RIP Doris Day
Doris Day died yesterday at the age of 97.
Day was all sunshine, and her singing voice was velvet. She was mocked by some for being so all-fired wholesome, but she was a great entertainer in several genres and made it all seem completely natural.
I’m intrigued by the story of how Day began singing:
She developed an early interest in dance, and in the mid-1930s formed a dance duo with Jerry Doherty that performed locally in Cincinnati. A car accident on October 13, 1937, injured her right leg and curtailed her prospects as a professional dancer…
While recovering from an auto accident, Doris started to sing along with the radio and discovered a talent she did not know she had. “During this long, boring period, I used to while away a lot of time listening to the radio, sometimes singing along with the likes of Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Tommy Dorsey, and Glenn Miller”, she told A.E. Hotchner, one of her biographers. “But the one radio voice I listened to above others belonged to Ella Fitzgerald. There was a quality to her voice that fascinated me, and I’d sing along with her, trying to catch the subtle ways she shaded her voice, the casual yet clean way she sang the words.”
Observing her daughter sing rekindled Alma’s interest in show business, and she decided Doris should have singing lessons. She engaged a teacher, Grace Raine. After three lessons, Raine told Alma that young Doris had “tremendous potential”; Raine was so impressed that she gave Doris three lessons a week for the price of one. Years later, Day said that Raine had the biggest effect on her singing style and career.
During the eight months she was taking singing lessons, Doris had her first professional jobs as a vocalist, on the WLW radio program Carlin’s Carnival, and in a local restaurant, Charlie Yee’s Shanghai Inn. During her radio performances, Day first caught the attention of Barney Rapp, who was looking for a female vocalist and asked if Day would like to audition for the job. According to Rapp, he had auditioned about 200 singers when Day got the job.
While working for Rapp in 1939, she adopted the stage surname “Day”, at Rapp’s suggestion.
So an accident that probably seemed like a terrible blow to the young woman ended up making her…Day.
RIP.
She had terrible luck with husbands, as other actresses did. Hers was worse as Marty Melcher stole all her earnings, $20 million, and left her in debt. She sued her attorney who may have participated in the scam, and partially recovered.
sued her lawyer for mismanagement. She was not able to recover the full value of the award, however, and settling for $6 million.
That was probably the limit of his malpractice insurance.
Maureen O’Hara also had bad luck. And also lived a very long life. She had better luck with her third husband.
Her romantic comedies and even her tv show was before my time but as a huge Hitchcock fan my first pre internet exposure to her was seeing ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’ which of course features ‘Que Sera Sera’.
What an amazing career.
Mike K,
And of course it was her son Terry Melcher who was the target for the Manson family in what became the Tate murders.
Thank you so much, Neo. I remember her as one of the leading lights of my youth in the ’50s … hard to imagine the world without her. And yes, she was a wonderful singer and actress too.
The two movies I remember best are Julie (!) — a thriller in which Julie is an airline stewardess married to Louis Jourdain, who for some reason wants her dead and arranges for the pilot on one of her flights to die. Inconveniently, and amid much suspense, Julie manages to land the airliner. Good for her!
And the other is Midnight Lace, in which it’s Rex Harrison who wants her dead and works on persuading her that she’s crazy. Excellent movie!
A long time ago I read that Miss Day did have some problems staying on an even keel emotionally, and that after these two, and especially the “gaslighting” one, she came near to having a nervous breakdown from having identified (I guess) so strongly with the heroine; and that her son refused to let her accept any acting roles until she had recovered emotionally.
She always struck me as a real lady. I’m sorry she’s gone.
Griffin, yes, The Man Who Knew Too Much. Thank you for the reminder. :>)
Oh, now I remember. Louis Jourdain is one of those obsessively jealous men who’s convinced she’s two-timing him with somebody — her cousin??? Anyhow, he’ll show her! and besides, if he can’t have her nobody can.
(I can understanding disposing of your rival, but I never really got the upside of disposing of the beloved.)
My wife had a conversation with her once while in the waiting room of a veterinarian.
I had seen all of the 60’s comedies such as Pillow Talk and Send Me No Flowers. A few years ago I was interested in her earlier work and saw Calamity Jane and The Winning Team. There’s another biographical film in that group too.
Last night we watched Romance on the High Seas (1948) which was quite fun. Often, these Hollywood musicals that are not derived from major Broadway musicals only have 2 or 3 tunes that they beat to death throughout the film. This one has at least 5 tunes, though “It’s Magic” gets a threepeat.
I was surprised by her voice a bit in this film. Her tonality seemed a little higher pitched, and was smoother than her later work. Sometimes singers who sing in quantity for a long time accumulate some wear and tear on their vocal cords. She was a mezzo soprano I’d guess, but there was one very low alto note that she really nails in the film.
We have a fan of “Julie!” I like the first half of that film a great deal. It opens with auto racing through the streets of Pebble Beach. Accidents associated with those races led to the creation of the Laguna-Seca Raceway. The other fun fact is Doris’ character is being chased by “someone” and runs down Ocean Ave. in Carmel, into the old Mediterranean Market (now gone due to high taxes) and out of the back door onto the green in downtown Monterey. Oops!
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My brother who used to edit a lot of arts and entertainment journalism and had some knowledge of Hollywood goings on, said that there was a strong movement to do an Academy Awards tribute to Doris Day. This was perhaps 1 to 2 decades ago. She adamantly refused. Pity.
