Doris Day - # 207

Actress And Singer Doris Day, Hollywood's Girl Next Door, Dies At 97

This legendary actress was number 207 on the list.

Actress and singer Doris Day made nearly three dozen films and more than 600 recordings. At the height of her career, she topped both the billboard and the box office charts. Day died of pneumonia on Monday at the age of 97.

Day remains one of the most successful female movie stars of all time. She embodied the "girl next door" even in her 40s, which is probably why her films with Rock Hudson were so successful. A scene from 1959's Pillow Talk shows a split screen with Day and Hudson in their separate bathtubs, only it looks like they're in the same one — with their feet touching. Kind of risqué for 1959.

That was Day at the height of her film success, but her career began as a big band "girl singer," and with Les Brown's big band she had one of the biggest hits of World War II: "A Sentimental Journey." For many GIs, Doris Day represented the kind of girl you'd want to fight for and come home to.

The end of the war brought the end of the big band era and the beginning of Day's film career. Alfred Hitchcock used Day's voice as a plot device in The Man Who Knew Too Much, in which a distraught Day sings a distress signal, "Que Sera, Sera," to her kidnapped son. It became her signature tune and went to the No. 2 spot on the charts.

Will Friedwald wrote a book on jazz singing. He said Day's success with pop and novelty songs overshadowed a simple fact: She was a phenomenal singer, both technically and artistically.

"She really is sort of the mother of all tuneful, sunny blondes," he said, "but at the same time there's definitely a dark side to her. You know, she can explore that kind of emotion very effectively in song."


In the musical drama Love Me or Leave Me, Day played '30s torch singer Ruth Etting opposite Jimmy Cagney, who plays her jilted mobster husband. And throughout the '50s, Day took on similarly meaty roles in films like Calamity Jane, The Pajama Game and The Man Who Knew Too Much. But at the end of the decade, she settled into romantic comedies and a persona that would stick — the girl next door.

Norman Jewison directed Day in two films in the '60s. He said her persona and her personality were able to attract men and women alike and were perfect for the times.


"She was a good girl," he said. "She wasn't snide. She wasn't too smart. She brought a kind of an honesty and a freshness. And she was also strangely sexy."

But David Kaufman, one of Day's biographers, said the real Day was anything but the girl next door.

"She's was a woman who was an extremely sensual woman," he said. "She had affairs with a number of people. She was never happily married. She had a son but was never really a mother; he was more like a brother to her. She in many ways was the opposite to the girl next door."

Day's husband and manager, Martin Melcher, died suddenly in 1968. But before that, he lost her entire fortune and signed her to a television series without her knowledge. Day slogged through the five seasons of The Doris Day Show and then left Hollywood. And after a very long legal battle, she eventually won back some of her money.

Tabloids often caught Day doing simple things in retirement: going to the grocery store, caring for scores of abandoned pets or dining out with friends. And it seems if she couldn't be the girl next door in her youth, as the years passed, she came close — sort of.

Her Filmography

1948      Romance on the High Seas           Georgia Garrett                 Her feature film debut. Co-starring Jack Carson. Song "It's Magic" nominated for an Oscar.

1949      My Dream Is Yours          Martha Gibson Co-starring Jack Carson.

It's a Great Feeling           Judy Adams        Co-starring Jack Carson and Dennis Morgan; with Errol Flynn, Joan Crawford, Edward G. Robinson, Sydney Greenstreet, Gary Cooper, Jane Wyman, Patricia Neal, Danny Kaye, Eleanor Parker.

1950      Young Man with a Horn                 Jo Jordan             Her first dramatic role. Co-starring Kirk Douglas and Lauren Bacall.

Tea for Two        Nanette Carter Co-starring Gordon MacRae.

Adaptation of Broadway musical No, No, Nanette

The West Point Story      Jan Wilson           Co-starring James Cagney

1951      Storm Warning Lucy Rice              Co-starring Ronald Reagan, Ginger Rogers and Steve Cochran

Lullaby of Broadway        Melinda Howard               Co-starring Gene Nelson

On Moonlight Bay            Marjorie "Marjie" Winfield           Co-starring Gordon MacRae

Based on the Penrod stories by Booth Tarkington.

