Singer and actress, born in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. Borrowing her stage name from a song (Day by Day), she sang with the Bob Crosby band and with Fred Waring, and gained national popularity after her recording of Sentimental Journey with Les Brown's band (1944). Her singing was sweet, smooth, and intimate, and because she looked like everyone's ideal girl next door, she was soon making light romantic comedies (39 films in all). In 1968, on the death of her third husband and manager, Marty Melcher, she discovered he had either mismanaged or embezzled her life's earnings, so she went back to work on television with the Doris Day Show (196873) and Doris Day's Best Friends (19856). In 1974 she was also awarded some $22 million in damages from the lawyer who had helped her husband-manager. She continues to work for the two animal charities that she founded, the Doris Day Animal League (1987) and the Doris Day Animal Foundation (1998).
| Doris Day | ||
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| Background information | ||
| Birth name | Doris Mary Ann von Kappelhoff | |
| Born | April 3, 1924, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA | |
| Genre(s) | Big band, Traditional pop | |
| Years active | 1940-1967 | |
| Label(s) | Columbia | |
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Associated acts |
Patti Page, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Dinah Shore, Dean Martin, Robert Goulet | |
| Website | Doris Day tribute page | |
Doris Mary Ann von Kappelhoff, known as Doris Day (born April 3, 1924), is an American singer, actress, and animal welfare advocate.
Biography
Day was born Doris Bertha Kapelhoffen in the Cincinnati neighborhood of Evanston to German immigrants.
Movie career
Day's popularity as a radio performer and vocalist led directly to a career in films. Thus, Day began her film career in a "peppy" Betty Hutton-esque role.
After filming Lucky Me, a lacklustre musical comedy, Day choose not to renew her contract with Warner Bros. 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 Será, Será. the Family Stone in 1973 in a recording that has become a sort of secondary standard version.)
After the great critical and popular success of Teacher's Pet, Day's popularity at the U.S. 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. Arguably, this development may have been linked to the marked decline in popularity of musical films during the late 1950's, and some poor choices in material made by Melcher on Day's behalf, rather than any waning in public regard. In addition, Day's popularity as a recording artist was diminished due to the growing popular taste for "rock and roll music" (Que Sera Sera, for instance, was never a "U.S. Number One", being kept from the top spot by Elvis Presley's recording of Hound Dog.
Box office queen and "world's oldest virgin"
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. Algonquin Roundtable member and showbusiness 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 movie star in America during the first half of the 1960s. Times changed, but Day's films did not. Day herself found many of her mid-late 1960s films to be of very poor quality (her least favorite was Caprice, co-starring Richard Harris) and did them only at the insistence of her third husband and sometime producer, Marty Melcher.
The impact of changing public tastes can also be seen in the waning popularity of Day as a vocalist and recording artist at this time. Day's last "Top Ten Hit" was achieved in the UK in 1964 with her recording of Move Over Darling, written by her son specifically for her, that Day secured her final chart success in the UK at this particular time was ironic considering that the "British Invasion" of the mid-1960's contributed to a decisive change in popular taste away from the type of music that Day was associated with. In 1967 Day recorded her last album, The Love Album essentially concluding her recording career, though this album was not released until 1994. After more than a decade as a top box office 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.
According to Day's as-told-to autobiography by A.E.
Upon Melcher's death, Day also learned that he had committed her to a TV series. That's the only way I know how to do it.'"
From 1968 to 1973, Day starred in her own situation comedy, The Doris Day Show, which had "Que Será, Será" as its theme song.
Compassion
Although the press had occasionally noted Day's interest in animal welfare it was not until the early 1970's that her interest in animal rights was widely publicised. Throughout the 1980's and 1990's Day actively promoted the annual Spay Day USA, and on a number of occasions actively lobbied Congress (and it has been suggested Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton) in support of legislation designed to safeguard animal rights.
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 the sunny image Day projected on the screen and through her music. Melcher adopted Terry (thus renaming the boy Terry Melcher), and also produced many of Day's movies.
The revelations contained in the book about Day's private life, and the testimony of many of her friends and colleagues 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.
At conclusion of her book tour Day largely retired from show business, though film and TV offers continued to be made, she seemed content to focus on her charity work and business interests (In 1985 she became part-owner of the Cypress Inn in Carmel, California). In May 1983 Day became a grandmother for the first time when her son and his wife Melissa became the parents of a baby boy they named Ryan. However, in 1985 Day hosted her own talk show, Doris Day's Best Friends.
After a brief attempt to become a surf music singing star, Day's son Terry Melcher became a staff producer for Columbia Records in the 1960s, and was famous for producing most of the hit recordings by pioneering folk rock band The Byrds.
A Renewal of Interest
During the 1990s interest in Day revived.
