Doris Day

Doris Day

Doris Mary Anne Kappelhoff (born April 3, 1924) is an Academy Award nominated, Golden Globe and Grammy Award winning American singer, actress, and animal welfare advocate known as Doris Day. A vivacious blonde with a wholesome image, Day was one of the most prolific actresses of the 1950s and 1960s. Able to sing, dance, and play comedy and dramatic roles, she became one of the biggest box-office stars in Hollywood. She has 39 films to her credit, as well as over 75 hours of television work, and has recorded well over 650 songs.

Biography

Doris Day was born in Evanston, a neighborhood within the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA to Alma Sophia Welz and William/Wilhelm Kappelhoff; three of her grandparents were German immigrants, at least one of them was Dutch. The youngest of three, she had two brothers, Richard, who died before she was born and Paul, a few years older. She was named after silent movie actress Doris Kenyon, whom her mother admired. Her family was Roman Catholic and her parents were known to have divorced. She later embraced Christian Science. Growing up in the 1930s Day developed an interest in dance, and by the mid 1930s formed a dance duo that performed locally in Cincinnati, until a car accident on October 13, 1937 damaged her legs and curtailed her prospects as a professional dancer. However, while recovering, Day took up singing. Soon she began to take lessons, and at the age of 17 began performing locally. It was while working for local bandleader Barney Rapp in 1939 that she adopted the stage name "Day" as an alternative to "Kappelhoff", at his suggestion, as he felt her surname was too long. After working with Rapp, Day worked with a number of other bandleaders including Jimmy James, Bob Crosby and Les Brown. It was while working with Brown that Day scored her first hit recording "Sentimental Journey", which was released in early 1945, and soon became an anthem of the desire of World War II demobilizing troops to return home. To some extent, this song is still associated with Day, and was notably re-recorded by her on several occasions, as well as being included in her 1971 television special.

Film career

During her time with Les Brown, and a brief stint with Bob Hope, Day toured extensively across the United States. Her popularity as a radio performer and vocalist, including a second hit record "My Dreams Are Getting Better All The Time", led directly to a career in films. After her separation from second husband George Weidler in 1948, Day was set to leave Los Angeles and return to her mother's home in Cincinnati, when her agent, Al Levy, convinced her to attend a party at the home of composer Jule Styne. Her personal circumstances at the time and her reluctance to perform contributed to an emotive performance of "Embraceable You" which greatly impressed Styne and his partner, Sammy Cahn. They then recommended her for a role in Romance on the High Seas, which they were working on for Warner Brothers. The withdrawal of Betty Hutton due to pregnancy left the main role to be re-cast. Thus, Day began her film career, in 1948, in a "peppy" Hutton-esque role. (The film was digitally remastered and released on DVD in May 2007.)

The success of this film established her as a popular film personality, and provided her with another hit recording "It's Magic". In 1950, U.S. servicemen in Korea voted her their favorite star. Early publicity saddled her with such unflattering nicknames as "The Tomboy with a Voice" and "The Golden Tonsil". She continued to make minor and frequently nostalgic period musicals such as Starlift, On Moonlight Bay, By the Light of the Silvery Moon, and Tea For Two for Warner Bros., but 1953 found Day as pistol-packin' Calamity Jane in what has become one of Hollywood's most enduring musicals, winning the Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Secret Love" (her recording of which became her fourth U.S. No. 1 recording).

After filming Young at Heart (1954) with Frank Sinatra, Day chose not to renew her contract with Warner Brothers, and instead freelanced under the management of her third husband, Martin Melcher. Her range of acting broadened to include more dramatic roles. In 1955, she received some of the best notices of her career for her portrayal of singer Ruth Etting in Love Me or Leave Me, co-starring James Cagney. Doris would later call it, in her autobiography, her best film. She continued to be paired with some of Hollywood's top stars, including Jack Lemmon, James Stewart, Cary Grant, David Niven, and Clark Gable.

In Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), she sang "Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)", which won an Academy Award for Best Original Song. According to Jay Livingston, who wrote the song with Ray Evans, Day preferred another song used briefly in the film, "We'll Love Again", and skipped the recording for Que Sera, Sera. When the studio pushed her, she relented, but after recording the number in one take, she reportedly told a friend of Livingston's, "That's the last time you'll ever hear that song." The song was used again in her film, Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960), and was reprised as a brief duet with Arthur Godfrey in The Glass Bottom Boat (1966). It also became the theme song for her television show (1968-1973). The Man Who Knew Too Much was her only film for Hitchcock and, as she admitted in her 1975 autobiography, she was initially concerned at his lack of direction. She finally asked if anything was wrong and Hitchcock said everything was fine -- if she wasn't doing what he wanted, he would have said something.

After the critical and popular success of Teacher's Pet, Day's popularity at the box office seemed to wane, and some critical attention focused on perceived elements of "blandness" in her on-screen persona, although in some foreign markets (Germany, Britain and the Commonwealth), she remained a top box office draw. A dynamic performance in The Pajama Game received warm critical notices, but box office returns were disappointing. In the case of The Tunnel of Love and It Happened to Jane, both the critical and popular response was uneven. As a result, from 1957 to 1959, she was no longer regarded a "Top Ten Box Office Draw" by U.S. film exhibitors. This development may have been linked to a marked decline in popularity of musical films during the late 1950s, as well as to some poor choices in material made by Melcher on his wife's behalf. In addition, Day's popularity as a recording artist was diminished due to the growing popular taste for rock and roll. "Que Sera, Sera," for instance, was never a No. 1 hit, being kept from the top by Elvis Presley's recording of "Hound Dog."

Box office queen

Main article: Doris Day filmography and short subjects

In 1959, Day entered her most successful phase as a film actress with a series of romantic comedies, starting with the hugely popular Pillow Talk, co-starring Rock Hudson, who became a lifelong friend. The film received positive reviews and was a box office favorite. It also brought a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actress. Doris and Rock made two more films together, and she also made two with James Garner, starting with 1963's The Thrill of It All. Many of her 1960s films ignored her singing abilities and painted her as a good-hearted woman with a hint of naïveté and the purest virtue. Algonquin Round Table wit Oscar Levant, who had known Day earlier in her career, summed up the paradox of Day's late-blooming ingenue phase when he famously said, "I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin." But the public loved Day's light, frothy comedies of this period, buying enough tickets to make her by far the top female film star in America during the first half of the 1960s.

By the late 1960s, the sexual revolution and promiscuity of the maturing baby boomer generation had refocused public attitudes about sex. Times changed, but Day's films did not. Critics and comics dubbed Day "the world's oldest virgin", and audiences began to shy away from her repetitive roles. As a result, she slipped from the list of top box-office stars, last appearing in the Top 10 in 1966 with The Glass Bottom Boat her final substantial hit. Day herself found many of her late films to be of very poor quality - her least favorite was Caprice, co-starring Richard Harris) - and did them only at the insistence of Melcher. One of the roles she supposedly turned down was that of middle-aged adulteress Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate (a role that went to Anne Bancroft). In her published memoirs (co-authored by A.E. Hotchner), Day said that she had rejected the part on moral grounds. Her final feature film, With Six You Get Eggroll, was released in 1968.

The impact of changing public tastes could be seen in the waning popularity of Day as a recording artist. Albums like Duet and Latin for Lovers garnered critical praise, but little commercial success in the U.S., although sales remained strong in some overseas markets like Britain. Day's last major hit single came in the UK in 1964 with "Move Over, Darling", co-written by her son specifically for her. The recording was a notable departure for Day, with its distinctly contemporary-sounding arrangement and, especially, her breathy and suggestive delivery of the lyrics. It was perhaps for this reason that it was banned by the BBC, and was labelled "distasteful" by senior management. In 1967, Day recorded her last album, The Love Album, essentially concluding her recording career, though this album was not released until 1994.

Bankruptcy and television career

Melcher died in 1968. After nearly two decades as a top star, Day was shocked to discover that her husband of 17 years and his business partner Jerry Rosenthal had squandered her earnings, leaving her deeply in debt. Day sued Rosenthal and won the largest civil judgment up until that time in California, over $20 million. How much Day actually collected is not certain. Terry Melcher later commented that it was only his stepfather's unexpected death that saved Day from financial ruin. It still remains unresolved whether Melcher worked in collusion with Rosenthal to pillage her vast earnings, or was himself duped. Day herself, however, has stated publicly that she believes Melcher was innocent of any deliberate wrongdoing. In her words, he "simply trusted the wrong person" completely, until it was too late.

