Doris Day

For the first time, Doris Day tells the story behind the headlines of her private life -- three marriages, real and rumored affairs, and professional triumphs countered by personal tragedies.

With her bobbed, blonde hair and flashing smile, Doris Day was portrayed as the girl next door – a virginal girl that you could take home to your parents. In real life, she was not quite the happy-go-lucky blonde with the bubbly personality promoted by Warner Brothers who simply wanted to market her as a commodity. Married young, to a violent bully, and with a child, Day had to work hard, touring with bands, to get her start in showbusiness. A reluctant star, all Doris Day wanted to do was settle down to a happy, simple life but somehow managed to always attract the wrong kind of men – thugs and crooks who took their anger out on her. And yet this didn’t stop her from enjoying sexual exploits with a number of leading men. She worked hard – not to become a success but for a job – and yet her manager managed to defraud her of millions. How could this happen to such a smart lady – perhaps she was too trusting? In this revealing biography, David Bret takes a fascinating look at the trials and tribulations behind what seemed to her adoring fans to be the perfect woman. From her German Jewish parents to her donation to an airlift of cats and dogs in Louisiana, as well as full discography and film lists, this is a captivating look at a resilient American icon. David Bret was born in Paris and is a leading celebrity biographer. His many acclaimed books include biographies of Marlene Dietrich, Gracie Fields, Freddie Mercury, Tallulah Bankhead, Maria Callas, Rudolph Valentino, Edith Piaf and Joan Crawford. He lives in Yorkshire.

Doris Day, once called an Actors Studio unto herself, was one of the twentieth century's greatest entertainers, with a career spanning 39 films, more than 150 television shows, and more than 500 recordings. This work covers the life and career of the singer and star of such films as Pillow Talk, The Man Who Knew Too Much and Calamity Jane. The work is divided into four sections, beginning with a biography of Day's life from her birth in Cincinnati, Ohio, through four marriages, near-bankruptcy, and her dedication to animal rights, and concluding with her contented present life. A filmography lists each film with full credits, synopsis and reviews, plus her popularity rankings and awards. The third section lists complete record album releases with notes, single record releases, unreleased songs and recordings, music awards and nominations, radio appearances from big bands to solo work, her seven million-sellers, and chart placements. The final section lists Day's television appearances, including synopses and credits for her five-season run with The Doris Day Show on CBS, the cable show Doris Day's Best Friends, and her appearances in variety specials, talk shows, and documentaries.

An in-depth and fascinating study of one of Hollywood's most popular icons - fully updated and including previously unreleased pictures. Doris Day is almost always portrayed as the sunny, squeaky-clean girl next door. This wholesome image kept her at the top for twenty-four years and thirty-nine films. But behind the effervescent, ever-cheerful image that Doris Day portrayed through dozens of classic Hollywood movies was an extraordinary story of private pain. Her dazzling smile hid a tormented personal life that included four marriages, and a terrifying accident that nearly ended her life. And yet for generations of movie-goers Doris Day remained the embodiment of innocent beauty and apple-pie homeliness, and even today she exerts a powerful fascination for millions of fans around the world.

Kaufman has written Doris Day's incredible, previously untold story. While Day symbolized virtuous America to the rest of the world, she was in many ways the opposite of her image as "the girl next door."

Doris Day was a major star during the 1950s and 60s. Even now, many years after her final film and years since her last regular television appearances, the star's name retains currency: she is often invoked as shorthand for a kind of sexuality now felt outmoded, with virginity firmly maintained until marriage. Although this assumption is widespread, close attention to the facts of Day's own life challenges it, and the majority of her film roles also prove otherwise, with Day most frequently portraying a woman of maturely sexual desires. Redressing a surprisingly meagre body of work on Doris Day, this book investigates why the rigid view of Day's maintained virginity should have arisen and become so fixed to the star, even now. Taking a twofold approach, Tamar Jeffers McDonald both closely examines Day's film roles and performances and explores material from other popular media for the source of the virgin myth. Day featured continuously in public discourse, and media stories were often devoted to her personal life: it was widely known that she had been married three times and had a son. Why then did the pejorative label, 'the-forty-year-old virgin', arise, and why has it stuck so tenaciously to Day until today? Investigating a range of sources in order to discover why this maturely sexual star has become indelibly associated with maintained virginity, Doris Day Confidential analyses in detail Day's characters and performances across her career. By focusing on contemporary popular culture contexts, using newspaper stories, articles from film, fan and lifestyle magazines, reviews and gossip, it charts the developments in Day's screen 'persona', highlighting the changing public perception of the star of Calamity Jane, Love Me Or Leave Me and Pillow Talk, as aided and abetted by the media.

The biggest female box office attraction in Hollywood history, Doris Day remains unequalled as the only entertainer who has ever triumphed in movies, radio, recordings, and a multi-year weekly television series. America's favorite girl next door may have projected a wholesome image that led Oscar Levant to quip "I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin," but in Considering Doris Day Tom Santopietro reveals Day's underappreciated and effortless acting and singing range that ran the gamut from musicals to comedy to drama and made Day nothing short of a worldwide icon. Covering the early Warner Brothers years through Day's triumphs working with artists as varied as Alfred Hitchcock and Bob Fosse, Santopietro's smart and funny book deconstructs the myth of Day as America's perennial virgin, and reveals why her work continues to resonate today, both onscreen as pioneering independent career woman role model, and off, as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian honor. Praised by James Cagney as "my idea of a great actor" and by James Garner as "the Fred Astaire of comedy," Doris Day became not just America's favorite girl, but the number one film star in the world. Yet after two weekly television series, including a triumphant five year run on CBS, she turned her back on show business forever. Examining why Day's worldwide success in movies overshadowed the brilliant series of concept recordings she made for Columbia Records in the '50s and '60s, Tom Santopietro uncovers the unexpected facets of Day's surprisingly sexy acting and singing style that led no less an observer than John Updike to state "She just glowed for me." Placing Day's work within the social context of America in the second half of the twentieth century, Considering Doris Day is the first book that grants Doris Day her rightful place as a singular American artist.

Doris Day, once called an Actors Studio unto herself, was one of the twentieth century’s greatest entertainers, with a career spanning 39 films, more than 150 television shows, and more than 500 recordings. This work covers the life and career of the singer and star of such films as Pillow Talk, The Man Who Knew Too Much and Calamity Jane. The work is divided into four sections, beginning with a biography of Day’s life from her birth in Cincinnati, Ohio, through four marriages, near-bankruptcy, and her dedication to animal rights, and concluding with her contented present life. A filmography lists each film with full credits, synopsis and reviews, plus her popularity rankings and awards. The third section lists complete record album releases with notes, single record releases, unreleased songs and recordings, music awards and nominations, radio appearances from big bands to solo work, her seven million-sellers, and chart placements. The final section lists Day’s television appearances, including synopses and credits for her five-season run with The Doris Day Show on CBS, the cable show Doris Day’s Best Friends, and her appearances in variety specials, talk shows, and documentaries.