Doris Day, original name Doris Von Kappelhoff is an American singer and motion-picture actress whose performances in movie musicals of the 1950s and sex comedies of the early ’60s made her a leading Hollywood star.
Background
Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff was born on April 3, 1922, in Cincinnati, Ohio. She the daughter of Alma Sophia (née Welz), a housewife, and William Joseph Kappelhoff, a music teacher and choir master. All of her grandparents were German immigrants. For most of her life, Day reportedly believed she had been born in 1924 and reported her age accordingly; it was not until her 95th birthday, when the Associated Press found her birth certificate, showing a 1922 date, that she learned otherwise.
The youngest of three siblings, she had two older brothers: Richard (who died before her birth) and Paul, 2–3 years older. Due to her father's alleged infidelity, her parents separated.
Education
Growing up in the 1930s Doris was attracted to music and dance, eventually forming part of a dance duo which performed locally until a car she was riding in was struck by a train, crushing her right leg, a severe injury that curtailed her ambition to become a professional dancer.
However, while recovering, Doris gained a vocal education by listening to the radio, becoming a fan of the embryonic records of upcoming Ella Fitzgerald. Her mother encouraged her to take singing lessons. Alma took Doris to see vocal coach Grace Raine, who was so impressed with Doris' natural talent that she offered her three lessons for the price of one. Doris credits Raine with impressing upon her the importance of delivering a lyric, and today Doris says that Raine had the greatest impact on her singing career.
Day's first singing performances were on local radio programs. She also sang with bandleader Barney Rapp and his group for a time. Rapp encouraged her to adopt a stage name, and she changed her last name to Day after the song "Day After Day."
In 1940, Day landed a spot as a vocalist with the band led by Bob Crosby—brother of crooner Bing Crosby and a successful bandleader in his own right. But later that year, she teamed up with Les Brown and his group. With Brown, Day scored her first number one hits, "Sentimental Journey" and "My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time," in 1944. Her work with Brown made her a popular singing sensation during World War II. Day, in her songs, seemed to be accessible and personable to her audience. After parting ways with Brown in 1946, she soon made the transition from the concert stage to the big screen.
Even during her acting career, Day found time for music projects as a solo artist. She scored another hit in 1948 with "Love Somebody," a duet with Buddy Clark. In the 1950s, Day reached the charts with such songs as "My Love and Devotion" (1952) and "Let's Walk That-A-Way" (1953) in addition to her many movie-soundtrack hits. She had her last non-film-based hit in 1958 with "Everybody Loves a Lover."
In 1948, Day made her film debut in the successful musical Romance on the High Seas. She had been hired to replace actress Betty Hutton, who had to drop out of the production. For the film, Day recorded "It's Magic," which proved to be another hit for the young performer. While later in her career she became the queen of the romantic comedy, Day showed some talent for more dramatic roles. She played a singer involved with a troubled musician (Kirk Douglas) in Young Man with a Horn (1950). That same year, Day played a woman married to an abusive Ku Klux Klan member in the thriller Storm Warning. Later she played a fictionalized version of jazz singer Ruth Etting in Love Me or Leave Me (1955) with James Cagney.
Two of her biggest hits came from movies she made in the mid-1950s. She sang "Secret Love" in the musical western Calamity Jane (1953), in which she played a rough-and-tumble cowgirl. Working with director Alfred Hitchcock, she appeared in the thriller The Man Who Knew Too Much with Jimmy Stewart. Day sang "Que Sera, Sera" for the film. The song became one of her trademark tunes, and she used it as the theme for her later television series The Doris Day Show.
In 1957, Day scored another box-office hit with the film adaptation of the popular musical The Pajama Game. She continued to explore lighter comedic fare with her first on-screen pairing with Rock Hudson, the 1959 smash Pillow Talk. The film brought Day the only Academy Award nomination of her career. She teamed up with Hudson for several more films, including Send Me No Flowers (1962). Day also appeared with James Garner in The Thrill of It All (1963) and Cary Grant in That Touch of Mink (1962). These films made her one of the most popular film stars of the era.
