Doris Day (Official Thread)

Flower

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I was looking at something else and saw Doris Day's name ... Not only is she a wonderful singer & actress but she loves animals and deserves an appreciation thread ~

Doris Day

Doris Day Official Website
Doris Day on Wikipedia

Doris Day (born Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff; April 3, 1922) is an American actress, singer, and animal rights activist.

Day's entertainment career began in her late teens as a big band singer. In 1945 she had her first hit recording , "Sentimental Journey", and, in 1948, appeared in her first film, Romance on the High Seas. During her entertainment career, she had appeared in thirty-nine films, recorded more than six-hundred-fifty songs, received an Academy Award nomination, won a Golden Globe and a Grammy Award, and, in 1989, received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in motion pictures.

As of 2009, Day was the top-ranking female box office star of all time and ranked sixth among the top ten box office performers (male and female).


DorisDay.jpg


Early life

Doris Day was born in the Cincinnati, Ohio, neighborhood of Evanston to Alma Sophia Welz (a housewife) and Wilhelm (later William) von Kappelhoff (a music teacher). All of her grandparents were German immigrants. Her parents' marriage failed due to her father's reported infidelity. Although the family was Roman Catholic, her parents divorced. After her second marriage, Day herself would become a Christian Scientist. Day was married four times.

The youngest of three children, 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.

Day developed an early interest in dance, and in the mid-1930s formed a dance duo that performed locally in Cincinnati. A car accident on October 13, 1937 damaged her legs and curtailed her prospects as a professional dancer. While recovering, Day took singing lessons, and at 17 she began performing locally.

It was while working for local bandleader Barney Rapp in 1939 or 1940 that she adopted the stage name "Day" as an alternative to "Kappelhoff," at his suggestion. Rapp felt her surname was too long for marquees. The first song she had performed for him was Day After Day, and her stage name was taken from that. 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. It soon became an anthem of the desire of World War II demobilizing troops to return home. This song is still associated with Day, and was rerecorded by her on several occasions, as well as being included in her 1971 television special.

Career

Film career

While singing with the Les Brown band and briefly with Bob Hope, Day toured extensively across the United States. Her popularity as a radio performer and vocalist, which included a second hit record My Dreams Are Getting Better All The Time, led directly to a career in films. After her separation from her second husband, George Weidler, in 1948, Day reportedly intended to leave Los Angeles and return to her mother's home in Cincinnati. 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, and Day got the part.


With Gordon MacRae in StarliftThe film provided her with another hit recording It's Magic. In 1950 U.S. servicemen in Korea voted her their favorite star. 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 Brothers. In 1953 Day appeared as Calamity Jane, 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. She elected to work under the advice and management of her third husband, Marty Melcher, whom she married in Burbank on her 29th birthday (April 3, 1951). Day had divorced saxophonist-songwriter George W. Weidler (born September 11, 1917, died July 26, 1995) on May 31, 1949 in Los Angeles in an uncontested divorce action after marrying him on March 30, 1946 in Mount Vernon, New York, separating in April 1947 and filing for divorce in June 1948.


Love Me or Leave MeDay subsequently took on more dramatic roles, including her 1954 portrayal of singer Ruth Etting in Love Me or Leave Me. Day would later call it, in her autobiography, her best film. She was also paired with such top stars as Jack Lemmon, James Stewart, Cary Grant, David Niven, and Clark Gable.

In Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), Day sang "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)" which won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and became her signature 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. At the studio's insistence she relented. After recording the number, she reportedly told a friend of Livingston, "That's the last time you'll ever hear that song". However, the song was used again in Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960), and was reprised as a brief duet with Arthur Godfrey in The Glass Bottom Boat (1966). Que Sera, Sera also became the theme song for her CBS television show (1968–73). 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 weren't doing what he wanted, he would have said something

After Teacher's Pet (1958), Day's popularity at the box office waned. From 1957 to 1959, she was no longer regarded a "Top Ten Box Office Draw" by U.S. film exhibitors. Day's popularity as a recording artist also began to diminish. She had one more Top Ten hit with "Everybody Loves a Lover" in 1958. Her rendition of the Van Heusen/Cahn song, High Hopes had special lyrics fashioned into an endorsement of John F. Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign.

