Hollywood icon Doris Day, America’s 1960s sweetheart and one of the most celebrated actresses of all time, has died at the age of 97. Hollywood icon Doris Day, America’s 1960s sweetheart and one of the most celebrated actresses of all time, has died at the age of 97.... Hollywood icon Doris Day has died at the age of 97, according to her foundation. The screen legend was one of the biggest female stars of her time, and starred in blockbusters including Calamity Jane. The Doris Day Animal Foundation confirmed the singer and actress died early on Monday at her home in Carmel Valley, California. The foundation said in a statement that the animal rights activist was surrounded by close friends and “had been in excellent physical health for her age, until recently contracting a serious case of pneumonia.” Her wholesome screen presence stood for a time of innocence in 1950s and 1960s movies. She starred in romantic comedies Pillow Talk, Midnight Lace and Love Me or Leave Me, acting alongside leading men including Clark Gable, Cary Grant and Rock Hudson. Her hit songs included Whatever Will Be Will Be (Que Sera), from Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, in which she appeared with James Stewart. Her squeaky-clean image was referenced in the 1971 musical and 1978 movie Grease, in the song Look At Me, I’m Sandra Dee. With her cheerful, alliterative stage name, the smiley blonde occupied a parallel world to her contemporary Marilyn Monroe. The running joke, attributed to both Groucho Marx and actor-composer Oscar Levant, was that they had known Day “before she was a virgin.” Her 1976 tell-all book, Doris Day: Her Own Story, chronicled her money troubles and three failed marriages, contrasting with the happy-go-lucky image of her Hollywood career. We’ve lost another great Hollywood talent. Take a minute to appreciate the legendary Doris Day: https://t.co/72ssvivryz — Seth MacFarlane (@SethMacFarlane) May 13, 2019 Farewell to the great Doris Day. Here's the legendary actor and singer at the Hall in 1955, being directed by Alfred Hitchcock. She's about to spot a bad guy in our Door 6 porch, setting up the nerve-shredding finale of 'The Man Who Knew Too Much' 🎥 pic.twitter.com/yIuyZfldQc — Royal Albert Hall (@RoyalAlbertHall) May 13, 2019 We send our deepest condolences to the friends and family of Doris Day. The legendary star from Hollywood’s Golden Age, seen here with Frank Sinatra and Lauren Bacall, passed away today at age 97 in Carmel, California. pic.twitter.com/GSi4Goejcx — BogartEstate (@HumphreyBogart) May 13, 2019 Doris Day quit Hollywood and dedicated her life to rescuing animals and if that’s not goals, I don’t know what is 🐶❤️ pic.twitter.com/G5XttzG9Kw — Erin (@erinruberry) May 13, 2019 R.I.P. Doris Day - Loved her as an actress and as a dog activist! pic.twitter.com/P9BWKKH9Qh — Willy Wilson (@WillyWilsonDet) May 13, 2019 “I have the unfortunate reputation of being Miss Goody Two-Shoes, America’s Virgin, and all that, so I’m afraid it’s going to shock some people for me to say this, but I staunchly believe no two people should get married until they have lived together,” she wrote. She never won an Academy Award, but was given a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004, as George W. Bush declared it “a good day for America when Doris Marianne von Kappelhoff of Evanston, Ohio decided to become an entertainer.” Friends and supporters lobbied for years to get an honorary Oscar for one of the most popular actresses in history. Although mostly retired from show business since the 1980s, she still had enough of a following that a 2011 collection of previously unreleased songs, My Heart, hit the top 10 in the United Kingdom. The same year, she received a lifetime achievement honour from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Born to a music teacher and a housewife, she had dreamt of a dance career, but at age 12, she suffered a crippling accident when a car she was in was hit by a train and her leg was badly broken. Listening to the radio while recuperating, she began singing along with Ella Fitzgerald, “trying to catch the subtle ways she shaded her voice, the casual yet clean way she sang the words.” Day began singing on a Cincinnati radio station, then a local nightclub, then in New York. A bandleader changed her name to Day, after the song Day after Day, to fit it on a marquee. A marriage at 17 to trombonist Al Jorden ended when, she said, he beat her when she was eight months’ pregnant. She gave