By the end of the 1960s, however, Day's sweet and charming persona seemed out of step with the times. She starred in such films as the humorous western The Ballad of Josie (1967) and the family comedy With Six You Get Eggroll with less-than-stellar results. Day fared better on television, with The Doris Day Show, which ran from 1968 to 1973. On the show, she played a widow who moves her two sons to the country.
In 1975, Day announced that she was retiring from acting. She has devoted much of her time since then to working as an animal welfare advocate. Day became one of the founding members of Actors and Others for Animals, along with other stars who wanted to use their celebrity to raise awareness about the unfair treatment of animals. She also rescued and fostered many animals at her house, which led her to found the non-profit rescue organization the Doris Day Pet Foundation in 1978. To complement the Doris Day Pet Foundation, she formed the Doris Day Animal League in 1987, a national non-profit citizens’ lobbying organization, to give a legislative voice to the cause. In 2007, the Doris Day Animal League merged with the Humane Society of the United States, while the Doris Day Pet Foundation has grown from a grassroots rescue organization into the Doris Day Animal Foundation, a grant-giving non-profit that funds other organizations which share its mission of “helping animals and the people who love them. Day even made a brief return to television in the mid-1980s for a show about animals called Doris Day's Best Friends.
In 2011 the actress released My Heart in the U.K., her first album in over two decades. The project received much acclaim and did well commercially, eventually crowning Day as the oldest artist to record a top 10 album with new material on the U.K. charts.
In April 2014, Day made an unexpected public appearance to attend the annual Doris Day Animal Foundation benefit. The benefit raises money for her Animal Foundation.
Clint Eastwood offered Day a role in a film he was planning to direct in 2015. Although she reportedly was in talks with Eastwood, her neighbour in Carmel, about a role in the film, she eventually declined.
Doris Day was usually one of the top ten singers between 1951 and 1966. As an actress, she became the biggest female film star in the early 1960s, and ranked sixth among the box office performers by 2012. In 2011, she released her 29th studio album, My Heart, which became a UK Top 10 album featuring new material.
Among her awards, Day has received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and a Legend Award from the Society of Singers. In 1960, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, and in 1989 was given the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in motion pictures. In 2004, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush followed in 2011 by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association's Career Achievement Award.
Day was born into a Catholic family, but never felt a deep connection with religion until she was introduced to Christian Science by her second husband. She said her new faith “brought spirituality into my life, spirituality that would sustain me through some very dark times.” She said about her conversion to Christian Science, whose adherents do not seek medical treatment for the most part because of a belief that disease can be healed with prayer:
"I’d been thinking that I should be happier than I am... One ought to be able to control one’s thinking instead of having depressions... I didn’t want that kind of life, but I didn’t know how to change it."
Day did periodically seek medical treatment, including occasional treatment for depression and a hysterectomy due to a large intestinal tumor, and she moved away from the more fundamental Christian Science beliefs later in her life. But her relationship with her religion and God has always remained an important part of her life. She said:
"I don’t have to seek God. I don’t pray. I just realize God."
Politics
Day is a lifelong Republican, and supported George W. Bush's presidential campaign in 2000.
Views
Day's interest in animal welfare and related issues apparently dates to her teen years. While recovering from an automobile accident, she took her dog Tiny for a walk without a leash. Tiny ran into the street and was killed by a passing car. Day later expressed guilt and loneliness about Tiny's untimely death. 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).
In 1978, Day founded the Doris Day Pet Foundation, now the Doris Day Animal Foundation (DDAF).
To complement the Doris Day Animal Foundation, Day formed the Doris Day Animal League (DDAL) in 1987, a national non-profit citizen's lobbying organization whose mission is to reduce pain and suffering and protect animals through legislative initiatives. Day actively lobbied the United States Congress in support of legislation designed to safeguard animal welfare on a number of occasions and in 1995 she originated the annual Spay Day USA. The DDAL merged into The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) in 2006. The HSUS now manages World Spay Day, the annual one-day spay/neuter event that Day originated.
