my favorite girl midget

From the moment I first saw Sandra Dee in Douglas Sirk's Imitation of Life, I was stunned. Perky, wide-eyed, anorexic, and available, this force of nature was the instant antidote to post-war film noir and anarchist rebels. Despite the fact that she obviously looks like a teenager, it's hard to believe an actress of seventeen could have that much charisma.

Gidget anticipates all the conventions of the sixties and seventies teen TV show (including "Gidget" itself): suburbia, family values, lousy virginity, and five show-stopping minutes of the worst Beach Boys imitation band you've ever heard. But despite the bleach-blonde plot and hokey back-projection, there's something engagingly earnest about the whole project. Could it be the script? Based on Hollywood screenwriter Frederick Kohner's book about the real-life experiences of his teenage daughter one summer in Malibu, the dialogue is quite amusing at times, but not convincingly authentic. The acting is, well, TV-quality.

No, it all comes down to Sandra Dee. At a time when thirty-five-year-old Doris Day was still playing virgins, the innocence of a seventeen-year-old actress playing a sixteen-year-old had a refreshing realism. By eighteen, she would marry Bobby Darin and give birth to a son. A number of starlets slipped into the role of Gidget before Sally Field finally found a home for her on the small screen.

Yesterday we lost Sandra Dee, the person, to complications of kidney disease. But, thanks to the original Gidget, we can still bask in the endless summer glow of Miss Dee. Honest to goodness: she's the absolute ultimate!

(audio clip from The Ultimate Sandra Dee Website)