne, New
Jersey, on April 23, 1942. She's five-
feet-five-and-a-half, weighs 104 pounds,
has expressive brown eyes and soft gold
hair.
She loves to give parties and to
attend them, but her guests usually include more grownups than members of
the young set.
She's not interested in golf or tennis.
"I used to like riding, but I haven't been
on a horse in two years."
She prefers toothpaste to powder.
She drives a white 1958 four-seater
Thunderbird with red upholstery, a
present to herself on her sixteenth birthday.
She has never gone steady. "I date,
but not on a steady basis."
She loves any kind of cheese, from
Camembert to Jack to cottage.
She can't stand scrambled eggs, but
likes them hard-boiled.
She's mad about movies, sees at least
three every week and can trace the
genealogy of every top-ranking star in
Hollywood, New York and Europe.
She has collected movie magazines
since she was seven and has more than
500.
She considers herself a follower
rather than a leader.
She never chews gum.
She resents being told what to do.
"If they ask me instead of tell me,
I'm fine. But when I'm dictated to, I
become adamant."
She loves to talk and is one of the
most animated conversationalists in
Hollywood.
She is an only child. Her mother
divorced her husband shortly after
Sandy was born. She knew little about
her real father, but was wildly devoted
to her stepfather, Eugene Douvan,
When he died, she was 14 and was
completely shattered.
She was educated in professional
schools and graduated from University
High School at UCLA in June, 1959.
Her favorite subjects were French
and English. Her poorest was geometry,
but she didn't care for civics.
She regrets having finished high
school. "I wish I were back again." College? "I don't know. It's hard working
at the studio and attending classes
regularly."
She's restless, high-strung and usually
keyed up. It takes her about two hours
to fall asleep and she awakens early.
"The minute the sun comes up, even
if it's 5 A.M., I'm wide awake."
Her nails grow fast and she has a
professional manicure every week. "I
experiment with nail polishes. Sometimes when I get a manicure I go
home and take it all off and put on a
new color."
She "painted" the bathroom when
she was five -— huge brush strokes of black over
freshly painted white.
She sold lemonade on a corner near
her home when she was six. One Halloween she saved the candy she collected
and peddled it in the neighborhood next
day -— until her mother heard of it.
She would make a wonderful children's
nurse, "I'm good around children. We
play cops and robbers and I have more
fun than the kids do. Maybe it's because
I'm a kid myself."
She had no designs on being either an
actress or a model, but agency head Harry
Conover signed her to a modeling contract
when he saw her.
At 12, she started working as a professional model
for American Girl Magazine at $25 an hour. The year after she
appeared on her first cover, she made the
jump to show business via an appearance
on the Vaughn Monroe TV show.
She was earning $78,000 a year as a
model by the time Producer Ross Hunter
saw her and brought her to Hollywood
for a movie contract at Universal-International Studios two years ago.
She loves to swim, but doesn't care for
sun bathing. "But I like the results of the
tan and force myself to sit in the sun."
She doesn't care for meats, except
broiled chicken and the Russian stuffed
cabbage her grandmother makes.
She rarely drinks coffee - "I found it
doesn't agree with my skin."
She never eats breakfast "I can't eat
anything until early in the aflernoon. So
I have a cup of tea when I get up and
then brunch about three hours later."
She has nicknames by the score. The
most popular is "Sandy," but set workers
call her "Twinkle Bottom," "Jet Stream"
and "Little One." "Anything they can
think of. Some sound dreadful, but they
all mean something to me."
She collects stuffed animals and has 50.
Also perfume. "I have every scent you
can think of. At least 75 bottles. Fans
send me some, others I buy."
She rarely writes letters, but is careful
to send "Thank You" notes. "If someone
writes me a letter, I'd rather call them
and talk."
She receives approximately 6,000 letters each month from fans and has two
secretaries to handle them for her.
She has never been on a budget or an
allowance. "I ask my mother for whatever
I want and if she thinks we can afford it,
I get it."
Her mother handles all her affairs. They
once employed a business manager, but
when they found they had to follow a
budget, they gave it up.