According to Day's autobiography, as told to A. E. Hotchner, the usually athletic and healthy Melcher had an enlarged heart. Another factor may be that he converted to the Christian Science religion during his relationship with Day, and his newfound religious beliefs led him to put off going to the doctor for some time. Most of the interviews on the subject given to Hotchner (and included in Day's autobiography) painted a very unflattering portrait of Melcher. Author David Kaufman asserts that one of Day's costars, Louis Jourdan, maintained that Day herself disliked Melcher. However, Day's own statements of her relationship with Melcher belie that assertion.

Upon her husband's death, Day learned that he had committed her to a TV series, which became The Doris Day Show. "It was awful," Day told OK! Magazine in 1996. "I was really, really not very well when Marty passed away, and the thought of going into TV was overpowering. But he'd signed me up for a series. And then my son Terry took me walking in Beverly Hills and explained that it wasn't nearly the end of it. I had also been signed up for a bunch of TV specials, all without anyone ever asking me."

Day hated the idea of doing television, but felt obligated. "There was a contract. I didn't know about it. I never wanted to do TV, but I gave it 100 percent anyway. That's the only way I know how to do it." Melcher died on April 20, 1968, and the first episode of the TV show was aired on September 24, 1968.

From 1968 to 1973, The Doris Day Show aired with "Que Sera, Sera" as its theme song. Day grudgingly continued, but only as long as she needed the work to help pay off her debts, and only after CBS had ceded creative control to Day and her son. The show was so successful, that she did it for five years, and, it also functioned as a lead-in to the equally successful Carol Burnett Show. Despite its successful run, today Day's show is chiefly remembered for its dramatic changes in casting and premise from season to season. It has not been as widely syndicated as many of its contemporaries, and has been little seen in markets outside the U.S. and Britain.

In addition to her series, Day completed two TV specials, The Doris Mary Anne Kappelhoff Special in 1971 and Doris day toDay in 1975. She also appeared in one of John Denver's TV specials (1974), parodying her (and his) sunny public image to good effect. By the end of the TV series in 1973, Day was approaching 50, and public tastes had changed to such a degree that her firmly established wholesome persona was now completely out of fashion. She essentially retired from acting when The Doris Day Show ended, but her popularity is widespread to this day.

Animal welfare activism

Although the press had occasionally noted Day's interest in animal welfare, it was not until the early 1970s that her interest in animal rights was widely publicized. In 1971, she co-founded Actors and Others for Animals and appeared in a series of newspaper advertisements denouncing the wearing of fur, alongside Mary Tyler Moore, Angie Dickinson, and Jayne Meadows. Day's friend, Cleveland Amory, wrote about these events in Man Kind? Our Incredible War on Wildlife (1974). Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Day actively promoted the annual Spay Day USA, and on a number of occasions, actively lobbied the United States Congress - and, it has been suggested, Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton - in support of legislation designed to safeguard animal rights. The Doris Day Animal League http://www.ddal.org is a group she funds. For many decades, she has stopped her car on Los Angeles freeways when she saw an abandoned, stray or injured animal. She is reportedly a vegetarian.

In 2006, The Humane Society of the United States merged with the Doris Day Animal League. Staff members of the Doris Day League took positions within The HSUS, and Day recorded some public service announcements for The HSUS, which is now managing Spay Day USA, the one-day spay neuter event she originated some years before.

Private life

In 1975, Day released her autobiography, Doris Day: Her Own Story. It revealed to the general public many of the painful events in her private life that belied her sunny public image. In particular, the book detailed her first three difficult marriages:

1. To Al Jorden, a trombonist whom she had met when he was in Barney Rapp's Band, from March 1941 to 1943. She was not yet 17 when she married Jorden, and her only child, Terry Melcher (a boy), was born from this marriage. Jorden committed suicide after their divorce.
2. To George Weidler (a saxophonist), from March 30, 1946 to May 31, 1949. Weidler and Day met again several years later and during a brief reconciliation, he helped her become involved in Christian Science.
3. To Martin Melcher, whom she married on her 27th birthday, April 3, 1951. This looked like a happy marriage, and lasted much longer than her first two. Melcher adopted Terry (thus renaming the boy Terry Melcher), and also produced many of Day's movies. Day also later revealed that Melcher had physically abused Terry. His profligate spending caused money difficulties for Day that continued for a number of years after his death.

