American actress and teenage film idol of the late 50s and early 60s. Dee was the only child of an 18-year-old mother and an alcoholic father. Her parents divorced when she was five and she never had contact with her dad again. Her mom worked as a secretary and in 1950, married Eugene Douvan, a man 40 years her senior. He owned buildings in New York City and New Jersey. Age eight, she slept in the honeymoon bed between her parents in Atlantic City and was soon the target of her step-dad’s sexual abuse which continued until she was 11. She did not confide in her mother, believing that mom knew the truth and preferred to ignore the situation. In 1956, her step-dad died during surgery for a heart condition.
At ten, Dee began to cut down her food intake in an attempts to be slender. She went to the Professional Children’s School and by the time she was 12, was a successful child model in New York City. By 14, she was earning over $70,000 in modeling fees. She auditioned for film producer Ross Hunter during her step-father’s wake. Six weeks later, Dee and her mom went to Hollywood where she was signed to star in the movie, “The Restless Years” and given a seven-year contract with Universal Studios.
Dee enjoyed her movie career in Hollywood and met the biggest names in the industry at the time, such as Paul Newman and Jean Simmons. She was 5’5 and weighed 90 lbs. and anxious about gaining weight. During one of her anorexic episodes she was rushed to UCLA medical center in cardiac distress. She became the Hollywood teen idol in 1959 with blockbuster hits “Gidget,” “Imitation of Life” and “A Summer Place.”
In 1960, she met the pop singer and actor, Bobby Darin on the set of “Come September” in Portofino, Italy. After their introduction Darin said, “I am going to marry you someday.” His declaration did not endear him to the actress. Her mother encouraged her daughter to go out with him in order to be cordial on the movie set. He was a swinging bachelor who knew how to have fun where she was a naive, sheltered young woman who soon found him irresistible. In eight weeks the couple developed a serious relationship. They married on 12/01/1960 at 3:00 A.M. at the home of the Camden, New Jersey night judge. Dee wore a purple velvet dress under an otter coat. After a honeymoon in Palm Springs, California, Dee went back to work in Hollywood.
The young couple bought a home in Palm Springs and on 12/16/1961 their son Dodd was born. She would have preferred to stay home and raise her baby but she was under contract. She began to take speed in order to work on her films and also began to drink heavily. Her marriage did not have the strongest foundations and Darin walked out on her on 4/23/1966 on her 24th birthday after seeing her talking to Warren Beatty at a party. In December 1967, her divorce from Bobby Darin was final. He continued to come back to see her whenever he had medical problems. He died on 12/20/1973 of heart complications.
After Darin’s death, Dee continued to drink, ending her movie career. Her mother moved in with her and raised her son Dodd and the two sadly watched her sink into alcoholism. In December 1988, her mother died of lung cancer. By then, Dee never left her bed and only ate soup and crackers – and scotch. Her son finally got her to a hospital. In 1991, Dee lived in a two-bedroom condo in Beverly Hills, seeing a therapist, determined to remain sober. Her son Dodd, the owner of an education book publishing company supports his mother financially and emotionally.
The actress died at age 62 on February 20, 2005 in Los Robles Hospital & Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, California, according to news reports quoting her son. She had been in the hospital for the prior two weeks and was being treated for complications from kidney disease and pneumonia. In 2000, she had been diagnosed with throat cancer and kidney failure. Though most news reports quoted her son for a time of death of 6 AM, Beth Havens noted that a local paper placed the time of death at 5:57 AM, quoting the attending nurse.
Link to Wikipedia biography