She can do without earrings, washing
dishes, cleaning house, getting up in the
morning, anything with a cream sauce.
She adores sherbet, shrimp, melon, side-
walk cafes, black sheath dresses and
amusement parks.
She feels the best advice she ever received was from Producer Ross Hunter,
who told her; "Don't grow up too fast-
You're only a kid once and you'll come
into your own in good time."
Her philosophy today is based largely
on Hunter's advice. "Young people get
too many things much too soon. Then
there's little to look forward to and we
have to go a little further. Pretty soon,
we're in trouble."
She loves to dance and took tap and ballet between five and nine years old.
She plays no musical instrument.
Her favorite color is beige, but she also favors black and white. "I like pale
color. I don't have many bright things."
She reads a book a week, usually a
best-selling novel, but loves English literature, poems and essays, especially Charles
Lamb's. "I'm ashamed to say I don't enjoy Shakespeare. Maybe I'm too young to
understand him."
She isn't superstitious, except to knock
on wood when recounting something nice
that's happened to her.
She has an uncontrollable fear of all
dentists and doctors.
She has no regular dining habits. "I eat
when I'm hungry. I get it from my
mother."
She likes to walk in the snow and the
rain.
Her favorite season is winter, but she
hates being cold. "There's nothing more
cozy than to sit by the fireplace and
watch the snow fall outside."
She lives with her 36-year-old mother
in a new four-bedroom Chinese Modern
home they bought in Beverly Hills, complete wilh swimming pool. The decor and
furnishings are modern.
Her bedroom is large with pale blue
walls and carpets and als whirt French
Provincial furniture. She sleeps nude in a
kingsize bed with a white silk headboard
and matching spread.
She has two dogs, both females. One is
an orange-and-black Pomeranian named
Pom Pom she's had seven years. The
other is a white poodle named Melinda
that she got three years ago. Both were
Christmas presents.
She gets lonesome now and again.
"Sometimes I just sit by myself for a
while, but I get over it by going out of
the house, seeing people. If I'd just gone
out in the first place, I wouldn't have
gotten bored."
Her favorite dessert is coffee-flavored
ice cream.
She loves to sing.
"I sing in the shower and around the
house, at the top of my lungs with the
stereo blasting. I sing right along with
the records."
She's not against rock 'n' roll. Neither
is she crazy about it. "Let's just say I'm
lukewarm."
She dislikes fellows who are rude.
"That's No. 1. I detest wise guys."
She vows her earliest childhood memory was when she was only six months
old. "During the war we had blackouts
in the East and I remember the windows
being covered."
She feels her biggest problems today
are her stubbornness and her temper.
"Both have always been problems with
me. Something triggers me and I flare up
and say things that hurt people -— even
my family. I don't really mean it and afterwards
I'm furious with myself."
Her clothes are her big extravagance.
She has five closets overflowing. "It's the
one thing I really spend money on."
She has 25 skirts, a dozen blouses, 10
complete outfits from head 10 toe, 15
evening gowns and 8 cocktail dresses.
"There's one problem: I wear them only
once. In Hollywood, you can't be seen
too often wearing the same outfit."
Her furs include a full-length white
beaver coat trimmed in mink, a beige mink
stole and a white fox stole.
She admits to being messy. Her room
is always in chaotic condition. "I'm a girl
who leaves my clothes where I step out
of them. I don't pick up anything. That's
my mother's biggest complaint with me and
the one thing we clash on." Says her
mother: "When Sandy is deciding which
dress to wear, her bedroom looks like
the aftermath of a cyclone."
She used to like to cook, but lost all
interest six months ago. "All the years
we lived in apartments with small kitchenettes I stirred up all sorts of dishes. Now
that we have a beautiful big kitchen, I
eat out more."
Her favorite Hollywood restaurants are
Scandia, the Marquis, Picadilly and
Shipp's, a drive-in in Westwood. "I adore
going there for brunch."
She has occasional nightmares, too -— a
carryover from childhood. "I used to
dream that I was being kidnapped and
would wake up screaming."