After her autobiography was published, Day was married one more time, also ending in divorce.

4. Her fourth unsuccessful marriage was to Barry Comden, from April 14, 1976 to 1981. Comden was her first husband from outside of show business. Comden was the maitre d' at one of Doris's favorite restaurants. Knowing of her great love of dogs, Comden began the practice of giving Doris a bag of meat scraps and bones on her way out. This is how he got to meet and endear himself to her. This marriage unraveled, and Comden complained that Day cared more for her "animal friends" than she did for him.

The revelations contained in the book about Day's private life, and the testimony of many of her friends about aspects of her life and career (most were scathing with regard to husband number three Marty Melcher) helped to make the book a bestseller. In promoting the book, Day caused a stir by rejecting the "girl next door" and "virgin" labels so often attached to her. As she remarked in her book, "The succession of cheerful, period musicals I made, plus Oscar Levant's widely publicized remark about my virginity ('I knew Doris Day before she became a virgin') contributed to what has been called my 'image,' which is a word that baffles me. There never was any intent on my part either in my acting or in my private life to create any such thing as an image." In an interview with Barbara Walters, she commented, "I don't know where that label came from. Maybe it's the way I look. Do I look like a virgin?" In later interviews, Day went on to say she believed people should live together prior to marriage, something that she herself would do if the opportunity arose. Her candor won her admiration among reviewers and possibly contributed to the book's success. At the conclusion of this book tour, Day seemed content to focus on her charity and pet work and her business interests. (In 1985, she became part-owner of the Cypress Inn in Carmel, California.)

The mid-1980s saw a renewed period of activity. In May 1983, she became a grandmother, and in 1985 briefly hosted her own talk show, Doris Day's Best Friends on CBN. The show generated unexpected press when her old friend Rock Hudson appeared in the first episode. Day was taken aback by Hudson's emaciated frame, as he had always been in top physical condition. Soon after, she and the world learned that he was dying of AIDS. Day and Hudson were good friends off-screen, but she would later claim she never knew he was gay. Despite the world-wide publicity the show received, it was cancelled after 26 episodes.

After a brief attempt to become a surf music singing star, her son Terry became a staff producer for Columbia Records in the 1960s, and was famous for producing most of the hit recordings by the pioneering folk rock band, The Byrds. In November 2004, after a long period of illness, he died from complications of melanoma (skin cancer), aged 62.

Renewal of interest

Main article: Doris Day discography

During the 1990s, interest in Day grew. The release of a greatest hits CD in 1992 garnered her another entry onto the British charts, while the inclusion of the song "Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps" in the soundtrack of the Australian film Strictly Ballroom gained her new fans. (The song was also covered by the alternative rock outfit, Cake in the same period.) During the late 1990s and early 2000s, the progressive release of her films and TV series and specials on DVD fed into this renewal of interest in her work, a fact underlined by the development of new websites devoted to Day and a growing number of academic texts analyzing various aspects of her career. In 2006, Day recorded a commentary for the DVD release of the fifth (and final) season of her TV show. Day in recent years also participated in telephone interviews with a radio station that celebrates her birthday with an annual Doris Day music marathon. These interviews have been podcast and are currently downloadable.

In 2004, Doris Day was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom but declined to attend the ceremony because of a fear of flying. She turned down a tribute offer from the American Film Institute, but did receive, and went to Los Angeles to accept, the Golden Globe's Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in 1989. The actress did not accept an invitation to be a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors for undisclosed reasons. Liz Smith, a long-time entertainment gossip columnist, and movie critic Rex Reed have mounted vigorous campaigns attempting to drum up support for an honorary Academy Award for Day to herald her spectacular film career and her status as the top female box-office star of all time.

