Day, Doris

Day, Doris (1924- ), Hollywood actress and singing star of the 1950s and 1960s. Born Doris von Kappelhoff, in Cincinnati, Ohio, she was a well-known band singer before she was introduced to film acting in 1948 by director Michael Curtiz in Romance on the High Seas.

Blonde-haired with a dazzling smile, she moved through girl-next-door supporting roles in musicals to a number of starring roles in pictures moulded around her. Though she was a capable comedienne, her singing was generally regarded as the best thing about most of the films. Calamity Jane (1953), Love Me or Leave Me (1955), and The Pajama Game (1957) were probably the highlights.

Day’s records were some of the earliest pop music bought by teenagers, for many of whom she was a role model. Wholesome, energetic, and unsophisticated, she was an icon in an optimistic post-war era that thrived on romance. Her career carried on through the late 1950s and early1960s, and a series of innuendo-laden comedies (Pillow Talk, 1959; Lover Come Back, 1961; and That Touch of Mink, 1962), many starring opposite Rock Hudson, were accepted by the public because of Day’s wholesome image. However, it was precisely this iconic purity that worked against her in the sexually liberated late 1960s. After the death of her exploitative husband in 1968, whom she discovered had lost her entire fortune, she moved into television and never appeared on the screen again.