Not all blondes in Hollywood were the same, and Doris Day, who died today at the age of 97 in her home in Camel, California, was even less so.
It was the '50s and '60s when they competed for the spotlight, each in their own way: Marilyn Monroe was the goddess, Grace Kelly the classy one, Kim Novak the diva, Jayne Mansfield the flamboyant one. And then there was Doris Day, the blonde next door, the one the public instinctively recognized and, for that reason, immediately loved. Born Doris Mary Ann Von Kappelhoff on April 3, 1924, in Cincinnati, she was a singer, actress, TV star, animal rights activist, and then—after her retirement from the stage 50 years ago—a pop icon, and beyond, thanks to her unforgettable performance of "Que Sera, Sera." Wham included her in the lyrics to "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go." Her friendship with Rock Hudson in the '80s, a period that led to the actor's isolation while suffering from AIDS, made Doris an idol for the gay community as well. Yet to find traces of her in Hollywood, you have to Google her and discover that her last film was in 68 and her last TV series, The Doris Day Show, ended in 73 after five years. An extraordinary career, spanning 39 films, from Hollywood Hollywood with Frank Sinatra to The Most Beautiful Girl in the World, her starring roles alongside Cary Grant, Clark Gable, and James Stewart, Alfred Hitchcock's muse in "The Man Who Knew Too Much," her peak with the musical Western Calamity Jane, the first woman to dominate the box office since Shirley Temple. The radiant way she asserted herself in film hid the darkness of her past: her father had left her mother when Doris was only 11, the car accident at 13 that ended her dancing career, her marriage at 17 to trombonist Al Jorden, who beat her. Four marriages and a child before she was twenty. Among her subsequent, equally unfortunate husbands, Doris also had music manager Martin Melcher, who, it turned out, squandered $20 million of the actress's fortune. Her last relationship, with restorer Barry Comden, ended in 82. Yet if there's one thing Doris Day never lost, it was her smile, the luminous face of a happy and reassuring person. And that warm voice that Americans have come to love over the years. It was after singing "Day After Day" as a young girl that she chose her stage name, becoming Doris Day. "The public would follow my songs," she said in 96, "because they sensed that I believed in the words, every word, that I sang." With the same passion, she threw herself into her animal rights campaigns, becoming a vegetarian and funding animal rights movements. "If men are truly beasts," she once said, "then women are loving animals." It was her way of not harboring resentments and enemies that earned her universal love. A month ago, for her birthday, she was celebrated by three hundred people at her home in California. It was her exit, to applause, all well-deserved.
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Article published on May 13, 2019 - 17:15 PM - News Desk
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