Doris Day, America’s pert, honey-voiced sweetheart of the 1950s and 1960s, beguiled audiences with her on-screen romances opposite top Hollywood leading men Cary Grant, Rock Hudson and Jack Lemmon.
She adored and misses them all, says the 88-year-old Day. But her deepest yearning is reserved for her late son Terry Melcher, a record producer whose touch and voice are part of “My Heart,” Day’s first album in nearly two decades.
“I loved doing it and having Terry with me. That was important, just for me,” she said in an interview from Carmel.
The album’s release last week coincides with new recognition for the actress and singer.
It was announced last week that her recording of “Que Sera, Sera” (“Whatever Will Be, Will Be”), featured in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1956 thriller “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” starring Day and Jimmy Stewart, will be included in the Grammy Hall of Fame.
In January, Day is to be honored with the Los Angeles Film Critics Association’s career achievement award.
And that career was storied. She once ruled the box office in a string of fluffy comedies, including “Pillow Talk” with Hudson (which earned her a best-actress nomination) and “That Touch of Mink” opposite Grant, movies that showcased her verve and fresh-faced sexiness. Her sweet vocals helped make hits of pop tunes including “Sentimental Journey” and Oscar winners “Que Sera, Sera” and “Secret Love.”
On-screen, Day often played the determined single career girl who could be swept off her feet (but never into premarital sex) by such irresistible suitors as Grant or three-time co-star Hudson. She was also the loving wife and mother in such movies as “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies” (1960), with David Niven.
Day came off as a straight shooter who didn’t let her beauty go to her head; she was no “Mad Men” toy. She could hold her ground without fraying the hem of her tone-perfect cinematic femininity, or her co-star’s masculinity.
She ventured into exceptions to her signature romantic comedies, most notably the Hitchcock thriller and “Love Me or Leave Me” from 1955, in which Day played jazz singer Ruth Etting in the story of Etting’s career and tempestuous marriage.
Studio system
Day said she had no quarrel with the studio system under which she worked, one in which her films were largely dictated.
“I was just put there, put there, put there. And I’ve never gotten over that. How could life be so good for me and I was never looking? I was never looking for it,” she said.
As for her personal life, she said, “There are always things that you go through that aren’t perfect.” For Day, that included three divorces and widowhood.
Her decision to leave Los Angeles and the industry behind was an impromptu one, Day said. She had regularly visited Carmel-By-The-Sea, decided it suited her and made the move up the California coast and away.
She devoted herself to promoting the well-being of animals with the Doris Day Animal Foundation, which she created in 1978 and which is the new album’s beneficiary. Her own pets, including some half-dozen cats, have it good: She built a glass-ceiling extension off her house so the felines can enjoy the view without the risks of going outside.
