Laraine Day, 87, the actress best remembered on-screen as Lew Ayres’ fiancée in a series of 1940s Dr. Kildare movies, died Saturday at the home of her daughter in Ivins, Utah, according to publicist Dale Olson. Day had moved to Utah in March after the death of her husband of 47 years, producer Michel Grilikhes.
The actress made more than four dozen films from the late 1930s to 1960 working opposite such luminaries as Ayres, Cary Grant, Robert Mitchum, Lana Turner, John Wayne, Spencer Tracy, Joel McCrea and Kirk Douglas.
In addition to the Kildare series, she demonstrated solid acting ability in such films as Alfred Hitchcock’s noir “Foreign Correspondent” and her personal favorites, the 1943 “Mr. Lucky” with Grant and the 1946 psychological drama “The Locket” with Mitchum.
Yet she failed to become a Hollywood superstar. Studio executives pigeonholed the dark-haired actress as “attractive ordinary” and seldom paired her with top directors who could have boosted her career.
“Let someone else be the world’s greatest actress,” she said with characteristic geniality in 1953. “I’ll be the world’s greatest baseball fan.”
The actress’ affinity with baseball occurred because of her second marriage to Leo Durocher, the legendary manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers (1939-46, 1948), New York Giants (1948-55), Chicago Cubs (1966-72) and Houston Astros (1972-73).
Although they divorced in 1960, the couple remained friends until his death in 1991.
Born La Raine Johnson on Oct. 13, 1920, into a devout Mormon family in Roosevelt, Utah, she moved to Long Beach, Calif., with her family as a child. Determined to become an actress since she saw her first movie at age 6, she studied with the drama teacher Elias Day and signed her first contract with RKO. At RKO, she starred opposite George O’Brien in a series of Westerns under her birth name but would eventually take Day’s name in gratitude for his help.
Her career took off when she became nurse Mary Lamont in the Dr. Kildare series from 1939 to 1941.
Fulgencio Ruben Batista, 73, who shared the name of his father, the former Cuban dictator, died Wednesday at his home in Coral Gables, Fla., his brother, Robert, said. He had suffered from leukemia and lymphoma.
In 1959, dictator Fulgencio Batista was pushed out of power by Fidel Castro’s rebels and left Havana on Jan. 1, 1959. The dictator fled first to the Dominican Republic, then Portugal, and finally Spain, where he died in 1973. The dictator’s eldest son was in his mid-20s when he left the island.
