Doris Day
b. Doris Von Kappelhoff, 3 April 1922, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. One of popular music's premier post-war vocalists and biggest names, Kappelhoff originally trained as a dancer, before turning to singing at the age of 16. After changing her surname to Day, she became the featured singer with the Bob Crosby Band. A similarly successful period with the Les Brown Band saw her record her single for Columbia, Sentimental Journey, which sold in excess of a million copies. Already an accomplished businesswoman, it was rumoured that she held a substantial shareholding in her record company. After securing the female lead in the 1948 film, Romance On The High Sea, in which she introduced Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne's It's Magic, she enjoyed a stupendous movie career. Her striking looks, crystal clear singing voice and willingness to play tomboy heroines, as well as romantic figures, brought her a huge following. In common with other female singers of the period, she was occasionally teamed with the stars of the day and enjoyed collaborative hits with Frankie Laine (Sugarbush) and Johnnie Ray (Let's Walk That A-Way). She appeared in nearly 40 movies over two decades, which included IT'S A GREAT FEELING (1949), Young Man With A Horn (1950), TEA FOR TWO (1950), WEST POINT STORY (1950), LULLABY OF BROADWAY (1951), ON MOONLIGHT BAY (1951), STARLIFT (1951), I'LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS (1951), APRIL IN PARIS (1952), BY THE LIGHT OF THE SILVERY MOON (1953), Calamity Jane (1953), Young At Heart (1954), LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME (1955), THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1956), The Pajama Game, PILLOW TALK (1959) and JUMBO (1962). These films featured some of her most well known hits. Her finest performance undoubtedly occurred in the uproarious romantic western, Calamity Jane, which featured her enduringly vivacious versions of The Deadwood Stage and Black Hills Of Dakota. The movie also gave her a US/UK number 1 single with the yearningly sensual Secret Love (later a lesser hit for Kathy Kirby). Day enjoyed a further UK chart topper with the romantically uplifting Whatever Will Be Will Be (Que Sera, Sera). After a gap of nearly six years, she returned to the charts with the sexually inviting movie theme Move Over Darling, co-written by her producer son Terry Melcher. Her Hollywood career ended in the late '60s and thereafter she was known for her reclusiveness. After more than 20 years away from the public's gaze, she emerged into the limelight in 1993 for a charity screening of Calamity Jane in her home town of Carmel, California. History has made her an icon, whose fresh-faced looks, sensual innocence and strikingly pure vocal style effectively summed up an era of American music.