Day, Doris, 1922–2019, American film actress, b. Cincinnati as Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff. Day is best known for her wholesome, girl-next-door roles. She began her career as a 1940s band singer, and by 1946 was the world's highest paid female vocalist. Her hits included “Sentimental Journey” (1945) and, from her films, “Secret Love” (1954), “Que Será Será” (1956), and several others. Her earliest movies were primarily musical comedies, including her first, Romance on the High Seas (1948), and Calamity Jane (1953). In Love Me or Leave Me (1955) as singer Ruth Etting and in Hitchcock's thriller The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), she shifted to dramatic roles then, in Pillow Talk (1959), Lover Come Back (1961), That Touch of Mink (1962), and other films, to the romantic comedy roles that made her famous. She starred in the television comedy series The Doris Day Show (1968–73) before retiring, then she devoted herself to animal welfare.
See her autobiography, Doris Day: Her Own Story (with A. E. Hotchner, 1978); memoir by M. J. DeVita (2012); biographies by D. Kaufman (2010), Charles River Editors (2013); G. McGee, Doris Day: Sentimental Journey (2005); T. Santopietro, Considering Doris Day (2007).
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