Doris Day biography

Synopsis

Early Life

A top film star of the 1950s and 1960s, Doris Day is best known for her work in such films as The Pajama Game (1957), Pillow Talk (1959) and That Touch of Mink (1962). The Hollywood star started out as a dancer and turned to singing after injuring her leg in a car accident as a young teen.

Born Doris von Kappelhoff, Day studied ballet and tap dance growing up. She even won a local dance contest with her partner Jerry Doherty in her early teens. But her dreams of dancing professionally were shattered along with her leg in a 1937 car accident. The daughter of a music teacher, Day started taking voice lessons during her recovery. Ella Fitzgerald was one of her early inspirations as she developed her own vocal style.

Early Music 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."

Films and Television

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).