Look at me, I'm Sandra Dee

Frontiers, 2001 by Scheiner, Georganne

In a 1958 article on Dee, "The Men Who Excite Me," the author predictably reported, "Although many men might excite her [Dee], none could measure up to the still-warm memory of her [step]father." 28 In article after article, Dee's film success is made to sound like a tribute from a dutiful daughter to her dead stepfather, who appears positively saintly. One fan magazine wrote of the late Douvan:

Eugene Douvan was to make life a fairy land for his new family. He showered them with gifts and bought them only the best. He adored them as only a big, generous man can adore the petiteness, the helplessness of women, and he was fiercely protective of them.29

The above quote underscores the adherence to normative gender roles, which is often characteristic of both incest victims and perpetrators. As Gordon observes, "Probably the most striking indication of the father's power was his ability to create within the family an alternative psychosocial order, stable despite its contradictory relationship to larger community patterns."30 By day, Douvan appeared to be a man of largesse; by night, he became a man of even greater sexual appetites.

Eisler comments on the tendency of children in the fifties to contribute to the idealization of family life:

The real revelation for me was the role played by children in .... keeping up appearances. Many of my friends had been pressed into service early as happy smiling fronts, emissaries of family normalcy, cheerful proof that "nothing was really wrong" at the joneses.11

Dee would contribute to the fifties' idealization of the family by keeping up the charade long after Douvan had died. His death is construed in the popular press as the great tragedy of her young life. Dee's mother, Mary Douvan, was untruthfully portrayed as a saint, and she was also often grouped with Dee in fan magazine photographs in youthful poses, as a girlfriend: They were "almost like sisters." Mary Douvan was constantly described as Dee's "closest companion and friend." Mary was complicit in creating the mythology of Dee and her great love for her stepfather through various articles she "wrote" for the fan magazines. She always tried to reassure fans that Dee was truly a typical teen.32

The complicity of her mother in creating this myth of a bountiful stepfather extended to Dee herself. The cornerstone of Dee's relationship with her mother appeared to be denial, a denial that underscored most sexual matters in the fifties. When asked by her son Dodd many years later why she never told her mother of the incest, Dee replied, "In this way I was like my mother. Don't say it and it won't be true.... I'm sure my mother knew... Turning a blind eye was her way of surviving."33 On the surface, Mary Douvan appeared to conform to the prescriptions of the period. Her first husband, Dee's father, was not successful either by the standards of his family or his day. Mary tried to be the dutiful wife and helpmate, exhorting Zuck to be successful, but he never became more than a bus driver, and that was simply unacceptable to her. After their divorce, Mary was forced to go to work to support her young daughter. The rich, successful, stable Douvan must have seemed the answer to a prayer. Finally, Mary was able to conform to the notions of middle-class, white femininity being offered by popular culture. When faced with the alternative of her daughter's welfare or her security, she chose the security, convincing herself she was doing it for her daughter. Dee's success came on the heels of Douvan's death, and Mary simply switched her identity from wife of a successful businessman to mother of a movie star. Although Mary Douvan was a bright woman, capable of taking care of herself, she became totally dependent on Dee as she had been on Douvan.