She is sentimental about the memory
of her stepfather, who died during a heart
operation three years ago. "I've been very
fortunate; I've never really had any great
tragedy in my life. But losing him was a
terrible blow."
Her most treasured possessions are his
identification bracelet, which she made into
a ring for herself, and a Russian
religious icon of brass and copper that belonged to him.
The worst punishment she ever received was when she was 13 and he gave
her the silent treatment for three whole
days. "I was allowed to use lipstick only
when I was on a modeling job. but this day
I wore it home. He didn't say anything,
but just ignored me as though I wasn't
there. When I couldn't stand it any longer,
I apologized."
She uses no face powder or creams,
only eye makeup (mascara and liner) and
lipstick. The latter she blends. "I get
orange and pinks and mix them with white.
I use a different combination every day."
She doesn't like to shop for herself for
anything, and usually leaves it to her
mother. "But I'll go out to buy a toy for
my nephew, see something I want and
buy it for myself."
She's in bed by 9:30 P.M. if she's
working the next day. Otherwise, she may
stay up late at home. "My mother has
never set a curfew for me when I go
out, I'm my own judge, but I don't go
overboard about it. I always get eight
hours' sleep."
Her favorite cities are Dallas, Washington, New York and Paris.
Her unfulfilled ambition is to visit the
Island of Majorca, where her stepfather
built a hotel she's never seen.
She doesn't like to talk on the phone
and never answers it at home. "I associate
the phone with business, and leave it all
to my mother."
Her hair grows very fast, and she has
it trimmed every two weeks, set every
other day.
She can't abide girls whose clothes are
unfeminine. "I think a girl should look like
a girl, dress like a girl and act like a girl."
She is sometimes moody and depressed.
"I can't tell you why. I guess it's a part
of growing up. But I get over it by going out, putting on music, playing with
the dogs or just going to bed for an hour."
She never studies a script. She reads
it through just once to get acquainted
with the role, then goes over her lines
with a dialogue director minutes before
she steps in front of the cameras.
She loves practical jokes and gags.
She has a sly sense of humor. Says her
mother: "You can't stay mad at her. She
always finds a way of getting around you
and making you laugh."
Her favorite way of travelling is by
plane. "I hate anything that takes time."
Her shoes are both her hobby and her
weakness. She has 30 pairs she can wear,
15 pairs she no longer uses. "I'll give
them away, but I'll be darned if you can
get me to throw away a single pair."
She has various pieces of jewelry, but
rarely wears anything but rings. She
doesn't even own a pair of earrings. "I
don't like bracelets but wear one gold
one with a Florentine finish because it
matches a ring I have. A watch and about
ten good rings are all I ever wear."
She adores Jack Paar on TV and seldom misses Playhouse 90. She watches
TV -— usually in bed -— with the sound
turned down and her hi-fi set going. "I'm
not crazy about TV, but if it looks interesting, then I turn off the hi-fi and switch
up the TV sound."
She had her first date when she was 12
-— to ride her bicycle with a boy who invited her to the Mineola Fair on Long
Island.
She had her first grownup date with
actor John Wilder when she was 16,
has since gone out with Sal Mineo, Edd
Byrnes, Troy Donahue and other members of the young Hollywood set.
She is punctuality itself for business
appointments, but invariably half an hour
late when her date calls for her. "Once,
though, I was ready at 7:30 and he didn't
show up until 9 for an 8 o'clock date."
Her most embarrassing moment came
just a few weeks ago. She went to a party,
introduced her date to all her friends, then
felt like crawling in a hole when he told
her at the end of the evening: "My
name isn't Henry -— it's David."
She is always acutely aware of what her
date wears, but is not hypercritical.
She has no idea when she'll marry. "I
haven't set an age limit for myself. It'll
just happen, I suppose, when I fall in
love."
She likes to play fan-tan with the
makeup department. "I'm restless and want
to rub my head, so to keep me quiet, they
play cards with me."
She has never been psychoanalyzed.
"But I'd like to be some day and find
out what I'm really like. I'm not really
spoiled. I just do things impulsively.
"You know something? If I didn't know
me, but only read some of the erroneous
things printed about myself, I would hate
this girl."
THE END
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