One of America's most prolific actresses was born Doris Mary Ann Von Kapplehoff on April 3, 1924, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her parents divorced while she was still a child and her mother gained custody. Like most little girls, Doris liked to dance. She would sometimes dance with friends and, sometimes, just by herself. She had dreamed of being a ballerina, but an automobile accident ended whatever hopes she had of dancing on stage. It was a terrible setback, but after taking singing lessons, she seemed to find a new vocation, and began singing with local local bands. It was while on one singing engagement that she met Al Jordan, whom she married in 1941. Jordan was prone to violence and they split after two years, not long after the birth of their son Terry Melcher, who later became a record producer. In 1946, Doris married George Weidler, but this union lasted less than a year. Day's agent talked her into taking a screen test at Warner Bros. The executives there liked what they saw and signed her to a contract (her early credits are often confused with that of another actress named Doris Day, who appeared mainly in B westerns in the 1930s and 1940s). Her first starring movie role was as "Georgia Garrett" in Romance on the High Seas (1948). The next year, she made two more films, My Dream Is Yours (1949) and It's a Great Feeling (1949). Audiences took to her beauty, terrific singing voice and bubbly personality, and she turned in fine performances in the movies she made for Warners (in addition to having several hit records). She made three films for the studio in 1950 and five more in 1951. In that year, she met and married Martin Melcher, who adopted her young son. In 1953, she starred in the title role in Calamity Jane (1953), which was a major hit, and several more followed: Lucky Me (1954), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) and what is probably her best-known film, Pillow Talk (1959). She began to slow down her filmmaking pace in the 1960s, even though she started out the decade in a hit, Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960).Her husband, who had also taken charge of her career, had made deals for her to star in films she didn't really care about, which led to a bout with exhaustion. The 1960s weren't to be a repeat of the previous busy decade. She didn't make as many as she had in that decade, but the ones she did make were successful: Do Not Disturb (1965), The Glass Bottom Boat (1966), Where Were You When the Lights Went Out? (1968) and With Six You Get Eggroll (1968). Her husband died in 1968, and Doris never made another film, but she had been signed to do her own TV series, "The Doris Day Show" (1968). That show, like her movies, was also successful, lasting until 1973. After her series went off the air, she made only occasional TV appearances. Today, at 80, she runs the Doris Day Animal League in Carmel, California, which advocates homes and proper care of household pets. What else would you expect of America's sweetheart?
Doris was born to German Catholic parents in 1924. She had two brothers, Richard, who died before she was born and Paul, a few years older. Her father and mother split when she was about eight. At twelve, she had a dance act with a boy called Jerry Doherty, with whom - after winning $500 in a talent contest - she went to Hollywood. On returning to Cincinnati, aged 14, she was in a terrible car crash which almost ended her dancing career. At 16, she discovered that she could sing and began touring with the Les Brown Band, where she met Al Jordan, who she later married. He turned out to be a violent and abusive husband and, soon after the birth of her son Terry in 1942, she initiated divorce proceedings. In 1946, after entertaining the troops for a couple of years, she met and married George Weidler but this liaison lasted only eight months. In 1948, she made her first film, Romance on the High Seas (1948). While filming for Warner Brothers, she met Martin Melcher, who became her agent and later, on her 27th birthday, her husband. In 1958, her brother Paul died and it was around this time that her husband started to make her sign to do films that she did not want to make. This eventually led to her becoming ill from nervous exhaustion. By the time he died in 1968, Doris was bankrupt and owed thousands of dollars - it turned out that he had squandered virtually all the money she had ever made - but she was eventually awarded $22 million by the courts. She married for the fourth time in 1976 and since her divorce in 1980 has devoted her life to animals.