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Re: Doris Day ~ Appreciation Thread

..........

Box office success

In 1959, Day entered her most successful phase as a film actress with a series of romantic comedies, starting with Pillow Talk, co-starring Rock Hudson, who became a lifelong friend. Day received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actress. Day and Hudson made two more films together, Lover Come Back (1961) and Send Me No Flowers (1964). Day also teamed up with James Garner, starting with 1963's The Thrill of It All, followed later that year by Move Over, Darling. Move Over, Darling had originally been entitled Something's Got To Give, a 1962 comeback vehicle for Marilyn Monroe and featuring Dean Martin. The film was suspended following the firing of Monroe and her subsequent death. A year later, it was renamed and recast with Day as the lead character.

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. Critics and comics dubbed Day "the world's oldest virgin"[10] 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 1967 with The Glass Bottom Boat, her final hit film.

Day herself found many of her later films to be of very poor quality (her least favorite was Caprice, co-starring Richard Harris), and did them only at Melcher's insistence.[citation needed] One of the roles she turned down was that of Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate,[citation needed] a role that went to Anne Bancroft. In her published memoirs, Day said that she had rejected the part on moral grounds. Her final feature film, With Six You Get Eggroll, was released in 1968.

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 her breathy and suggestive delivery. It was perhaps for this reason that it was banned by the BBC, and was labelled "distasteful" by senior management.[citation needed] In 1967, Day recorded her last album, The Love Album, essentially concluding her recording career, though this album was not released until 1995.





Doris & Rock Hudson ~

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Re: Doris Day ~ Appreciation Thread

From the Doris Day Animal League website ...

About Doris Day

Doris Day Honored with Presidential Medal of Freedom

Miss Day received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush in recognition of her distinguished service to the country. "Doris Day became an American icon as an actress and singer," said President Bush. "She captured the hearts of Americans while enriching our culture."

During the award ceremony on June 23, 2004, President Bush recognized Miss Day's work on behalf of the animals by saying, "It was a good day for our fellow creatures when she gave her good heart to the cause of animal welfare."

Today Miss Day devotes her time and energy to helping animals through her two charitable organizations, the Doris Day Animal Foundation and Doris Day Animal League.


Doris Day, Founder and President

Doris Day is one of the world's most-loved and most-honored women. Although it has been more than 35 years since she last starred in a motion picture, her name continues to top the “most-admired” lists and polls, and her movies are among the most-popular on television and home video.

Doris Day made 39 films, beginning in 1948, with “Romance on the High Seas.” She also had two television series, “The Doris Day Show” for CBS (1969-1973), and “Doris Day's Best Friends,” which ran on CBN Cable Network/Family Channel in 1985 and 1986.

Scores of scripts and movie, television and singing offers continue to be submitted to Doris Day, and she jokes that she might decide to make a movie, “Just to take a rest.” In 1998, the Arts & Entertainment television network produced a two-hour special for its “Biography” series, which brought the network some of its highest ratings ever. A 1991 PBS special, “Doris Day: A Sentimental Journey,” also produced large audiences.

Today, Doris Day's full-time career is her work with animals, and her non-profit organizations, the Doris Day Animal League and the Doris Day Animal Foundation.

The Doris Day Animal League (DDAL), established in 1987, is a national lobbying organization which works on legislation relating to animal welfare issues at the local, state and federal levels. DDAL has been credited with landmark events such as the 1998 California law making counseling mandatory for people convicted of animal abuse, 1999’s law banning “Crush Videos,” the Dog and Cat Protection Act, signed into law in 2000, which bans the importation of products containing cat or dog fur, and the 2003 Exotic Pet Protection Act banning the interstate commerce of species of wild cats bound for the exotic pet trade.

The Doris Day Animal Foundation (DDAF), established in 1998, is dedicated to promoting increased protection for animals through educational and community outreach programs. DDAF’s Spay Day USA has been responsible for a landmark one million spay/neuters since the beginning of the program, helping to overcome the tragedy of euthanizing millions of unwanted pets every year. DDAF is also at the forefront of the battle to protect great apes from exploitation in the entertainment industry through special education campaigns such as the Chimpanzee Collaboratory, and DDAF’s Beyond Violence program travels across the country conducting seminars for police departments, social workers, prosecutors and other social services about the importance of treating animal abuse crimes seriously.

