Doris Day arrived in Hollywood in the late 1940s already a celebrity, a big-band singer on her way to becoming a movie star. She had early success in light musicals, but as they fell out of fashion she modernized herself in a way that probably confused mid-20th century America: With a bubbly screen presence and a blinding smile, Day was the rare movie heroine who held a great job while having the requisite romance. Women wanted to be her and men wanted to marry someone like her. The equation proved to be box office gold. Day died of pneumonia Monday at her Carmel Valley, Calif., home. She was 97. She had been “in excellent physical health for her age” until recently, the Doris Day Animal Foundation said in an emailed statement. Advertisement In the early 1970s, Day walked away from Hollywood, spending most of the ensuing decades in her beloved Carmel, where she was an outspoken animal rights activist. 1 / 15 Doris Day in 1962. (Associated Press) 2 / 15 Doris Day on a red Schwinn bicycle, late 1950s. (Hulton Archive / Getty Images) 3 / 15 Doris Day leaves her name, foot- and hand-prints in wet concrete at Grauman’s theater, Jan. 19, 1961. (Bruce Cox / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 15 1953 publicity photo of Doris Day. (Warner Bros) 5 / 15 Doris Day poses with her husband and agent Martin Melcher at their hotel after arriving in London in April 1955. (Bob Dear / Associated Press) 6 / 15 Mickey Mantle, Doris Day and Cary Grant in a press still from the 1962 movie “A Touch of Mink.” (1962). (File Photo / File Photo) 7 / 15 Doris Day in a publicity photo for the 1957 movie “Pajama Game.” (Corbis) 8 / 15 Actress-singer Doris Day, shown in this 1968 photo, was a recording star in the 1940s and a popular film star from the early 1950s through the early 1960s. (Associated Press / Associated Press) 9 / 15 An undated Doris Day publicity still. (Unknown Photographer / Handout) 10 / 15 A 1949 portrait of Day. For a decade, starting in 1948, the singer had 30 top-20 singles. She recorded almost 30 albums. (Pictorial Parade / Getty Images) 11 / 15 Doris Day in a cashmere sweater with pearls, 1952. (Bert Six /Los Angeles Times archive) 12 / 15 Doris Day and Rock Hudson in “Lover Come Back” (1961), directed by Delbert Mann. (Handout) 13 / 15 Doris Day in “Love Me or Leave Me” (1955), directed by Charles Vidor. (Handout) 14 / 15 Doris Day in a photo from the book “The Bad and the Beautiful,” by Ellen Graham, in 1973. (Ellen Graham / Harry N. Abrams/Stewart, Tabori) 15 / 15 Doris Day joined Rock Hudson at a July 18, 1985, news conference in Monterey. Day’s frequent film costar died later that year. (Chris Hunter / Associated Press) Doris Day dies: Reactions as Hollywood icon remembered as ‘glorious and inimitable’ » On screen, she effectively traded barbs with leading men and marched into the workplace in such lighthearted movies as “Pillow Talk” (1959) and “Lover Come Back” (1961), two of the three films she made with Rock Hudson. She received her only Academy Award nomination for “Pillow Talk.” “Her persona hit a cultural mother lode, tapping into what the average postwar woman was about,” Drew Casper, a USC film professor, told The Times. She “was way ahead of her time, a feminist before there was feminism.” From 1948 to 1968, Day appeared in 39 films, most often as the wholesome girl next door. At age 46, she made her last film, “With Six You Get Eggroll.” Day’s body of work shows “how much of an icon she was, how much she became in her own way the female equivalent of John Wayne or Clint Eastwood,” Times film critic Kenneth Turan once wrote. She was such a natural that when director Michael Curtiz caught her taking acting lessons while making her first movie, “Romance on the High Seas” (1948), he told her to stop, she recounted in “Doris Day: Her Own Story,” her 1976 as-told-to autobiography by A.E. Hotchner. Advertisement Day “was an Actors Studio all by herself,” Hudson said in her autobiography. “Her sense of timing, her instincts — I just kept my eyes open and copied her.” She was at her best in films that allowed her sultry voice and “wonderful way with a song” to carry some of the dramatic weight, Turan wrote, including “Calamity Jane” (1953) and “Young Man With a Horn” (1950), in which she played a band singer opposite Kirk Douglas’ trumpet player. Doris Day: A guileless natural on screen and record, and a mystery even to her devotees » Day also became one of the most popular singers of her generation. Next to Frank Sinatra, Day was “the best in the business on selling a lyric,” band leader Les Brown said in her autobiography. Advertisement Her rendition of “Sentimental Journey,” recorded with Brown and his Band of Renown in 1945, brought her a flood of letters from servicemen at the end of World War II. More than 50 years later, her version of the song made it into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Songs she sang were nominated for Academy Awards half a dozen times. Two won: “Secret Love” from “Calamity Jane,” a musical that was her favorite film; and “Que Será, Será (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)” from “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” Alfred Hitchcock’s 1956 movie that cast her against type as a neurotic American mother abroad. “Que Será, Será” was also inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, in 2012. The “Secret Love” album sold well and made producers realize the potential for cross-promotion between movies and music, said Casper, who has screened Day’s movies in his USC classes because her talent and message “signified the very best of postwar culture.” Yet her insistence on making mostly sunny, upbeat films earned the rancor of some feminists in the 1960s, who thought Day’s roles glorified an ideal woman who never really existed. Advertisement In a 1976 essay in Ms. magazine, film critic Molly Haskell presented an early revisionist’s view of Day’s career. She argued that Day was a proto-feminist who challenged “in her working-woman roles, the limited destiny of women to marry, live happily ever after and never be heard from again.” In romantic comedies, her characters often had a career; she played an interior decorator in “Pillow Talk” and an advertising executive in “Lover Come Back.” Yet there was no arguing that the luminous blond entertainer — eternally perky and often dressed to the nines — set men aquiver. “She conveyed a unique blend of innocent sexiness … that was not so much the woman next door as the woman you wished lived next door,” Times critic Charles Champlin wrote in 1988. Doris Day’s screen-style legacy for working women was all about what to wear — not bare » Advertisement Novelist John Updike disclosed his deep-rooted crush on Day in a 1976 New Yorker essay: “Singing or acting, she manages to produce, in her face or in her voice, an ‘effect,’ a skip or tremor, a feathery edge that touches us.” Movie exhibitors placed Day in their annual poll of top box-office stars 10 times during the 1950s and ’60s. Four times she held the top spot. Her costars included leading men of her era — Sinatra in “Young at Heart” (1954), Clark Gable in “Teacher’s Pet” (1958) and Jimmy Stewart in “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” a thriller considered one of her finer films. Of the hundreds of songs Day recorded, the lilting ballad “Que Será, Será” became her trademark. Day initially dismissed it as a nursery rhyme but adopted its refrain — “whatever will be, will be” — as her philosophy for dealing with a turbulent personal life at odds with her clean-cut screen presence. Advertisement “I’ve had a perfectly rotten life,” she told Hotchner. Married four times, Day was beaten by her first husband, trombonist Al Jorden, while she was pregnant . She was divorced by 21; he later died by suicide.<doc-sep>Pay based on use Get Started Purchase a Team or Enterprise subscription for per week You will be billed per month after the trial ends<doc-sep>Doris Day, the honey-voiced singer and actress whose film dramas, musicals and innocent sex comedies made her a top star in the 1950s and '60s and among the most popular screen actresses in history, has died. She was 97. The Doris Day Animal Foundation confirmed Day died early Monday at her Carmel Valley, California, home. The foundation said she was 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. American actor Rock Hudson and singer and actress Doris Day recline on a sofa, laughing and holding drinks, circa 1960. (Getty) With her lilting contralto, wholesome blonde beauty and glowing smile, she was a top box office draw and recording artist known for such films as "Pillow Talk" and "That Touch of Mink" and for such songs as "Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)" from the Alfred Hitchcock film "The Man Who Knew Too Much." But over time, she became more than a name above the title: Right down to her cheerful, alliterative stage name, she stood for a time of innocence and G-rated love, 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." Day herself was no Doris Day, by choice and by hard luck. In "Pillow Talk," released in 1959 and her first of three films with Rock Hudson, she proudly caught up with what she called "the contemporary in me." Her 1976 tell-all book, "Doris Day: Her Own Story," chronicled her money troubles and three failed marriages, contrasting with the happy publicity of her Hollywood career. "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. Actress and singer Doris Day shown in a photograph from 1962. (AAP) She never won an Academy Award, but Day 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." In recent years, she spent much of her time advocating for animal rights. 