"If I Were Lana Turner....."

This article appeared in the December 1960 issue of Photoplay

If I were Lana Turner I'd never have to worry...thought Sandra Dee, picking up her good luck Teddy Bear and saying good morning to her dog. It was Saturday and already 11 o'clock. She never liked to get up. Not even when her mother tried "smoking" her out by frying bacon down in the kitchen in order to get her out of bed.
Saturday was the only day she tried to eat something. She just never seemed to have an appetite. It wasn't that she was dieting. She just never did care to eat. She thought back how her dad used to try to coax her. "Just eat your steak along with Mother and me, and I'll give you anything you want." She used to sit and wonder what she'd ask for, but when she tried to eat, she couldn't. Smiling half to herself and to the fuzzy bear next to her bed, she thought, "Mom always thinks the smell of food will make me hungry, but it doesn't."
She looked at the bear. It was pretty silly for a girl her age to have one . . . let alone two. But they had sentimental value. Besides, after a while, they seemed as intelligent as people.
She'd got one of them on one of her first dates in Hollywood. She had had a lovely time and she didn't expect the boy to give her a gift or anything. She knew he didn't have any money to buy her a corsage, but who needs one, she'd told him, when you've had a good time?
But he'd felt bad. "I want to give you something that means a lot to me," he'd said. Was she ever surprised when he arrived the next day with a box, tied with some cord, kind of haphazardly.
"For me?" she'd said stupidly. Now that she thought it over, it was kind of a cliche.
And he just said, "It's something my mother had saved . . . it's sixteen years old."
When she opened the cardboard box, she'd found the Teddy bear. "He doesn't look a day over fifteen," she'd joked. She always makes a joke when she's emotionally touched. That's so it doesn't show too much.
"Promise me you'll keep him always," the boy had said. She said she would and she had. Sometimes Pom-Pom was jealous of the bear, but after all, what could you do with a dog who thought he was a person and wanted all your attention? "Go down to Mother," she ordered Pom-Pom, who growled more when she pretended to kiss the bear and tried to snuggle closer to the bed. "Honestly," she laughed, and tickled his ear. "You're acting just like a mad dog." And, with that, Pom-Pom yelped and ran out of the room and she could hear him collide on the steps with Melinda--their French poodle.
She stretched out on her bed. It felt good to sleep late. She seemed to get so horribly tired after she finished a picture. In the beginning, she never got nervous. But now she seemed to get worse and worse. The first day of shooting she was a living wreck. Perhaps it was because now she knew all the things she could do wrong.
The first time, she wasn't a bit nervous and then she saw herself on the screen and she almost went through the floor. "I'm quitting right now," she cried to her mother who was waiting for her in the next room. "I'm no actress. I'm awful. I'm all right when I don't have to talk much, but when I open my mouth... it's awful!"
Troy Donahue always kidded her because even now she wouldn't look at her rushes. But what was the sense? It made her feel just awful to watch herself. And previews were even worse! They made her sicker . . . sitting there and watching her mistakes.
She wished she could be like Lana Turner. She was a pro. "Get your face in here," Lana would say and then show her how to stay within the camera range and how to look best. Boy, was she a pro. "Never be rushed into a scene before you are perfectly groomed," she would say over and over. "And this goes for real life, too. The public doesn't know the circumstances," she'd explain. "They see only a careless hairdo or poor makeup. Take time to be perfect."
She used to sit and watch Lana work. Lana always knew what she wanted and she'd stick up for herself when she believed she was right. This was something she taught her, that, when you're young, it's best to take time to think through what you want, but when you're sure, stick up for your ideas. She never thought she'd have the courage, but she was learning. Like the other day. She got nervous feelings in her stomach when she thought of it.
They were making her wear too much makeup for a scene, but everybody said, "Oh, you look fine," but she knew she didn't. She felt teenage girls shouldn't wear makeup like a mask, so she refused to go on till it was fixed. She hoped nobody thought she was temperamental. That's one thing she isn't. She knew that, for sure.
The sun suddenly came out and it seemed to fill her bedroom with a warm, soft glow. She loved this room. She'd decorated it herself. And what problems she and her mother had in getting the special satin-tufted Venetian headboard.
Just being two women alone, without a man to help them, was sometimes difficult. Both she and her mother knew this. It was now four years last September 11, that her father had died. She knew it wasn't good to think too much about the past, but she couldn't help thinking how her father had always wanted to live out in California. "I think he would have been awfully happy out here," she had said to her mother recently, as they both remembered how Dad used to talk about the beautiful hills and the lovely climate of California. "Yes, I think he would have been very happy," she said now aloud, as if almost talking to the bear.
She knew her dad would have been proud of her, too. He wanted her to go into show business if that was what she wanted. In the beginning, he was a little concerned because he didn't want it to go to her head. But that was just in the beginning. And it all started so unexpectedly.
