Doris Day

Doris Day (born Doris Mary Anne Kappelhoff; April 3, 1922 – May 13, 2019) was an American actress and singer. With an entertainment career that spanned nearly 50 years, Day was one of the most popular and acclaimed female singers of the 1940s and 1950s, with a parallel career as a leading actress in Hollywood films, where she became one of the biggest box-office stars of the 1960s. She was known for her on-screen girl next door image and her distinctive singing voice.

Day 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. Her recording of "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)" became known as her signature song and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2011.

Day made her film debut with the musical Romance on the High Seas (1948). She played the title role in the musical Calamity Jane (1953) and starred in the thriller The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956). She co-starred with Rock Hudson in three successful comedies: Pillow Talk (1959), for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, Lover Come Back (1961) and Send Me No Flowers (1964). Day also worked with James Garner on both Move Over, Darling (1963) and The Thrill of It All (1963) and starred alongside Clark Gable, Cary Grant, James Cagney, David Niven, Ginger Rogers, Jack Lemmon, Ronald Reagan, Rex Harrison, Myrna Loy, and Rod Taylor in various films. After ending her film career in 1968, she starred in her own television sitcom The Doris Day Show (1968–1973).

In 1989, Day was awarded the Golden Globe and the Cecil B. DeMille Award for Lifetime Achievement in Motion Pictures. In 2004, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2008, she received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award as well as a Legend Award from the Society of Singers. In 2011, she was awarded the Los Angeles Film Critics Association's Career Achievement Award. As of 2020^[update], Day was one of eight recording artists to have been the top box-office earner in the United States four times. Day was a prominent advocate for animal welfare and founded the advocacy group Doris Day Animal League (DDAL) and the non-profit organization Doris Day Pet Foundation, now the Doris Day Animal Foundation (DDAF).

Day was born Doris Mary Kappelhoff on April 3, 1922, in Cincinnati, Ohio, the daughter of German-American parents Alma Sophia (née Welz; 1895–1976) and William Joseph Kappelhoff (1892–1967). She was named after actress Doris Kenyon. Her mother was a homemaker, and her father was a music teacher and choirmaster. Her paternal grandfather Franz Joseph Wilhelm Kappelhoff immigrated to the United States in 1875 and settled within the large German community in Cincinnati. For most of her life, Day stated that she was born in 1924, but on the occasion of her 95th birthday, the Associated Press found her birth certificate that showed a 1922 year of birth.

Day had two older brothers: Richard (1917–1919), who died before her birth, and Paul (1919–1957). Her father's infidelity caused her parents to separate in 1932 when she was 10. She developed an early interest in dance, and in the mid-1930s formed a dance duo with Jerry Doherty that performed in nationwide competitions. She had signed a contract with a casting company to be a dancer and she was preparing to move to Los Angeles to pursue this opportunity. Family friends that lived just north of Cincinnati, in Hamilton, Ohio, planned a going-away party for her, but tragedy struck on her way to the party. On October 13, 1937, while Day was riding with friends, their car collided with a freight train, and she broke her right leg, curtailing her prospects as a professional dancer.

While recovering from her car accident, Day sang along with the radio and discovered her singing talent. She later said: "During this long, boring period, I used to while away a lot of time listening to the radio, sometimes singing along with the likes of Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Tommy Dorsey, and Glenn Miller. But the one radio voice I listened to above others belonged to Ella Fitzgerald. There was a quality to her voice that fascinated me, and I'd sing along with her, trying to catch the subtle ways she shaded her voice, the casual yet clean way she sang the words."

Day's mother Alma arranged for Doris to receive singing lessons from Grace Raine. After three lessons, Raine told Alma that Day had "tremendous potential" and gave her three lessons per week for the price of one. Years later, Day said that Raine had a greater effect on her singing style and career than had anyone else.