Iconic Hollywood actress and singer Doris Day dies aged 97

Ella Wills13 May 2019
The Weekender

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Legendary Hollywood actress Doris Day, who starred in films including Calamity Jane, has died aged 97.

The singer and actress was known for films such as Pillow Talk and the hit 1956 song Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be).

She died early on Monday surrounded by close friends at her Carmel Valley, California, home, the Doris Day Animal Foundation confirmed in a statement today.

She "had been in excellent physical health for her age, until recently contracting a serious case of pneumonia", it added.

Doris Day - In pictures

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The honey-voiced singer and actress was among the biggest female stars of all time after her dramas, musicals and romantic comedies made her a top star in the 1950s and 1960s.

Born Mary Ann Von Kappelhoff, on April 3, 1922 in Cincinnati, Ohio, Day began her professional singing career at age 15.

She went on to enjoy success in film, featuring in 39 films spanning genres during her three decades of work in the industry.

In recent years, she spent much of her time advocating for animal rights.

Doris Day in Pillow Talk

Day celebrated her 97th birthday on April 3, with nearly 300 fans gathering in Carmel to mark the occasion.

Born to a music teacher and a housewife, she had dreamed of a dance career, but at age 12, she suffered an accident: a car she was in was hit by a train and her leg was badly broken.

Listening to the radio while recuperating, she began singing along with Ella Fitzgerald, "trying to catch the subtle ways she shaded her voice, the casual yet clean way she sang the words".

Day began singing in a Cincinnati radio station, then a local nightclub, then in New York. A bandleader changed her name to Day, after the song Day after Day, to fit it on a marquee.

She had her first hit Sentimental Journey with Les Brown's band in 1945, when she was in her early 20s.

The star in Calamity Jane

Her Hollywood career began after she sang at a Hollywood party in 1947.

After early stardom including a stint at Warner Bros, Day won the best notices of her career with Love Me or Leave Me, the story of songstress Ruth Etting and her gangster husband-manager. She initially baulked at it, but the 1955 film became a box-office and critical success.

Day followed with another impressive film, Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much, starring her and James Stewart as an innocent couple ensnared in an international assassination plot.

James Stewart with Doris Day in The Man Who Knew Too Much

In the film, she sings her signature Que Sera, Sera just as the story reaches its climax and viewers are beside themselves with suspense.

The 1958 comedy Teacher's Pet paired her with an ageing Clark Gable as an idealistic college journalism teacher and her student, an old-school newspaper editor.

But Day found her greatest success in slick, stylish romantic comedies, beginning with her Oscar-nominated role in Pillow Talk.

She and Hudson were two New Yorkers who shared a telephone party line and initially hated each other.

A scene from 'Do Not Disturb'

She followed with The Thrill of It All, playing a housewife who gains fame as a TV pitchwoman to the chagrin of obstetrician husband James Garner.

Among other songs she made famous were Everybody Loves a Lover, Secret Love, and It's Magic, a song from Romance on the High Seas, her first film.

Her last film was With Six You Get Eggroll, a 1968 comedy about a widow and a widower and the problems they have when blending their families.

While Day was honoured with several awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004 and a Grammy for Lifetime Achievement in 2008, she never won an Oscar.

Her friends and supporters lobbied for years to get her an honorary Academy Award.

Although mostly retired from show business since the 1980s, she still had enough of a following that a 2011 collection of previously unreleased songs, My Heart, made the top 10 in the United Kingdom.

The same year, she received a lifetime achievement honour from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

Since the 1970s, Day focused her energies on the Doris Day Animal Foundation.

She fought against animal testing and advocated for spay/neuter education and outreach programmes in the United States.

Additional reporting by the Associated Press.

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