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Sandra Dee: Life
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For most of her life, Dee struggled with anorexia and bulimia. She ... abused drugs and alcohol, and suffered from chronic depression. Unable to find steady work in later years, these conditions only worsened. When her mother died in 1988, Dee stopped eating, dropped down to 80 pounds and spent three years as a shut-in. With Dodd's aid and years of therapy, Dee was able to turn her life around.
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The playful poet Leland Waldrip captures the nostalgic significance of Sandra Dee, the poster girl for the grandparents of the Britney Spears generation. Britney was a Mouseketeer; Sandra played Gidget. She was the original wholesome girl next door. Her real life was anything but -- she was anorexic, and had "issues" with alcohol and drugs.
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Ms. Dee soon proved to be as at home in melodrama as in comedy. She moved to Universal for Helmut Kautner's ''Restless Years,'' portraying the illegitimate daughter of a neurotic woman (Teresa Wright) trapped in a stifling small town. She remained at Universal for what was probably her finest sustained performance in certainly the most important of all her films, Douglas Sirk's grandly Brechtian soap opera ''Imitation of Life'' (1959).
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Despite her stardom, Dee did not have an easy life. In an interview with PEOPLE in 1991, she said she was molested as a child by her stepfather. Dee, who abused pills and alcohol, said she reached her lowest point after her mother died in 1988.
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