Songs
Albums
(see for details)
10" LPs
You're My Thrill (1949) Tea for Two (1950) (Soundtrack) Young Man with a Horn (1950) (w/Harry James) (soundtrack) Lullaby Of Broadway (1951) (soundtrack) On Moonlight Bay (1951) (soundtrack) I'll See You in My Dreams (1951) (soundtrack) By the Light of the Silvery Moon (1953) (soundtrack) Calamity Jane (1953) (soundtrack) The Deadwood Stage Secret Love Just Blew in From The Windy City The Black Hills Of Dakota (4 more) Young at Heart (1954) (soundtrack) (w/Frank Sinatra) Till My Love Comes To Me You, My Love Ready, Willing and Able Hold Me In Your Arms (2 more)12" LPs
Day Dreams Reissue of "You're My Thrill" plus 4 more, also early singles Love Me or Leave Me (Soundtrack of the MGM film: Orchestra arranged and conducted by Percy Faith) (1955) It All Depends on You (DeSylva, Brown, Henderson) Sam, The Old Accordion Man (Donaldson) Shaking The Blues Away (Berlin) Mean To Me (Ahlert, Turk) plus 8 more, plus outtakes on current reissues Day By Day (1956) (Orchestra arranged and conducted by Paul Weston) The Song Is You (Kern, Hammerstein) I Remember You (Mercer, Schertzenberger) Day By Day (Cahn, Stordahl, Weston) Autumn Leaves (Mercer, Kosma) plus 8 more Day By Night (1957) (Orchestra arranged and conducted by Paul Weston) I See Your Face Before Me (Dietz, Schwartz) Moonglow Dream A Little Dream Of Me (Kahn) You Do Something To Me (Porter) plus 8 more The Pajama Game (1957) (Soundtrack of the Warner Bros. film: Orchestra arranged and conducted by Ray Heindorf) (w/John Raitt and cast of film) I'm Not At All In Love Small Talk There Once Was A Man Seven-and-a-Half Cents Once-A-Year Day Hooray For Hollywood (2 volumes: orchestra arranged and conducted by Frank DeVol) Volume One: (1958) Cheek To Cheek (Berlin) Over The Rainbow (Arlen, Washington) Blues In The Night (Mercer, Arlen) Night And Day (Porter) plus 8 more Volume Two: (1959) Three Coins In The Fountain (Cahn, Styne) It Might As Well Be Spring (Rodgers, Hammerstein) You'll Never Know (Gordon, Warren) Nice Work If You Can Get It (GGershwin, IGershwin) plus 8 more Cuttin' Capers (1959) (Orchestra arranged and conducted by Frank DeVol) Making Whoopee (Kahn, Donaldson) Sitting On Top Of The World (Brown) Let's take A Walk Around The Block (Arlen, Lane, I.Gershwin) Stepping Out With My Baby (Berlin) plus 8 more What Every Girl Should Know (1960) (Orchestra arranged and consucted by Harry Zimmerman) When You're Smiling Something Wonderful (Rodgers, Hammerstein) Mood Indigo (Ellington) A Hundred Years From Today (Washington) plus 8 more Show Time (1960) (Orchestra arranged and conducted by Axel Stordahl) On The Street Where You Live (Lerner, Loewe) They Say It's Wonderful (Berlin) People Will Say We're In Love (Rodgers, Hammerstein) I Love Paris (Porter) plus 8 more Bright and Shiny (1961) I Have Dreamed (1961) Duet (w/ Andre Previn) (1962) You'll Never Walk Alone (1962) Billy Rose's Jumbo (soundtrack) (w/ cast of film) (1962) Annie Get Your Gun (w/ Robert Goulet) (1963) Love Him (1963) The Doris Day Christmas Album (1964) With a Smile and a Song (1964) Latin for Lovers (1965) Doris Day's Sentimental Journey (1965) The Love Album (recorded 1967, released in 1994) (Orchestra arranged and conducted by Sid Feller) Wonderful One For All We Know Life Is Just A Bowl Of Cherries Are You Lonesome Tonight? plus 8 more (2 in a medley)Complete recorded performances of Doris Day are available by collecting the two above referenced collections: the four Bear Family collections: It's Magic, Secret Love, Que Será, Será and Move Over Darling, The Complete Doris Day with Les Brown, and Hidden Treasures.
Singles
(see for details)Hit records
(with Les Brown's Band of Renown)
"Sentimental Journey" 1,000,000+ sales "My Dreams Are Getting Better All The Time" 1,000,000+ sales(As a solo performer)
"It's Magic" 1,000,000+ sales "Again" "Love Somebody" (duet with Buddy Clark) 1,000,000+ sales "Confess" (duet with Buddy Clark) (also done by Patti Page) "Bewitched" 1,000,000+ sales "Shanghai" "Sugarbush" (duet with Frankie Laine) 1,000,000+ sales "Mister Tap Toe" "Secret Love" 1,000,000+ sales "If I Give My Heart to You" (also done by Denise Lor) "I'll Never Stop Loving You" 1,000,000+ sales "Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Qué Será, Será)" ("Que Será, Será") 1,000,000+ sales "Everybody Loves A Lover" "Move Over, Darling"
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