Happy
85th birthday today to the fabulous Doris Day!
Born Doris Mary Ann von Kappelhoff in 1924 to German immigrants, she taught herself to sing by listening to Ella Fitzgerald records and began her climb to the top as a singer with Les Brown and his big band, and as an actress in numerous unmemorable romantic movies. She went on to sing with the top bandleader Harry James - most famously recording with him
Young Man With a Horn (from her film about the life of Bix Beiderbecke, co-starring Kirk Douglas).
Her real breakthrough of course was the fabulous
Calamity Jane in 1953, which not only made Doris Day an international movie star, but also won an Oscar for her classic (often lauded as a gay love song)
Secret Love. This is one of my favourite musical soundtracks of the era - with sing-a-long tunes such as
The Deadwood Stage and
Black Hills of Dakota, it is guaranteed to provide the backdrop to many a party round our place...
From this stunning success she went on to star with Frank Sinatra in
Young at Heart, with Jimmy Cagney in the Ruth Etting biopic
Love Me Or Leave Me (both of which also provided million-selling soundtrack songs), and with James Stewart in Hitchcock's
The Man Who Knew Too Much, from which came the magnificent
Que Sera Sera - Doris Day's signature tune from then on.
But it was her partnership with Rock Hudson that provided Doris with her most lasting on-screen image. The chemistry between the two stars, as they played out their inevitably sexless romantic comedy roles, was sparkling - to the degree that she was seen by some as an archetype for wholesome post-war American womanhood, which brought a not unwarranted degree of criticism. Indeed, pianist and comic Oscar Levant famously said:
"I can remember Doris Day before she was a virgin."
Despite this success, her time was rapidly coming to a close as the 60s cultural revolution began, and the taste for films such as hers began to wane. She made her
last ever movie in 1968, aged only 44.
Her musical career, too, suffered. A number of her albums were commercial failures in the US (despite critical acclaim and success in the UK and Europe), and although she made a successful transfer to her own TV show in the States, she personally loathed it and never received the backing of the networks to show it across the globe.
Further disappointment hit Doris Day when she discovered that her late husband and his business partner had been misusing her income, and she was practically bankrupt as a result. She sued, but the legal wrangling carried on and on throughout the 1970s - the case was not finally settled until the mid-80s. Meanwhile Doris appeared to put more of her efforts into animal welfare rather than showbiz, despite receiving many "Lifetime Achievement" awards.
She continued an intermittent career, culminating in her own talk show on which her friend (the by then dying) Rock Hudson famously appeared, alerting the world's media to his illness and led to the feeding frenzy that followed. In spite of the fact she is adored by millions of fans as a cult legend and gay icon, today apparently Doris Day prefers to live a reclusive life away from the spotlight, leaving us with happy memories and above all those golden tunes...