Each year, from 1948 until 1964, Doris Day was listed among the top ten box office attractions -- the longest run of any female star in motion picture history. In 1989, she was honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for her work over the years, and in 1991, she was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Comedy Awards. Called “the most under-rated star of all time, since she could do so much and make it all look so easy,” the range of Doris Day's work was without peer. She could sing and dance and act in films as different from each other as “Calamity Jane” and “Love Me Or Leave Me,” while playing everyone's dream girl next door, to the career women she portrayed in comedies such as “Pillow Talk,” “Lover Come Back” and “The Thrill of It All.”

Her co-stars in films included Clark Gable (“Teacher's Pet”), James Cagney (“Love Me Or Leave Me” and “The West Point Story”), Rock Hudson (“Pillow Talk,” “Send Me No Flowers” and “Lover Come Back”), James Stewart (“The Man Who Knew Too Much”), Frank Sinatra (“Young At Heart”), Jack Lemmon (“It Happened To Jane”), Rex Harrison (“Midnight Lace”), Cary Grant (“That Touch of Mink”), Jimmy Durante (“Jumbo”), David Niven (“Please Don't Eat the Daisies”), and many others.

Doris Day did not set out to become an actress. She wanted to be a dancer, but an auto accident put a stop to those plans. While recovering, she began singing, and, as a teenager, was singing with some of the best of the Big Bands. Her breakthrough was in 1944 when Les Brown brought her the song, “Sentimental Journey.” The song became one of the biggest-sellers for decades, topping the charts at number one for nine weeks, and a movie career soon followed. Her other hit songs over the years have included “Que Sera Sera,” which won an Academy Award in 1956, “It's Magic,” “Teacher's Pet,” “Everybody Loves A Lover,” her first song to earn a Grammy nomination, and “Secret Love,” which also won an Academy Award in 1953.

The question asked most often is why Doris Day is so involved in animal welfare issues. She explains:

“The story of ‘Tiny,’ my dog, always stays in my mind. His companionship was invaluable when I was a teenager and was in a car accident with a train that resulted in a compound leg fracture. I was on crutches for more than a year. He never left my side, understood my moods and gave me the kind of companionship that only a dog can bestow.

“It was during this time that I began a lifelong love affair with dogs, a sentiment known only to dog lovers and, cat lovers too. Their affection and caring is a relief from tensions and anxiety. Tiny used to walk beside me on the pavement as I eased myself along on my crutches. One day, for no reason, he scampered away from me and into the street. Tiny was hit by a car and killed instantly. From that day forward I always felt deeply and passionately about dogs needing to be on leashes when in the street.”


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LG

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Re: Doris Day ~ Appreciation Thread

I always thought she was a consummate professional at everything she was involved in. I remember seeing her with Frank Sinatra in "Young At Heart" in B&W when I was a little kid, for some reason that movie is always the one I think of when I see her name.:D

We could use more people with Doris Day's class in today's world, they don't make actresses like her anymore.
 

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Re: Doris Day ~ Appreciation Thread

We could use more people with Doris Day's class in today's world, they don't make actresses like her anymore

I prefer to watch movies from the 40's and 50's to modern movies. Doris is wonderful!

I am broadminded but I get fed up watching shagging scenes and violence in movies. I must be old fashioned. I just like a good story with a happy ending :D
 

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Re: Doris Day ~ Appreciation Thread


Oh, Doris.

Such a little sweetie. There is much to be admired and envied of her. I was pleased/greatly amused when I learned that for years there was a silly myth that my heroes, Sparks, were the sons of Doris Day! Link here.

She is quite lovely; it'll be sad when she passes. A few months ago I saw a really trashy and rude tabloid with her on the cover, claiming that she was ill and in the midst of her "sad last days". Ugh.
 

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Re: Doris Day ~ Appreciation Thread

I prefer to watch movies from the 40's and 50's to modern movies. Doris is wonderful!

I am broadminded but I get fed up watching shagging scenes and violence in movies. I must be old fashioned. I just like a good story with a happy ending :D

Sunny .. I agree with you and if you don't know "Move Over Darling" .. it is a delightful flick ~



 

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