birth to her son, Terry, in early 1942. Her second marriage was also short-lived. She returned to Les Brown’s band after the first marriage broke up. Her Hollywood career began after she sang at a celebrity party in 1947. After early stardom as a band singer and a stint at Warner Bros., Day won the best notices of her career with Love Me or Leave Me, the story of songstress Ruth Etting and her gangster husband-manager. She initially baulked at it, but the 1955 film became a box-office and critical success. She followed with the impressive The Man Who Knew Too Much, starring her and James Stewart as an innocent couple ensnared in an international assassination plot. She sings Que Sera, Sera just as the story reaches its climax and viewers are beside themselves with suspense. The 1958 comedy Teacher’s Pet paired her with an ageing Clark Gable as an idealistic college journalism teacher and her student, an old-school newspaper editor. But she found her greatest success in slick, stylish rom-coms, beginning with her Oscar-nominated role in Pillow Talk. She and Hudson were two New Yorkers who shared a telephone party line and initially hated each other. She followed with The Thrill of It All, playing a housewife who gains fame as a TV marketer, to the chagrin of obstetrician husband James Garner. The nation’s cinema owners voted her the top money-making star in 1960, 1962, 1963 and 1964. Her first musical hit was the 1945 smash Sentimental Journey, when she was barely in her 20s. Among the other songs she made famous were Everybody Loves a Lover, Secret Love, and It’s Magic, a song from Romance on the High Seas, her first film. Critic Gary Giddins called her “the coolest and sexiest female singer of slow ballads in movie history.” Romance on the High Seas had been written for Judy Garland, then Betty Hutton. Both bowed out, and Day, recommended by songwriters Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, won the role. Warner Bros. cashed in on its new star with a series of musicals, including My Dream Is Yours, Tea for Two and Lullaby of Broadway. Her dramas included Young Man with a Horn, with Kirk Douglas and Lauren Bacall, and Storm Warning, with Ronald Reagan and Ginger Rogers. Her last film was With Six You Get Eggroll, a 1968 comedy about a widow and a widower and the problems they have when blending their families. With movies becoming more explicitly sexual, she turned to television, and The Doris Day Show was a moderate success in its 1966-1973 run on CBS. Disillusionment grew in the 1960s when she discovered that failed investments by her third husband, Martin Melcher, left her deeply in debt. She eventually won a multimillion-dollar judgment against their lawyer. She had married Mr Melcher, who worked in her agent’s office, in 1951. He became her manager, and her son took his name. In most of the films following Pillow Talk, Mr Melcher was listed as co-producer. He died in 1969. In her autobiography, Day recalled her son, Terry Melcher, telling her the $A28.7 million she had earned had vanished and she owed around $A650,000, mostly for taxes. In 1974, Day won a $32.7 million judgment against Jerome Rosenthal, her lawyer and business manager, for mishandling of her and her husband’s assets. Terry Melcher, who died in 2004, became a songwriter and record producer, working with such stars as the Beach Boys. But he was also famous for an aspiring musician he turned down, Charles Manson.<doc-sep>"She wasn't trying to act. It was just who Doris Day was, I think, a great energy and exhilaration, and she seemed to love life, at least that's the impression you got," he told BBC Radio 4's PM programme. "It was a great era."<doc-sep>Cinema legend Doris Day has died at the age of 97, her charitable foundation has announced. Day became famous in the 1950s and 60s and was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. Her credits include Calamity Jane, Love Me or Leave Me and Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much. Day also won two Academy Awards for Best Original Song for 'Secret Love' and 'Que Sera Sera'. Advert 10 Doris Day. Credit: PA She then retired while she was in her 50s and became an animal rights activist. The foundation said that the actor "had been in excellent physical health for her age, until recently contracting a serious case of pneumonia." The statement continued: "She was surrounded by a few close friends as she passed." Day died at her home in Carmel Valley, California. Advert 10 She began her