ACTOR
Doris Day
- Known for
- Pillow Talk (1959), Lover Come Back (1961)
59 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
Doris Day is an actor best known for Pillow Talk and Lover Come Back.
- #001
- #002
- #003
- #004
- #005
She briefly dated Ronald Reagan, her co-star in Storm Warning (1950) and The Winning Team (1952), shortly after his divorce from Jane Wyman, while both she and Reagan were under contract at Warner Brothers. Day told him he was so good at speaking that he ought to give speeches across the country. At the time, the future Republican president was a Democrat.
- #006
When her husband and manager of 17 years, Martin Melcher, died suddenly in April 1968, she admitted she had not known that he had signed a multimillion-dollar deal with CBS to launch The Doris Day Show (1968) the following fall. After a brief period of mourning, she went ahead with the series, which ran successfully for five seasons.
- #007
- #008
- #009
- #010
- #011
- #012
- #013
According to her autobiography, she acquired the nickname Clara Bixby when Billy De Wolfe told her on the set of Tea for Two (1950) that she did not look like "Doris Day" but more like "Clara Bixby." The name remained her nickname among close old friends such as Van Johnson until her death.
- #014
- #015
Warner Bros. changed her birth date when it signed her in 1947. She was 25 in 1947, and the studio decided it wanted its new star prospect to be 23 instead. The Associated Press only found her birth certificate on April 3, 2017 (her 95th birthday, not her 93rd), and the document confirmed she was born in 1922. Doris Day, however, always knew when she was born, never lied to friends and colleagues about it, and was very outspoken on the subject. When the discrepancy finally came to light, it was her inept spokesperson who babbled about "not knowing."
- #016
In 1976 she married Barry Comden, who was 13 years younger than her. They met at the Beverly Hills Old World Restaurant, where he was head chef. In the 1970s Comden opened an Old World restaurant in Westwood and oversaw construction of another restaurant, Tony Roma's, in Palm Springs, CA. It was Comden who came up with the idea for a line of pet food bearing the Doris name. Doris Day Distributing Co. was dissolved, mainly because of a pyramid-type scheme of which the couple was unaware. They lived in Carmel, but Comden complained that Day preferred the company of her dogs to his, and they divorced in 1981.
- #017
Her fear of flying stemmed from tours with Bob Hope in the 1940s that involved some close calls in impassable winter conditions. She nearly turned down her role in Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) on the grounds that the film would be shot in London and Marrakesh. Her husband and manager, Martin Melcher, persuaded her to accept the offer.
- #018
- #019
- #020
- #021
While performing at a local radio station, bandleader Barney Rapp approached Doris Day and told her that the name Kappelhoff was too harsh and odd and that she should change it to something more pleasant. The name "Day" was suggested by Rapp from "Day by Day," one of the songs in her repertoire. She disliked the name at first, thinking it sounded too much like a burlesque performer.
- #022
- #023
Doris Day's husband and manager, Martin Melcher, turned down the role of Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate (1967), fearing it would damage her image. The role went to Anne Bancroft, earning her not only an Oscar nomination for Best Actress but also a place in one of the first films to gross over $100 million at the box office.
- #024
Doris Day's first marriage, at age 19, to trombonist Al Jordan, whom she met while both were performing with Barney Rapp's band, was deeply unhappy. They divorced within two years after reports that Jordan was an alcoholic and mistreated the young star. After the much-publicized divorce, Jordan, despondent and feeling his life had little meaning, later committed suicide.
- #025
In March 1989, Doris Day was scheduled to present the Best Original Score Oscar at the 61st Annual Academy Awards (1989) alongside Patrick Swayze and Marvin Hamlisch, but she could not attend after deeply cutting her leg. She cut her leg on a sprinkler while walking in the garden of the hotel she owned. The cut required stitches.
- #026
- #027
- #028
Doris Day's third husband, Martin Melcher, produced 18 of her films between 1956 and his death in 1968 and was also credited as executive producer on the first season of the CBS TV series The Doris Day Show (1968) (in reality, he died before the series began production). In her 1975 autobiography, she revealed that by the mid-1960s Melcher was signing her to films without first asking whether she actually wanted to make them. She disliked the scripts for Do Not Disturb (1965), The Ballad of Josie (1967), Caprice (1967) and Where Were You When the Lights Went Out? (1968), but had to make them because Melcher controlled her career. She also did not learn until after his death that he had signed her up for The Doris Day Show (1968).
- #029
When Quigley Publications ranked the top box-office draws of the 20th century, Doris Day emerged as the highest-rated actress, appearing in the Top Ten Stars list 10 times between 1951 and 1966 and placing at No. 1 four times. Other high-ranking women included Shirley Temple, Betty Grable and Elizabeth Taylor.
- #030
In 2000, Canadian satirist Rick Mercer launched an attempt to hold a national referendum on whether Stockwell Day should be forced to change his name to "Doris," as a political statement about the Canadian Alliance Party's platform. Within a few days he collected the number of signatures needed to trigger a federal referendum on the Alliance Party's existing platform. According to his publicist, Doris was pleased about it.
- #031
- #032
It is widely assumed that Doris Day's husband and manager, Martin Melcher, negotiated the multi-million-dollar deal for her CBS TV series The Doris Day Show (1968) because her days as a top box-office draw were "over" in 1968. In fact, Day was the 14th most popular film star of 1968 — far from her No. 1 status of the early 1960s, but still an impressive achievement.
- #033
- #034
- #035
- #036
- #037
- #038
- #039
- #040
- #041
Within two years of her 1948 screen debut, Doris Day appeared in Quigley Publications' ranking of Hollywood's top 25 box-office stars. For the rest of her film career (which lasted until 1968), she never fell outside the Top 25 and placed at No. 1 four times, making her the most successful film actress of the 20th century.
- #042
- #043
- #044
- #045
- #046
- #047
- #048
- #049
- #050
- #051
- #052
- #053
- #054
- #055
- #056
- #057
- #058
- #059