Modern Screen (Jan-Dec 1960)

"People who didn't know Mama well criticized her sometimes," Nina went on. "Friends. Relatives . . . 'So he's got a nice voice, a nice style,' they'd say, ' — but why do you make it as though he's the most marvelous thing since John Barry more and Sarah Bernhardt combined?' And Mama would say 'Because he is the most marvelous thing, that's why!' "As far as Mama was concerned, there was nothing that her Bobby could do wrong. I think, I really think, that if he walked into the house one day and said, 'Mama, I just killed somebody,' — she would have said to him, 'Well, killing is a bad thing, but you must have had some good reason, Bobby.' "There was nothing she wouldn't do for him. If making sure that Bobby would be a success someday meant her jumping off the top of the Empire State Building, Mama wouldn't have thought about it twice. She would have jumped — smiling." No one understood Nina paused again. Then: "Some people — and there were more than just some people — quite a few people, in fact — wondered about this relationship they had, my mother and my brother. They thought it was too much. They used to be surprised the way Mama would talk to Bobby sometimes, like when out of the clear blue she'd say something like, 'Bobby, you have beautiful eyes — now learn to use them, so that when you get up in front of an audience you can really wow them!' . . . And they used to be surprised, (Continued from page 49) Yet you did not go to see your father, nor your brother. Nor did you phone him. Nor did you ask anyone about them, how they were, where they were; not one question did you ask about them, not once did you mention their names. Why, Sandra? Why? Oh yes, we all know about your family history — how your mother, Mary, and your father, John Zuck, were divorced twelve years ago, when you were six; how your mother then married Eugene Douvan, her boss, who loved you, took care of you, called you "my daughter" till the day of his sudden death in 1956; how since that day you have mourned Eugene Douvan, referred to him in stories and interviews as "my daddy." While, actually, your true father was still alive. Your true father — yet a man whose existence you deny, a man whose existence you ignore. Why, Sandra? Why? You are not a cold girl. You are not a thoughtless girl. On the contrary, you are and always have been one of the most delightful, most sincere, most lovely girls we have ever known. We like you, very very much. And it is because we like you so much that we are concerned about you — concerned that you are now, right now, this minute, making the greatest mistake of your life, living one of the most terrible lies a person can live. As you did that Tuesday. March 22. That triumphant day of your homecom70 ing when you smiled and waved and these people, shocked, at the way Bobby would spend so much time following Mama's advice, like the way he'd stand in front of a mirror and practice with his eyes. But what they didn't realize was that my mother knew show business — and, more important, knew her son's talent and his love for show business. And that there was no point she wouldn't go to, to see that he made it in this business." Nina looked down now, and was suddenly silent. "Mom," Vivi said, " — you didn't even touch your coffee yet. It's cold. Do you want me to heat it up?" But Nina didn't seem to hear her daughter. She remained silent for a while longer. And then, speaking again, she said: "There was so much criticism. Even towards the end. "It was only a year ago. . . . "Bobby was at the beginning of making it big. "Mama was very sick with her heart. "Bobby had to be away on tours in Cali fornia, TV shows, record hops, this, that. "And there were people who said, 'You'd think if he loved his mother so much, that he'd be home more now, now that it's the end.' "But — but if they'd only known how proud Mama was. How happy she was. "Lying in her bed. Watching her son on the television, or listening to his records. Not caring that she was dying. But knowing that the talent in her boy, the talent she had seen so far back, so long ago, was beginning to live. . . ." Nina looked up. And she wiped away thousands of people smiled and waved back at you. That day bands played in your honor. That day kids and grownups alike screeched happily at the sight of you and begged you for autographs. That day Mayor Brady and Congressman Gallagher's wife and all the others praised you in speech after speech. That day you rode through the streets of your old hometown in a long black Cadillac limousine, escorted by two police cars, four motorcycles. That day you said you would always remember — for as long as you lived. That day, that same day, a man and a little boy sat waiting, in a small apartment over on West Twenty-fourth Street, that same apartment in which you had once lived, waiting to see if you would remember them. . . . My sister Sandra Dee Their day — your father's and Kenny's — ■ began at exactly 7:45 that morning when the little boy awoke, rushed from his bed and ran into the kitchen where Pauline, his mother, your father's present wife, was preparing breakfast. "Mommy, Mommy," he shouted, according to the way Pauline tells it. "Today's Tuesday, and my sister Sandra Dee is coming. Isn't she, Mommy?" Pauline explained that you, Sandra, were indeed coming to Bayonne. But that she didn't know whether or not you would come by to see them. "Oh yes she will, you wait and see," Kenny said. "She's my sister!" At that moment, your father walked into the room. "Won't she, Daddy, won't she come and see us finally?" the little boy asked some of the tears which had come suddenly to her eyes. "There are always critics," she said. " — Like some of the people who said, just before Mama died, 'You'd think he'd buy her a nicer house than that place in Lake Hiawatha' — this place . . . 'After all,' they'd say, 'it's not very fancy, and a guy making that much money, who's supposed to love his mother so much, you'd think — ' " Nina stopped, and shook her head. "If they knew," she said, "that Bobby knew Mama didn't have long. That he bought this place for her before he really made his big success, with some of the money he'd saved from his little jobs — "If they knew that he knew he couldn't wait for his success to give her a little extra happiness, that he wanted her to have at least a little time in a better world than what she'd known, even a small house like this compared to that dumpy little apartment in The Bronx where she'd had to live most of her life — "If they knew what this place meant to her. . . ." Nina stopped again. "Excuse me," she said, as she walked out of the room. We got up, too, a moment later. "Are you leaving?" Vivi, Nina's daughter, asked us. We said yes, we were. "But Uncle Bobby isn't up yet," Vivi said. "You didn't even get the story you came for." We told Vivi that she was wrong. We got the story, we said. end Bobby guest-stars in Columbia's Pepe. again, as he'd asked many times before. And again, Sandra, it was explained to him that no one could be sure. "Maybe," your father said. "Maybe." He looked at the table then. It was all set. "Now," he said, "let's eat. And latei we'll see what's going to be. . . ." It was a few minutes before nine o'clock when Pauline kissed Kenny and your father good-bye and left for work. You see, Sandra, your dad was in an accident a few months ago. He hurt his foot, pretty badly. Just at about the time he was set to go back to work things got slow at his place, and he was laid off. He hasn't been able to work since. And so Pauline, to help out, took a job as a clerktypist at the Maidenform Co. plant. And so, this morning, she left for work, as usual, at about nine o'clock. Nine o'clock . . . Just about the same time you were leaving the Hotel Drake on New York's swank Park Avenue that morning and — accompanied by your mother, your hairdresser, your tutor and a few publicists from your studio, UniversalInternational — got into the Caddy that would take you to New Jersey, and Bayonne. It was, in fact, while you were making the drive to Jersey that Kenny and your father had their first long talk about you. First long talk, because normally your father doesn't talk much about you to Kenny. "It hurts me too much," he's explained, understandably. But this morning it was different. . . From real life Kenny started the talk. "Daddy," he said, "do you remember Sandra Dee, my sister?" "Sure I do," your father said. "But you never go see her in the movies like me and mommy," Kenny said. "How could you remember?" "I remember her when she was a little An Open Letter to Sandra Dee