Savoir-Faire and Kid Stuff
This article appeared in the 1959 issue of Silver Screen's Teen Album
"I guess," grinned the pert, doll-like Sandra Dee, "that I'm probably the only girl graduating from high school this June who's had a private studio teacher and classroom all to herself. I'm wearing the beautiful dress that I wore for the graduation scenes in 'Imitation Of Life.' I wouldn't know how to act in a classroom with 50 students"
Sandy, at only 17, does know how to act as a full-fledged movie star as she's demonstrated in eight films during a breathtaking, partly overlapping schedule ("some mornings I didn't know for sure which picture I was reporting for").
Acting is fun, or "wiggy," as she calls it, for the girl with a future full of stardust. But a lack of free time makes for problems, and more problems. Such as the publicity trip to New York scheduled as soon as she finishes "A Summer Place"-- a strong story in which Sandra falls in love with her step-father. "I don't like New York, even if I grew up there,' says Sandy. "I can't stand it for more than a week. The only fun I'll have is seeing my best girl friend, Lorna Gillian, a model. When I had the mumps I used to call her three and four times a day and talk and talk. Mom had fits, practically. I'd rather go to Europe," Sandra pouted prettily, "I haven't had a vacation in ages, and I was so furious when I was in Paris for 'Reluctant Debutante.' I got up at six every day and worked until 7:30 at night. I never got to see anything and I even bawled."
The hard-working little beauty with the champagne colored, corn silk hair continued, "Butch, that's what I call Mom, asked me what I wanted for graduation. I got a four-seater T-Bird for my 16th birthday. I told Mom what I really want is a little foreign sports car. But," she moaned, "I'll never get it . . . not even if I turn blue!"
This 17-year-old is also worried about dates like any 17-year-old. A delightful mixture of sophistication, savoir-faire and kid stuff, she's had little contact with young people. Boys her age are much too young for her and the men she'd like to date consider her a kid. "Every day," says Sandra, "helps me to take care of this situation, I hope. But I don't know what to do about the crushes I get on married men, like Paul Newman. I just hated Joanne Woodward for a month after they married."
Sandra doesn't consider studio arranged dates for premieres as real dates, although she's enjoyed such twosomes with John Saxon, John Wilder, Troy Donohue, Sal Mineo and Edd Byrnes. "Ooh, I'd love a real date with Edd," says Sandra, candidly. "I did a TV show with him and I think he's just wiggy." Edd thinks she is, too; calls hers the "freshest, dewiest face in town. Sandra's as breath-lessly thrilled by everything as Alice was, dropping into Wonderland. Her wide-eyed awe makes a guy feel ten feet tall."
Compared to a hip, worldly type like Tuesday Weld, Sandra is the most un-beatnik teenage star in Hollywood. In fact, she'd be called a "square." Sunset Strip coffee houses, baggy sweaters and rumpled jeans, bongo drums and kookie talk have no fascination for Sandra. Her curfew date hour is a neat 11 o'clock. Elvis Presley and rock 'n' roll make her nervous. But three movies at a sitting, black sheaths, glamourous furs, heavy eye make-up, upswept hair-dos, her two pet dogs and the new hilltop house in which she and her mother live, are things she adores.
And she can't wait until
she is old enough to enter the gambling casinos at Las Vegas!
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