DORIS DAY: 1922 - 2019

Doris Day, the winsome, wholesome embodiment of a certain kind of leading lady Hollywood cultivated during its golden age, left us yesterday via complications from pneumonia at the age of 97. And while the sun today is as bright as ever, heralding the promise of another gorgeous spring morn, the sensation of waking up in a world without Doris Day has made for a contradiction in terms of what constitutes the perfect ‘day’. In life, the always positive/forever proactive, and supremely gentle soul that was Doris Day – born Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff, would have found something joyous and lovely even in this. And I have no doubt her soul is presently sailing over the windy clouds, fast approaching her blue heaven; the gates thrown open as she warbles to the seraphim her champion’s call for a ‘new day’ dawning beyond the moon and behind the rain.

It goes without saying that Doris Day, who in later years withdrew – mostly – from the public spotlight to pursue her private passion for animal rescue, but still found the time to graciously appear on a local radio talk show in celebration of her birthday – was a recording artist par excellence. That uncannily crystal-clear voice was a huge hit in the era of the big bands. So, naturally Hollywood came to call. And Day, who was as stunningly attractive as she proved a powerhouse singer, was a natural for the movies; her fresh-faced innocence gradually morphing into a sort of antiseptic regal elegance. It, of course, immensely helped she was a product of the studio system in that age of glamour when leading ladies were expected to achieve a sort of manufactured ornamental and statuesque beauty. But it is absolute sacrilege Day never won an Academy Award – not even nominated for her stellar worth in Love Me or Leave Me (1955), or, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956).

She did receive the nomination for Pillow Talk (1959), the first of three films to costar her with Hollywood he-man, Rock Hudson. If Day, on film, typified a type of untainted romance, not without its minor complications, and married life, as seemingly effortless and brimming in immeasurable pleasures, but with a little sex thrown in, always to end in a cascade of renewable hearts and flowers – in life, alas, this proved a tougher nut to crack, and quite a different story. She endured four husbands; men of questionable integrity; particularly, #3, Martin Melcher, a song plugger, whose ambitions shifted from managing his wife’s career, to utterly squandering her hard-earned wealth (to the point of personal bankruptcy) and even committing her to a television contract without her consent – or knowledge – before dropping dead from an enlarged heart. Undaunted, and with the formidable aid of their enterprising adult son, The Doris Day Show managed to pull back its star from the brink of absolute financial ruin. Yet, even in this, the breezy, bright and sunny Day showed no signs of bitterness or regret – her dignity, to have shone most intensely when the chips were down.

Doris Day is gone now, and with her, an inimitable, serene decency that best exemplified her genteel and unassuming greatness, taking her triumphs and lumps in tandem and in stride as par for the course of living a life well-worn, though never ‘care-worn’; even more justly deserved because she remained genuinely untouched and pure of heart through both the halcyon afterglow and the storm clouds of success. Great ladies are very hard to come by. Each year, the pantheon loses another of its alumni from this bygone era. And while Day could hardly be considered a crusader of second-wave feminism, and its post-feminist fallout (indeed, her whole life’s ambition was in search of personal happiness and contentment in the arms of just one man), what Doris Day will forever represent to the world is a kind of ageless wonderment that continues to take us all through a sentimental journey, burrowing deep into our own secret love for her, each time we spin one of her records or tune in for another revival of her movies. Her inescapable joie de vivre, luminescent and lovely, radiating pure happiness from the screen or in song – mostly for sentimental reasons – remains an elixir to the world-weary. And as she leaves the world behind her now, Doris Day will never truly be forgotten or, in fact, beyond our reach as that beacon of perennially youthful and unabashed optimism. We bid her every success in her new life in heaven. And why not? She brought a little of its gladness, opening the porthole for we mere mortals each and every day God shared her with us. From heaven’s door then, and back down to earth once more – Doris Day, God bless you. You’re magic.