Doris Day: Hollywood legend dies aged 97 after battle with pneumonia
Written by News on 13/05/2019
Doris Day – one of Hollywood’s biggest stars of the 1950s and 60s – has died aged 97.
Her foundation said she had died at her home in Camel Valley, California, after a battle with pneumonia.
Day was known for her dozens of film appearances, including in the musical Calamity Jane and Pillow Talk.
She also famously sang Que Sera, Sera in Hitchcock film The Man Who Knew Too Much.
Her foundation said she had requested “no funeral or memorial service and no grave marker”.
Day celebrated her 97th birthday on 3 April and gave a rare interview to the Hollywood Reporter.
She said: “I get so many love letters from fans as young as eight years old, telling me they were introduced by my films and music by their great-grandmothers, and my movies make them happy.
“Different films resonate with viewers for different reasons, but the common thread seems to be that my films are uplifting.”
Day had been very private after retiring, accepting the Cecil B DeMille award at the Golden Globes in 1989 and doing her last TV interview five years later.
Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane is among those who have paid tribute, tweeting “we’ve lost another great Hollywood talent”.
Star Trek actor William Shatner called her the “world’s sweetheart and beloved by all”, while fashion designer Stella McCartney said she was “the woman who inspired so much of what I do”.
Author Paulo Coelho called her “my first secret love”.
Born Doris Marianne von Kappelhoff, Day had dreamed of a career as a dancer but when she was 12 her leg was badly broken in a car crash.
She recovered with the radio for company and would sing along to Ella Fitzgerald – “trying to catch the subtle ways she shaded her voice, the casual yet clean way she shaded the words”.
Day made her film debut in 1948, in Romance On The High Seas.
Her wholesome films meant she became someone who stood for a time of innocence – a contrast to Marilyn Monroe – and led to a running joke, attributed to Groucho Marx and Oscar Levant, that they knew her “before she was a virgin”.
Day’s 1976 book chronicled her money troubles and three broken marriages, and presented a different picture of the star.
She wrote: “My public image is unshakeably that of America’s wholesome virgin, the girl next door, carefree and brimming with happiness, an image, I can assure you, more make-believe than any film part I ever played…”
She later added: “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.”
Day had first married aged 17, but she and Al Jorden split when she said he had beaten her when she was eight months pregnant. She gave birth to her son Terry in 1942.
Her second marriage, to George Wiedler, was also short-lived and they divorced after three years.
She married Martin Melcher in 1951 and they were together until his death in 1968.
Day’s fourth husband was Barry Comden, who had met the singer at one of her favourite restaurants where he worked, and gave her dog a bag of scraps. But when they broke up in 1982, he accused her of caring more about her animals than him.
Her third marriage had resulted in some financial problems for her, as Melcher’s failed investments left her in debt. She eventually won a multimillion-dollar judgement against their lawyer for mishandling their assets.
Terry, her only son, died in 2004.
Day never won an Oscar, but she did get the presidential medal of freedom in 2004 – and George W Bush called it “a good day for America when Doris Marianne von Kappelhoff, of Evanston, Ohio, decided to become an entertainer”.
In her later years, she dedicated her time to animal welfare and set up the Doris Day Animal Foundation in 1978.
She drew the nickname of The Dog Catcher of Beverly Hills and was known for trying to reunite lost pets with their owners.
Day also set up campaigns to encourage spaying and neutering of pets to stop the problem of homeless animals.
Although she had mostly retired by the 1980s, her 2011 collection of songs called My Heart made the UK top 10.
(c) Sky News 2019: Doris Day: Hollywood legend dies aged 97 after battle with pneumonia