career in the late 1940s, but really made her name playing roles in romantic comedies in the 1960s. She rose to become one of the biggest stars of that era of cinema and also became a hugely successful recording artist. Credit: PA Day released 20 studio albums over the course of her career, but then retired to pursue her passion for animals. Advert 10 That work led her to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush in 2004. After joining the organisation Actors and Others for Animals in the 1970s, Day then decided to start her own organisations, starting with the Doris Day Animal League, and then the Doris Day Animal Foundation. Day lived much of her later life out of the spotlight. She had not been seen properly in public since 1989. Credit: PA Advert 10 Despite that, in 2017 the Associated Press managed to get their hands on her birth certificate. That document revealed that she was, in fact, two years older than she had thought. The birth certificate revealed that she was born in 1922, not 1924 as was previously believed. Day said in a statement: "I've always said that age is just a number and I have never paid much attention to birthdays, but it's great to finally know how old I really am!" In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Day addressed her legacy. She said: "I enjoyed working and always tried to do the best job I could with every role.<doc-sep>
Screen icon Doris Day has died at age of 97, her foundation has confirmed. The actress, who shot to fame in the late 1940s, is considered to be one of Hollywood’s most enduring screen icons – with acclaimed performances in films including Calamity Jane and Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much. In a statement, the foundation confirmed that Day died at her California home in the early hours of Monday morning, surrounded by close friends. “Day had been in excellent physical health for her age, until recently contracting a serious case of pneumonia, resulting in her death,” the foundation said in an emailed statement. Day was renowned for her appearances in romantic comedies of the 1960s and went on to become one of the biggest female stars of the era, helped in part by her CBS sitcom The Doris Day Show, which ran from 1968 until 1973. Doris Day was always wonderful, and as Calamity Jane she wore leather pants and sang Secret Love, in a great moment of LGBTQ sensibility – Doris was pure sunshine and will be missed pic.twitter.com/3fBljH1KC2 — Paul Rudnick (@PaulRudnickNY) May 13, 2019 “I like joy; I want to be joyous; I want to have fun on the set; I want to wear beautiful clothes and look pretty. I want to smile, and I want to make people laugh. And that's all I want. I like it. I like being happy. I want to make others happy” RIP Doris Day. pic.twitter.com/MnHW4sjuzF — Nina Garcia (@ninagarcia) May 13, 2019 While renowned for her wholesome, family friendly image, Day also appeared in Pillow Talk and two other movies alongside Rock Hudson – which she later hailed for bringing out the “contemporary” side of her. As well as her big screen presence, Day was also a successful recording artist, releasing 20 studio albums since 1949. Her best known hits include ‘Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)’, which was taken from the soundtrack to Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much and ‘Sentimental Journey’. We're saddened to hear that Doris Day has died at 97. Day made her big-screen debut in Michael Curtiz's It's Magic (aka Romance on the High Seas, 1948) where her performance and smooth recording of the title song established her as a bright new talent. pic.twitter.com/RbfvpU9gfe — BFI (@BFI) May 13, 2019 No matter how old you are, it’s the music and movies of your youth that forever stir you. Kudos to Doris Day for the smiles she gave, the happiness she inspired and a life well lived. May her spirit soar. — Marianne Williamson (@marwilliamson) May 13, 2019 Doris Day – that million dollar smile on the set of fizzing 1959 rom-com Pillow Talk. One of the all-time greats. RIP pic.twitter.com/OMVvpBKXKn — Little White Lies (@LWLies) May 13, 2019 Although awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004, Oscars ultimately proved elusive despite friends leading calls for her to receive an honorary award before her death. An ardent supporter of animal rights, she founded the Doris Day Pet Foundation in 1978 and established the Doris Day Horse Rescue and Adoption Center in 2011, which helps abused and neglected horses.