Even in her earliest films like Romance on the High Seas, Lullaby of Broadway and On Moonlight Bay, Doris Day shines as a singer, dancer and actor. And her acting chops were first rate; she holds her own opposite some real scene-chewing stars—Kirk Douglas in Young Man with a Horn and James Cagney in Love Me or Leave Me. Warner Brothers knew three Republicans were up to fight racism in 1951: she, Ronald Reagan and Ginger Rogers take out the KKK in Storm Warning.
I never paid much attention to Doris Day- I am not sure I saw any of her movies. From YouTube views today, it is obvious she had a very good singing voice. To have lasted so long in the movies required talent, also.
I remember seeing “Please Don’t Eat the Daises” on TV when I was a kid on one of those network “XYZ Night at the Movies” broadcasts. Probably a few years after it came out, would make sense. At the time, I thought it was some kind of Disney movie, or something along those lines.
Years later when taken to San Francisco for a business association board meeting/company paid vacation, my boss who was the business owner (and a real preppy, V-neck sweater 39 year old golfing type from a wealthy family) made it a point to take us all – himself, two machinery salesmen (one newly minted more or less), and wives included, to all the high spots in the San Francisco, Carmel, and Pebble Beach areas. He must have spent a fortune during those two weeks on the finest hotels and restaurants and golf courses.
I laugh now to think how old and experienced I figured he was at the time; but he did have a certain ease of manner in these surroundings which struck the right note.
Anyway, after we left the Hog’s Breath Inn one evening, he asked the cabbie for additional recommendations. The cabbie said that Clint Eastwood had another restaurant which he had more or less recently opened: some kind of famous or important former sheep farm which he was preserving, and that it had become the newest “must visit” spot. I’m not even sure it was completely restored. This was ’89, maybe. Possibly a year or even more earlier.
We got there a night or two later and … it seemed ok, something like a golf club dining room, not too grand, but with lots of windows overlooking some scenery it was difficult to appreciate in the dusk. I guess there were Hollywood types there at times, but I would not have known them if they were pointed out to me.
On the way out though, a couple of the wives became really excited when they peeped into a side room, which was, as I recall, off to the right near the front of the place as you exited. There was a mass of appreciative people crowding the room and the entrance to it; and Tina, and Jack’s wife, (I’ve forgotten her name at the moment) after wedging their way in and out again to investigate the subdued hubbub were all agog, saying that Doris Day was in the room singing. I didn’t feel like trying to peer over anyone’s shoulder, possibly even intruding on what might have been a semi-private gathering, so I just moved along.
Someone said it was something she did once in a while. Maybe. I don’t even know if it was actually she, or if it was, if she did.
That’s, the only Doris Day story I have.
“here was a strong movement to do an Academy Awards tribute to Doris Day. This was perhaps 1 to 2 decades ago. She adamantly refused. Pity.” – Tommy Jay
She never lusted for the lime-light, which may be one reason for her longevity in both career and life.
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/doris-day-no-funeral-memorial-grave
“Legendary actress and singer Doris Day will reportedly not have a funeral, memorial service or grave marker, per a stipulation in her will….While Bashara wasn’t sure exactly why Day did not want to have a funeral, he speculated that it’s because she was a shy person despite being one of the most iconic figures in history.”
Tim Conway passed away this morning.
I wonder what never-made-movie plot would have done with them in the same show — I would have loved to see it.
Her rendition of “Sentimental Journey” is terrific: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ss3NdLQjqOc
Wikipedia: “Les Brown and His Band of Renown had been performing the song, but were unable to record it because of the 1942–44 musicians’ strike. When the strike ended, the band, with Doris Day as vocalist, had a hit record with the song, Day’s first #1 hit, in 1945. The song’s release coincided with the end of WWII in Europe and became the unofficial homecoming theme for many veterans.”
Conway and Day did appear in some comedy sketches.
He actually sang pretty well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtITbVX_-Nc
“These clips are taken from Doris’s 1975 musical-comedy special that guest starred John Denver, Rich Little & Tim Conway. “
What a wonderful voice, Doris Day singing those wonderful songs with the “Big Bands’. Real music with quality and was she ever gorgeous in a wholesome take her home to meet mom way. I was lucky enough to come into my teens in the late 1950’s when she was staring in great entertainment and we loved her movies and fell in love.
Truman Capote once said “I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin.”
Truman Capote once said “I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin.”
No, it was Oscar Levant who said that.
Btw, Doris Day was cast as a single mother in her second film, released in April 1949. Capote was an unknown prior to the publication of his first novel in January 1948, and did not compose his first screenplay until 1953.
Doris Day was a staple of my youth and young adulthood. Her songs were always playing on the radio. I doubt that I saw all her films, but certainly saw most of them, as well as many of her TV shows. Her sunshine personality and girl next door good looks were a so attractive. I knew I would enjoy anything I saw her in.
So sad about her personal life. She deserved better.
Thanks, Doris, for many years of great songs, movies, and TV shows. You were the best. RIP.
The Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations has Groucho Marx saying this: “I’ve been around so long, I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin.”
Oscar Levant in his book, The Memoirs of an Amnesiac says this: “My last picture for Warners was Romance on the High Seas. It was Doris Day’s first picture; that was before she became a virgin.”