Doris Day dead – Hollywood legend dies aged 97 from pneumonia after 80 year career
ACTRESS Doris Day has died at the age of 97 after a career of more than 80 years.
The death of the Hollywood icon, who was best known for her film work in the late 50s and 60s and her hit song Que Sera Seraw, as announced by her foundation today.
Her shiny girl-next-door image was built on a series of innocent romantic comedies, including Pillow Talk for which Day received an Oscar nomination, That Touch of Mink and The Thrill of It All.
The Doris Day Animal Foundation confirmed Day, who recently celebrated her 97th birthday, died early Monday at her Carmel Valley, California, home.
The foundation says in an emailed statement she was surrounded by close friends and “had been in excellent physical health for her age, until recently contracting a serious case of pneumonia.”
Day’s life was not always as sunny as her movie roles.
She married four times, was divorced three times and widowed once, suffered a nervous breakdown and had severe financial trouble after one husband squandered her money.
Day was known for her honey-voiced singer and actress whose film dramas, musicals and innocent sex comedies made her a top star in the 1950s and ’60s and among the most popular screen actresses in history.
“My public image is unshakably that of America’s wholesome virgin, the girl next door, carefree and brimming with happiness,” she said in a memoir.
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But she said it is “an image, I can assure you, more make-believe than any film part I ever played. But I am Miss Chastity Belt and that’s all there is to it.”
Day’s lilting voice, wholesome blond beauty and ultra-bright smile brought her a string of hits, first on records, later in Hollywood.
Day was born Mary Ann Kappelhoff and her parents were a music teacher and a housewife and had dreamed of a dance career.
But at age 12, she suffered a crippling accident when 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.”
She began her career as a big band singer in 1939.
Her popularity increased with her first hit recording ‘Sentimental Journey’ in 1945.
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Day’s movie debut, Romance on the High Seas in 1948, was a hit, at least in part because of Day and the Oscar-nominated song It’s Magic that featured in it.
In 1953, she landed the title role of Calamity Jane and success continued in 1955 as she teamed with Frank Sinatra for the musical “Young at Heart” and with James Cagney for the drama Love Me or Leave Me.
She expanded her range again in Alfred Hitchcock’s remake of his own The Man Who Knew Too Much which co-starred Jimmy Stewart.
Day returned to light comedy in 1957 with The Pajama Game and two years later first joined forces with Hudson for “Pillow Talk,” her most popular movie and the one that earned her an Oscar nomination.
She and Hudson made some of the most popular – and profitable – movies of the early 1960s, including Lover Come Back, Move Over Darling and Send Me No Flowers.
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