Doris Day

Doris Day (born Doris Mary Anne Kappelhoff; April 3, 1922 – May 13, 2019) was an American actress and singer. With an entertainment career that spanned 75 years, Day was one of the most popular and acclaimed female singers of the 1940s and 1950s, with a parallel career as a leading actress in Hollywood films, where she became one of the biggest box-office stars of the 1960s. She was known for her on-screen girl next door image and her distinctive singing voice.

Day began her career as a big band singer in 1937, achieving commercial success in 1945 with two No. 1 recordings, “Sentimental Journey” and “My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time” with Les Brown and His Band of Renown. She left Brown to embark on a solo career and recorded more than 650 songs from 1947 to 1967. Her recording of “Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)” became known as her signature song and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2011.

Day made her film debut with the musical Romance on the High Seas (1948). She played the title role in the musical Calamity Jane (1953) and starred in the thriller The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956). She co-starred with Rock Hudson in three successful comedies: Pillow Talk (1959), for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, Lover Come Back (1961) and Send Me No Flowers (1964). Day also worked with actor James Garner on both Move Over, Darling (1963) and The Thrill of It All (1963). After ending her film career in 1968, she starred in her own television sitcom The Doris Day Show (1968–1973).

In 1989, Day was awarded the Golden Globe and the Cecil B. DeMille Award for Lifetime Achievement in Motion Pictures. In 2004, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2008, she received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award as well as a Legend Award from the Society of Singers. In 2011, she was awarded the Los Angeles Film Critics Association's Career Achievement Award. As of 2020, Day was one of eight recording artists to have been the top box-office earner in the United States four times. Day was a prominent advocate for animal welfare and founded the advocacy group Doris Day Animal League (DDAL) and the non-profit organization Doris Day Pet Foundation, now the Doris Day Animal Foundation (DDAF).