Day was honored with a Grammy for Lifetime Achievement in Music in February 2008.

A new biography, Doris Day: The Untold Story of the Girl Next Door by David Kaufman, is scheduled to be published by Virgin Books USA in hardback on June 10 2008 and is reputed to tell Day’s "incredible, previously untold story". Another biography, Doris Day: Reluctant Star by David Bret, is due to be published in the UK in July 2008. These books, like a recent one by a former employee, are already proving controversial among Day's fans because of some previously unknown revelations about Day's life.

References in popular culture

In the 1995 film adaptation of the comic book, Tank Girl by Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett, Doris Day is not only mentioned but is also featured in a wooden bust carved into her likeness.

In the Beatles' song "Dig It" from the Let It Be sessions, John Lennon states "Like the FBI...and the CIA...and the BBC...B. B. King...and Doris Day...Matt Busby...Dig it..."

In 1982, a Dutch band called Doe Maar made a national breakthrough, by scoring a huge hit in the Low Countries (Belgium & The Netherlands). The title of this song was "Doris Day". Lyric excerpt: "Hey, er is geen bal op de t.v., alleen een film met Doris Day." Translation: "Hey, there is nothing on T.V., only a Doris Day film."

The song "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" by Wham! contains the line "you make the sun shine brighter than Doris Day."

Julie Brown's "Brand New Girl", featured in Earth Girls are Easy (1989), includes the line (sung by Brown to Geena Davis in the movie) "Your nightlife's goin' nowhere 'cause you look like Doris Day!"

The Future Bible Heroes have a song called "Doris Daytheearthstoodstill" on their 2002 album Eternal Youth.

In the 2002 and 2007 musical adaptation of John Waters' 1988 film Hairspray, the song "Without Love" makes a passing reference to Doris Day. The song contains the line "Without love, life is Doris Day at the Apollo."

In 2003, Ewan McGregor and Renée Zellweger starred in the film Down With Love, which was touted as a throwback to the old "Rock Hudson and Doris Day" romantic comedies. In many ways, the film is almost a remake of Day's film Pillow Talk, and in fact utilizes some stock footage of various New York streetscapes originally featured in That Touch of Mink. The song "Here's To Love", sung by McGregor and Zellweger at the end of the film, includes the line "I'll be your Rock, if you'll be my Doris".

In the song "Mirror Door" from The Who's 2006 album Endless Wire, Pete Townshend's lyrics mention a number of music icons, all of whom, with the exception of Doris Day, are dead. Only after the song was recorded and the album mass produced did Townshend discover that Day was still alive. When questioned about it, he suggested asking her to appear in a possible music video for the song.

In the first episode of the final season of Will & Grace entitled "Alive and Schticking", the Will Truman character admits to having an adolescent fixation on Doris Day.

A reference is made to Doris Day in Billy Joel's song "We Didn't Start the Fire".

In the episode entitled "Meltdown" (Original Airdate: March 21, 1991) of BBC sitcom Red Dwarf (TV series), a passing comment is made stating the waxdriod of Doris Day was one of the Waxworld's great warriors in the Wax War.

References

Doris Day's most recognizable song is “Whatever Will be, Will be”, and is now used in some commercials.

Further reading

• Doris Day: Her Own Story by A. E. Hotchner, William Morrow & Co., Inc., 1976
• Doris Day: Sentimental Journey by Garry McGee, McFarland & Company, Inc., 2005
• Que Sera, Sera: The Magic of Doris Day Through Television by Pierre Patrick and Garry McGee, Bear Manor Media, 2005
• Considering Doris Day by Tom Santopietro, Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin's Press, 2007
• Doris Day: The Untold Story of the Girl Next Door by David A. Kaufman, to be published by Virgin Books in June 2008.
• Doris Day: Reluctant Star by David Bret, to be published by JR Books in the UK in June 2008.

External links

• Doris Day at IMDb
• Doris Day at the TCM Movie Database
• Doris Day Animal Foundation
• Doris Day on "Solid! The encyclopedia of big band, lounge, classic jazz and space-age sounds"
• Template:Tvtome person
• Profile at Turner Classic Movies
• Photographs of Doris Day

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