Doris Day (born Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff; April 3, 1922 – May 13, 2019) was an American actress, singer, and animal-welfare activist. She began her career as a big band singer in 1939, her first hit recording being "Sentimental Journey" in 1945 with Les Brown & His Band of Renown. After leaving Brown to embark on a solo career, she recorded more than 650 songs from 1947 to 1967.
Day's film career began during the latter part of the Classical Hollywood era with the film Romance on the High Seas (1948), ultimately leading to her twenty-year career as a motion picture actress. She starred in films of many genres, including musicals, comedies, and dramas. She played the title role in Calamity Jane (1953), and starred in Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) with James Stewart. Day's most best-known films are those in which she co-stared with Rock Hudson, chief among them 1959's Pillow Talk. She also worked with James Garner on Move Over, Darling (1963) and co-starred with such leading men as Clark Gable, Cary Grant, James Stewart, David Niven, and Rod Taylor. After her final film in 1968, Day starred in the sitcom The Doris Day Show (1968–1973).
Day became one of the biggest female film stars in the early 1960s; through 2012, she was one of only eight performers to be the top box-office earner in the
While singing with the Les Brown band and for nearly two years on Bob Hope's weekly radio program, she toured extensively across the
Her performance of the song "Embraceable You" impressed songwriter Jule Styne and his partner, Sammy Cahn, and they recommended her for a role in Romance on the High Seas (1948). Day got the part after auditioning for director Michael Curtiz. She was shocked at being offered the role in the film, and admitted to Curtiz that she was a singer without acting experience. But he said he liked that "she was honest," not afraid to admit it, and he wanted someone who "looked like the All-American Girl," which he felt she did. Day was the discovery of which Curtiz was most proud of during his career.
The film provided her with a #2 hit recording as a soloist, "It's Magic", which followed by two months her first #1 hit ("Love Somebody" in 1948) recorded as a duet with Buddy Clark. Day recorded "Someone Like You", before the 1949 film My Dream Is Yours, which featured the song.
In 1950,
Her most commercially successful film for Warner was I'll See You in My Dreams (1951), which broke box-office records of 20 years. The film is a musical biography of lyricist Gus Kahn. It was Day's fourth film directed by Curtiz. Day appeared as the title character in the comedic western-themed musical, Calamity Jane (1953). A song from the film, "Secret Love", won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and became Day's fourth No. 1 hit single in the
Between 1950 and 1953, the albums from six of her movie musicals charted in the Top 10, three of them at No. 1. After filming Lucky Me with Bob Cummings and Young at Heart (both 1954) with Frank Sinatra, Day chose not to renew her contract with Warner Brothers.
During this period, Day also had her own radio program, The Doris Day Show. It was broadcast on CBS in 1952–1953.
Having become primarily recognized as a musical-comedy actress, Day gradually took on more dramatic roles to broaden her range. Her dramatic star-turn as singer Ruth Etting in Love Me or Leave Me (1955), co-starring James Cagney, received critical and commercial success, becoming Day's biggest hit thus far. Day said it was her best film performance. Producer Joe Pasternak said, "I was stunned that
Day starred in Alfred Hitchcock's suspense film, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) with James Stewart. She sang two songs in the film, "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)", which won an Academy Award for Best Original Song, and "We'll Love Again". The film was Day's 10th movie to be in the Top 10 at the box office. In 1956, Day played the title role in the thriller/noir Julie with Louis Jourdan.
After three successive dramatic films, Day returned to her musical/comedic roots in 1957's The Pajama Game with John Raitt. The film was based on the Broadway play of the same name. She worked with Paramount Pictures for the comedy Teacher's Pet (1958), alongside Clark Gable and Gig Young. She co-starred with Richard Widmark and Gig Young in the romantic comedy film, The Tunnel of Love (1958), but found scant success opposite Jack Lemmon in It Happened to Jane (1959).
Billboard's annual nationwide poll of disc jockeys had ranked Day as the No. 1 female vocalist nine times in ten years (1949 through 1958), but her success and popularity as a singer was now being overshadowed by her box-office appeal.
In 1959, Day entered her most successful phase as a film actress with a series of romantic comedies. This success began with Pillow Talk (1959), co-starring Rock Hudson, who became a lifelong friend, and Tony Randall. Day received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actress. Day, Hudson, and Randall made two more films together, Lover Come Back (1961) and Send Me No Flowers (1964).
In 1960, she starred with David Niven and Janis Paige in the hit Please Don't Eat the Daisies. In 1962, Day appeared with Cary Grant in the comedy That Touch of Mink, the first film in history ever to gross $1 million in one theatre (
Day teamed up with James Garner, starting with The Thrill of It All, followed by Move Over, Darling (both 1963). The film's theme song, "Move Over Darling", co-written by her son, reached #8 in the
By the late 1960s, the sexual revolution of the baby boomer generation had refocused public attitudes about sex. Times changed, but Day's films did not. Day's next film, Do Not Disturb (1965), was popular with audiences, but her popularity soon waned. Critics and comics dubbed Day "The World's Oldest Virgin", and audiences began to shy away from her films. As a result, she slipped from the list of top box-office stars, last appearing in the top ten in 1966 with the hit film The Glass Bottom Boat. One of the roles she turned down was that of "Mrs. Robinson" in The Graduate, a role that eventually went to Anne Bancroft. In her published memoirs, Day said she had rejected the part on moral grounds: she found the script "vulgar and offensive".
She starred in the western film The Ballad of Josie (1967). That same year, Day recorded The Love Album, although it was not released until 1994. The following year (1968), she starred in the comedy film Where Were You When the Lights Went Out? which centers on the Northeast blackout of November 9, 1965. Her final feature, the comedy With Six You Get Eggroll, was released in 1968.
From 1959 to 1970, Day received nine Laurel Award nominations (and won four times) for best female performance in eight comedies and one drama. From 1959 through 1969, she received six Golden Globe nominations for best female performance in three comedies, one drama (Midnight Lace), one musical (Jumbo), and her television series.
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