Sandra Dee

According to her son's book she was born in 1944, but since Dee started modeling and acting at a very young age, she and her mother falsely inflated her age by two years so she could find more work. Read Less

Dee was born Alexandra Zuck in Bayonne, New Jersey. Her parents, Mary (née Cymboliak) and John Zuck, met as teenagers at a Russian Orthodox church dance. They married shortly after, but divorced before she was five. She was of Polish and Carpatho-Rusyn ancestry and was raised in the Russian Orthodox Church. Her son Dodd Darin wrote in his biographical book about his parents, Dream Lovers, that Dee's mother, Mary, and her sister Olga "were first generation daughters of a working class Russian Orthodox couple." Dee herself recalled, "we belonged to a Russian Orthodox Church, and there was dancing at the social events." Alexandra would soon take the name Sandra Dee. She became a professional model by the age of four and subsequently progressed to television commercials. Read Less