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. Friends and supporters lobbied for years to get her an honorary Oscar. Born to a music teacher and a housewife, she had dreamed of a dance career, but at age 12, she suffered a crippling accident: 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 in 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. Rock Hudson as Brad Allen and Doris Day as Jan Morrow in 'Pillow Talk', 1959. (Getty) 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 also was short-lived. She returned to Les Brown's band after the first marriage broke up. Her Hollywood career began after she sang at a Hollywood 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 another impressive film, Hitchcock's "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. American actor Doris Day poses on a red Schwinn bicycle in the 1950s. (Getty) But she found her greatest success in slick, stylish sex comedies, 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 pitchwoman to the chagrin of obstetrician husband James Garner. The nation's theatre owners voted her the top moneymaking 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 designed 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 trending for more explicit sex, she turned to television to recoup her finances. "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 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," Melcher was listed as co-producer. Melcher died in 1969. In her autobiography, Day recalled her son, Terry Melcher, telling her the $20 million she had earned had vanished and she owed around $450,000, mostly for taxes. In 1974, Day won a $22.8 million judgment against Jerome B. Rosenthal, her lawyer and business manager, for mishandling of her and Melcher'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. When Manson and his followers embarked on their murderous rampage in 1969, they headed for the house once owned by Melcher and instead came upon actress Sharon Tate and some visitors, all of whom were killed.<doc-sep>
Doris Day, the sunny blond actress and singer whose frothy comedic roles opposite the likes of Rock Hudson and Cary Grant made her one of Hollywood's biggest stars in the 1950s and '60s and a symbol of wholesome American womanhood, died Monday. She was 97. In more recent years, Day had been an animal rights advocate. Her Doris Day Animal Foundation confirmed her death at her Carmel Valley, California, home. Day "had been in excellent physical health for her age" but had recently contracted pneumonia, the foundation said in a statement. She requested that no memorial services be held and no grave marker erected. With her lilting contralto, fresh-faced beauty and glowing smile, Day was a top box-office draw and recording artist known for comedies such as "Pillow Talk" and "That Touch of Mink," as well as songs like "Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)" from the Alfred Hitchcock film "The Man Who Knew Too Much." Over time, she became more than a name above the title. Right down to her cheerful, alliterative stage name, she stood for the era's ideal of innocence and G-rated love, 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." Day herself was no Doris Day, by choice and by hard luck. Her 1976 tell-all book, "Doris Day: Her Own Story," chronicled her money troubles and three failed marriages. "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. A.E. Hotchner, who collaborated with Day on her memoir, said she had a "sweet and sour" existence and never let her personal difficulties "change her attitude toward people." Story continues "She was such a positive, absolutely enchanting woman," he told The Associated Press on Monday. "And she was so loved." Day received a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004. 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 honor from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. The Humane Society of the United States, of which The Doris Day Animal League is an affiliate, praised Day as a pioneer in animal protection. In 1987, Day "founded one of the first national animal protection organizations dedicated to legislative remedies for the worst animal abuse," said the league's executive director, Sara Amundson. Her foresight "led to dozens of bills, final rules and policies on the federal level," which helped end abusive videos, protect chimpanzees from invasive research and regulate the online sale of puppies. "She is an icon in the animal protection world and will be sorely missed for her singular advocacy," Amundson said. Paul McCartney, a friend, called Day "a true star in more ways than one." "Visiting her in her Californian home was like going to an animal sanctuary where her many dogs were taken care of in splendid style," he said in a statement. "She had a heart of gold and was a very funny lady who I shared many laughs with." He cited films like "Calamity Jane," ''Move Over, Darling" and others and said he would "always remember her twinkling smile and infectious laugh." Day "was kind and decent, onscreen and off; she maintained her friendship with Rock Hudson after his AIDS diagnosis, in a climate of fear and abandonment — one of his last appearances was on a TV show with her," playwright Paul Rudnick tweeted. Born to a music teacher and a housewife in Cincinnati, Day dreamed of a dance career but at age 12 broke her leg badly when a car in which she was traveling was hit by a train. Listening to the radio while recuperating, she began singing along with Ella Fitzgerald, studying the singer and the subtleties of her voice. Day began singing at a Cincinnati radio station, then a 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.