day before day one

new york city, evening

we start rehearsals tomorrow and i’ve been spending the time between hazbin hotel events this past weekend researching all things bobby darin and sandra dee. i’ve never gotten to portray an actual person who lived, breathed, cried, struggled and laughed on this earth and i’ve found myself absolutely fascinated with sandra dee and her marriage to bobby.

i’ll get into the specifics later, but tonight i leave you with this incredible clip of sandra at age 24 with her and bobby’s son, dodd, on the evening of his triumphant return to the stage at the cocoanut grove in los angeles.

i cannot believe she is almost a decade younger than me in this video. she is so poised, so clearly a mother, such a star in her own right, sitting ringside at her husband’s show. what i love most is how quickly sandra says she admires bobby for his honesty.

sandra got a bad rap (thanks grease) for being a virginal, goody-two shoes while under contract at universal. her entire image was crafted in the image of an unthreatening childish ingenue. yet seeing this clip makes me think she was as aware of this construction as she was beholden to it. perhaps her admiration for bobby’s audacity and uncompromising honesty stemmed from her desire to speak and act similarly; but, as a grown-up platinum shirley temple under contract, she understood the golden handcuffs of her career insisted upon decorum: eyes downcast as opposed to staring someone down without flinching.

i’m excited to use this touchstone as a way to understand why and how these two unlikely humans fell in love. and as a route into embodying a woman who was so much more than “look at me i’m sandra dee”.