Doris Mary Ann von Kappelhoff (a.k.a. “Doris Day) was born on April 3, 1924 in Evanston, Ohio. Although she later became a Christian Scientist, she was raised in a Catholic family. Her parents divorced when she was a child.
Growing up, Day took dancing lessons and participated in various talent contests, one of which earned her a Hollywood-based contract in 1936. The following year, Day’s leg was injured in a car accident and, with her mother's encouragement, turned her attention from dancing to singing. She took vocal lessons and began performing on local radio stations, attracting the attention of big band leader Barney Rapp. After enlisting her as a singer in his group, Rapp coined her stage name “Doris Day” following her performance of “Day After Day.”
After a brief stint with Rapp’s band, Day recorded and toured with other big bands led by Bing Crosby and Les Brown, in Chicago and New York, respectively. The success of the number-one single “Sentimental Journey,” which she recorded with Brown, helped kick off her career as a solo artist in the 1940s.
Day signed with Columbia Records in 1947, with whom she recorded some of her best-known songs, like “Que Sera, Sera” (which earned her an Oscar for singing it in the Alfred Hitchcock film The Man Who Knew Too Much) and “Love Somebody.”
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Day successfully balanced careers as both a singer and an actress. She co-starred alongside some of the most notable actors of the era, including Jimmy Stewart, Rock Hudson, Clark Gable and Cary Grant, and appeared in several classic films, like Pillow Talk.
She sought to break from the “good-girl” image fostered by her many roles in film, many of which Day undertook at the insistence of her third husband, Marty Melcher. After Melcher passed away in 1968, Day discovered that he had not only left her bankrupt, but had also signed her up for her own television show, “The Doris Day Show.” Although Day was not pleased with this surprise, she starred in the show in order to pay the debts left behind by Melcher. Thr show lasted for five years, signing off in 1973.
In 1985, Day returned to television, hosting her own talk show, “Doris Day’s Best Friends.” Two years later, she founded the Doris Day Animal League and the Doris Day Animal Foundation, and remains a devout animal rights activist to this day.