Quotations:
"The really frightening thing about middle age is the knowledge that you'll grow out of it."
"If it's true that men are such beasts, this must account for the fact that most women are animal lovers."
"Wrinkles are hereditary. Parents get them from their children."
"Vulgarity begins when imagination succumbs to the explicit."
"Any girl can look glamorous... just stand there and look stupid."
"Middle age is youth without levity, and age without decay."
Membership
Day formed the Doris Day Animal League (DDAL) in 1987.
Doris Day Animal League
1987
Personality
She was afraid of flying. Despite playing a flight attendant in Julie, pictured here, Day dreaded airplanes. The phobia even caused her to turn down some award ceremonies.
Quotes from others about the person
In 2004, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush for her achievements in the entertainment industry and for her work on behalf of animals. President Bush stated:
"In the years since, she has kept her fans and shown the breadth of her talent in television and the movies. She starred on screen with leading men from Jimmy Stewart to Ronald Reagan, from Rock Hudson to James Garner. It was a good day for America when Doris Marianne von Kappelhoff of Evanston, Ohio decided to become an entertainer. It was a good day for our fellow creatures when she gave her good heart to the cause of animal welfare. Doris Day is one of the greats, and America will always love its sweetheart."
Interests
She has many pets and adopts stray animals.
Music & Bands
Ella Fitzgerald was one of her early inspirations as she developed her own vocal style.
Connections
Day has been married four times. She was married to Al Jorden, a trombonist whom she first met in Barney Rapp's Band, from March 1941 to February 1943. Her only child, son Terrence Paul Jorden (later known as Terry Melcher), resulted from this marriage. Jorden, who was reportedly physically abusive to Day, committed suicide in 1967 by gunshot. Her second marriage was to George William Weidler, a saxophonist and the brother of actress Virginia Weidler, from March 30, 1946, to May 31, 1949. Weidler and Day met again several years later; during a brief reconciliation, he helped introduce her to Christian Science.
On April 3, 1951, her 29th birthday, she married Martin Melcher. This marriage lasted until Melcher's death in April 1968. Melcher adopted Day's son Terry, who, with the name Terry Melcher, became a successful musician and record producer. Martin Melcher produced many of Day's movies. She and Melcher were both practicing Christian Scientists, resulting in her not seeing a doctor for some time after symptoms that suggested cancer. This distressing period ended when, finally consulting a physician, and thereby finding the lump was benign, she fully recovered.
Day's fourth marriage, from April 14, 1976, until April 2, 1982, was to Barry Comden (March 30, 1935 – May 25, 2009). Comden was the maître d'hôtel at one of Day's favorite restaurants. Knowing of her great love of dogs, Comden endeared himself to Day by giving her a bag of meat scraps and bones on her way out of the restaurant. When this marriage unraveled, Comden complained that Day cared more for her "animal friends" than she did for him.
Father:
William Joseph Kappelhoff
Mother:
Alma Sophia Kappelhoff
Brother:
Paul Kappelhoff
(1958)
Spouse (1):
Al Jorden
(m. 1941; div. 1943)
Spouse (2):
George William Weidler
(January 11, 1926, Los Angeles, California – December 27, 1989, Los Angeles)
He was an American saxophonist and songwriter. He was the second husband of singer-actress Doris Day (married 1946-49) and older brother of former child actress Virginia Weidler.
Spouse (3):
Martin Melcher
(August 1, 1915 – April 20, 1968)
He was an American film producer and husband of Doris Day.
Spouse (4):
Barry Comden
(March 30, 1935 - May 25, 2009, Los Angeles, California, United States)
Son:
Terrence Paul Melcher
(February 8, 1942 – November 19, 2004)
He was an American musician and record producer who was instrumental in shaping the 1960s California Sound and folk rock movements, particularly during the nascent counterculture era.
Friend:
Tony Randall
(February 26, 1920 – May 17, 2004)
He was an American actor. He is best known for his role as Felix Unger in a television adaptation of the 1965 play The Odd Couple by Neil Simon.