She'd been walking through the NBC building in New York when a man stopped her and asked, "Have you ever done television work?" She was only twelve and she didn't know any better and she said, "Sure." Before she knew it, she was booked on a Vaughn Monroe TV show. This was before she modeled; lots of people got this mixed up.
It's funny how you never know what's going to happen, she thought now. Who would have thought by bumping into a classmate at school, one day, and finding out that someone wanted a model for a Girl Scout show and going for the interview, would have ended her up in Hollywood. She didn't even have an agent, then, so she gave her father's name. When she got the job, she'd told her father and he'd laughed and said it was all right because it was a Girl Scout show. What a shame Daddy never lived long enough to know about her Hollywood contract.
That happened after he had died. In fact, her agent had made the appointment for her to read for a producer named Mr. Ross Hunter the Monday after Daddy had died. She didn't want to keep the appointment, but Mother had said, "Daddy would want you to." And so she went. She could still remember sitting there, waiting all day, feeling so miserable and lonely and angry. She was so upset, she kept crying. When she was introduced to Mr. Hunter, she thought, "This man's too young to know about movies. He can't possibly be a producer." After her reading was over and she met her mother, she said, "Oh, he's some young fellow who thinks he wants to be a producer." But he really was a producer from Universal-International and a couple of weeks later she found out that he wanted her to come to Hollywood.
She didn't know anything about it. She went on a modeling job and someone asked her if she'd be around for the next couple of weeks. "Sure," she'd said. "where would I be going?"
"Well, we just read in the newspaper that you are being signed to a contract."
And that's the way it happened. They flew out to Hollywood, and now Hollywood was their home. Everybody says how lucky she is to make movies in Europe. But she worked so hard--who could ever believe it--sometimes six days a week from four o'clock in the morning till midnight. She was always so tired that she slept all day Sunday. She never saw anything at all. Someday she was going to go over and do nothing but vacation. She really felt kind of stupid when people asked her about Paris or Rome. All she could do was describe the inside of her hotel room.
She hoped she wasn't working so much that she was becoming dull. That can happen. That was just the thing her father was worried about. She'd been working so steadily that she really didn't have time for dates. She liked Troy because he always understood if she were tired or if she had to break a date because of an early call. But she didn't want to marry an actor, or anyone in the business. Not that she even had time to think much about marriage. She knew she'd like a houseful of babies and time for doing maybe one picture a year, just one or so. It seemed kind of silly to speculate on the type of man she wanted to marry. All she knew was she liked a man to have strength---strong character and intelligence---not just muscular strength. She used to be mad about Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. They were her ideals. Every time they played in a picture, she'd see it a couple of times. Later on, she had a big crush on Rex Harrison, especially after playing with him in "Reluctant Debutante," and she liked Raymond (Perry Mason) Burr for a while and Tony Perkins.
She'd actually had a date with Tony. She was scared to death when he called and asked, "How would you like to go to a premiere with me?"
"He's probably the shy type or a deep intellectual," she fretted all week to her mother. "What'll I talk about . . . ?" She always frets like this before a date. "I'm a mess," that's the way she felt about her charms.
But, luckily, Tony turned out to have a lot. "Why, he was a marvelous conversationalist," she rambled on to her mother later. "He can talk about so many things--books, theater, music. And he's so full of humor."
Sal Mineo was fun, too. And she liked working with John Saxon and Cliff Robertson. She'd worked with Cliff in "Gidget." That was her favorite picture.
It's funny, but in a way, she felt a little like Gidget. She actually looked forward to going to Hawaii to make the sequel, "Gidget Goes Hawaiian."
She'd have to read up on Hawaii before she went. She should do more reading. She missed studying since she finished school. Maybe she could take some courses. She looked critically at herself in the mirror. "Maybe you should take a beauty course or something, she said to herself, pointing her nose up, pulling her hair down over her forehead, before she decided that it was true: who ever liked the way they looked?
"Sandy," she heard her mother calling, and she jumped back into bed. After a few minutes, she heard her mother's footsteps come down the hall and stop outside the door. "Come on, get up and have some breakfast," her mother said, opening the door and letting Pom-Pom and Melinda dash in. "And don't fool me," she chided, standing over the bed as Pom-Pom jumped on the bed and landed with a thud on Sandra's stomach. "Pom-Pom told me you were up."
Opening one eye, glaringly, Sandra scolded Pom-Pom: "There you go again, Pom-Pom, acting like a person. Don't you know dogs don't talk?" And with a theatrical air she got up and put on her robe, but she couldn't resist saying, "Gee, Mom, if I were Lana Turner--I wouldn't have to . . . eat."

See Sandra in U.I.'s 'Romanoff & Juliet" and "Come September." Hear her on Decca.

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