I'll See You in My Dreams              Grace LeBoy Kahn            Co-starring Danny Thomas

Starlift   Herself Her name appeared first in the on-screen credits.

1952      The Winning Team           Aimee Alexander             Co-starring Ronald Reagan

April in Paris       Ethel  "Dynamite" Jackson            Co-starring Ray Bolger

1953      By the Light of the Silvery Moon      Marjorie "Marjie" Winfield           Co-starring Gordon MacRae

A sequel to On Moonlight Bay.

Calamity Jane     Calamity Jane     Co-starring Howard Keel

Introduced Academy Award-winning song Secret Love

1954      Lucky Me             Candy Williams Co-starring Robert Cummings and Phil Silvers

1955      Young at Heart Laurie Tuttle       Co-starring Frank Sinatra

Love Me or Leave Me     Ruth Etting          Co-starring James Cagney

1956      The Man Who Knew Too Much Josephine Conway "Jo" McKenna              Co-starring James Stewart. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

Introduced Academy Award-winning song Que Sera, Sera

Julie       Julie Benton       Thriller co-starring Louis Jourdan

1957      The Pajama Game            Katherine "Babe" Williams           Co-starring John Raitt. Adaptation of Broadway musical

1958      Teacher’s Pet     Erica Stone          Co-starring Clark Gable

The Tunnel of Love          Isolde Poole        Co-starring Richard Widmark

Golden Globe and Laurel nominations for

Golden Globe Award for Best Female Performance - Musical or Comedy|Best Motion Picture Actress - Comedy/Musical

1959      It Happened to Jane        Jane Osgood       Co-starring Jack Lemmon and Ernie Kovacs

Pillow Talk           Jan Morrow        Her first film with Rock Hudson

Academy Award-nominated for Best Actress.

Golden Globe Award-nominated for Best Motion Picture Actress - Musical/Comedy. Laurel Award for best female comedy performance.

1960      Please Don't Eat the Daisies          Kate Robinson Mackay   Co-starring David Niven

Midnight Lace    Kit Preston          Thriller co-starring Rex Harrison

Golden Globe and Laurel Award nominations for Best Motion Picture Actress - Drama

1961      Lover Come Back              Carol Templeton               Her second film with Rock Hudson. Laurel Award for best female comedy performance.

1962      That Touch of Mink         Cathy Timberlake             Co-starring Cary Grant. Won Laurel Award for best female comedy performance.

Billy Rose's Jumbo            Kitty Wonder     Adaptation of Broadway musical

Golden Globe Award-nominated for Best Motion Picture Actress - Musical/Comedy

1963      The Thrill of It All              Beverly Boyer    Co-starring James Garner

Move Over, Darling         Ellen Wagstaff Arden      Co-starring James Garner. Remake of My Favorite Wife (1940).

Initiated as Marilyn Monroe's unfinished film Something's Got to Give.

Golden Globe Award-nominated for Best Motion Picture Actress - Musical/Comedy

1964      Send Me No Flowers       Judy Kimball       Her third and last film with Rock Hudson. Won the Laurel Award for best female comedy performance.

1965      Do Not Disturb Janet Harper      Co-starring Rod Taylor

1966      The Glass Bottom Boat   Jennifer Nelson Co-starring Rod Taylor. Nominated for Laurel Award, best female comedy performance.

1967      Caprice Patricia Foster   Co-starring Richard Harris

The Ballad of Josie           Josie Minick        Co-starring Peter Graves and George Kennedy

1968      Where Were You When

the Lights Went Out?     Margaret Garrison           Laurel Award nomination for best female comedy performance.

With Six You Get Eggroll                Abby McClure    Co-starring Brian Keith; her last film. Laurel Award nomination for best female comedy performance.