Life history of doris day

Just when the reader feels vaguely annoyed by Day’s pert matter-of-factness (“I have never tried out for anything that I’ve failed to get,” she says at one point), she reveals a heartbreaking vulnerability and honesty. Nowhere is this truer than in her passages about the brutal Jorden, whom she claims routinely beat her, once holding a gun to her stomach while she was pregnant with their son, Terry.

Day planned an escape, returning to Cincinnati only to be stalked by Jorden while she was working at a local radio station. Throughout Her Own Story, a still traumatized Day repeatedly refers to the horror of her first marriage and the damage it caused her psyche.

But the fighter in Day would not let her give up. There were more years of exhaustive touring, and another busted marriage. By 1948, Day was worn out, living in a trailer outside of L.A. and desperate to get back to Cincinnati, where her mother and Terry were living. Uninterested in acting, she reluctantly agreed to her first movie audition, for 1948’s Romance on the High Seas.

A distraught Day cried throughout the audition in front of director Michael Curtiz, much to her agent’s horror.

Curtiz was charmed, and she got the part.

Clara Bixby

According to Day, acting for the camera was the easiest thing she had ever done: “I had no inhibitions, no doubts, no hang-ups.” A creature of habit, she loved being a “lunch-bucket lady” at the studio where “the bell rings at noon, you go to lunch, the whistle blows at six, you go home…I love that kind of organized life.”

This confidence did not extend into her social life. When not performing, Day was painfully introverted, and hated the Hollywood social whirl. “Snug in a corner, gratefully overlooked,” Day recalls of one L.A. party. “I realized that there had been standing in the corner beside me, as immobile as I, Mr. Alfred Hitchcock… I had heard he was the shyest man in L.A., but after we stood there for a while, I think he realized he had met his match

American actress and singer (1922–2019)

This article is about the American actress and singer. For other uses, see Doris Day (disambiguation).

Not to be confused with Dorothy Day.

Doris Day (born Doris Mary Anne Kappelhoff; April 3, 1922 – May 13, 2019) was an American actress and singer. She began her career as a big band singer in 1937, achieving commercial success in 1945 with two No. 1 recordings, "Sentimental Journey" and "My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time" with Les Brown and His Band of Renown. She left Brown to embark on a solo career and recorded more than 650 songs from 1947 to 1967.

Day was one of the leading Hollywood film stars of the 1950s and 1960s. Her film career began with Romance on the High Seas (1948). She starred in films of many genres, including musicals, comedies, dramas and thrillers. She played the title role in Calamity Jane (1953) and starred in Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) with James Stewart. She co-starred with Rock Hudson in three successful comedies including Pillow Talk (1959), for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She also worked with James Garner on both Move Over, Darling (1963) and The Thrill of It All (1963) and starred alongside

(1922-2019)

Who Was Doris Day?

A top film star of the 1950s and 1960s, Doris Day sang with several big bands before going solo in 1947. In the 1950s, she made a series of popular film musicals, including Calamity Jane (1953) and The Pajama Game (1957). Day was an advocate for animal welfare and founded several organizations devoted to the cause.

Early Life

Born Doris von Kappelhoff, Day studied ballet and tap dance growing up. She even won a local dance contest with her partner Jerry Doherty in her early teens. But her dreams of dancing professionally were shattered along with her leg in a 1937 car accident. The daughter of a music teacher, Day started taking voice lessons during her recovery. Ella Fitzgerald was one of her early inspirations as she developed her own vocal style.

Early Music Career

Day's first singing performances were on local radio programs. She also sang with bandleader Barney Rapp and his group for a time. Rapp encouraged her to adopt a stage name, and she changed her last name to Day after the song "Day After Day."

In 1940, Day landed a spot as a vocalist with the band led by Bob Crosby — brother of crooner Bing Crosby and a successful bandleader in his own right. But later that year, she teamed up with Les Brown and his group. With Brown, Day scored her first number one hits, "Sentimental Journey" and "My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time," in 1944. Her work with Brown made her a popular singing sensation during World War II. Day, in her songs, seemed to be accessible and personable to her audience. After parting ways with Brown in 1946, she soon made the transition from the concert stage to the big screen.

Even during her acting career, Day found time for music projects as a solo artist. She scored another hit in 1948 with "Love Somebody," a duet with Buddy Clark. In the 1950s, Day reached the charts with such songs as "My Love and Devotion" (1952) and "

Doris Day, the quintessential all-American girl, continues to be revered by her fans, while the media still celebrate her as an actress and singer with a legendary Hollywood "girl next door" image.

However, Doris Day's personal life, faced with steely resolve, was the very antithesis of how most fans perceived her super-stardom.  The studios promoted her in screen roles highlighting her wholesome, vivacious blonde personality. However, in hindsight, this concentration on her image belied her great acting and musical talents; a full retrospective appraisal of her career in recent years has brought her fans a fuller appreciation of her gifts.  Of her 39 films, Calamity Jane,Love Me or Leave Me and Pillow Talk remain popular favorites, and still run frequently on cable television.  Paralleling her success in big-screen entertainment, a series of excellent albums recorded between 1956 and 1968 expanded her popularity, and are as relevant today as when they were first released.

The Singer

Born Doris Mary Ann von Kappelhoff on April 3, 1922, in Cincinnati, Ohio, her parents came from German stock.  Her father, Frederick Wilhelm Von Kappelhoff, was a music teacher, choir master and church organist and loved classical music.  Her mother, Alma Sophia Welz, on the other hand, was an outgoing woman who enjoyed "hillbilly music."  Doris was the youngest of three: she had two brothers, Richard, who died before she was born, and Paul who was a few years older. She was named after silent movie actress Doris Kenyon, whom her mother admired. Growing up in the 1930s Doris was attracted to music and dance, eventually forming part of a dance duo which performed locally until a car she was riding in was struck by a train, crushing her right leg, a severe injury that curtai