Big box office ... Day with James Garner in Move Over, Darling. Photograph: Allstar/20th Century Fox/Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar

Successful musical films star, Doris Day, dies aged 97

Known as a successful actor, singer and welfare activist, Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, have incorporated 29 studio albums. She started her career with a recording of Sentimental Journey in 1945 as a vocalist for Les Brown and His Band of Renown. The track become famous and by 1946 she was the most generously compensated female artist in the world.

Day started her film career in 1948 on a musical comedy romance, High Seas. She then proved her specializing in musical comedy roles in My Dream is Yours, Tea for Two and I’ll See You in My Dreams. She played the major role of Calamity Jane in 1953; the movie was a big hit.

Day’s breakthrough role came opposite James Cagney in Love Me or Leave Me in which he played as Ruth Etting. She made this breakthrough after she built a career change, declining to renew her contract with Warner Bros. She then lined up with roles in many movies which lead her to an Oscar nomination for her role with Rock Hudson in a 1959 romantic comedy, Pillow Talk.

However, Day’s career started to go down as her lively style did not survive America’s mid-60s social change. She ended her career with her last film in 1968, With Six You Get Eggroll. She then moved to the small screen with The Doris Day Show, but with hesitance, it has to be ended as she found out that she owed large debts after her husband Marty Melcher passed away in 1968. The show’s last season was in 1973; after the show ran for five years, Day resigned and put her efforts into animal welfare activism by building a non-profit foundation, Doris Day Animal.

Many celebrities have poured their tributes for Day through social media. “One of my all-time favorite stars has joined the heavenly choir, rest in peace the great & inimitable Doris Day. The last star of the Hollywood Golden Age. We’ll bid you farewell by the Light of The Silvery Moon, but you will always be Young at Heart to us forever” tweeted Elaine Paige.

Sarah Jessica Parker shared her tribute on Instagram, writing “I love you. Millions did and do. Godspeed.”

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/may/13/calamity-jane-star-doris-day-dies-at-97