77Life storiesIt was 1932 and Cincinnati dance studio Hessler’s
announced it was giving away 25 free lessons to the
child who could stand on their hands the longest.
For dance-obsessed ten-year-old Doris Day, it was the prize
of a lifetime and she would do whatever it took to win.
‘For weeks, I was never on my feet. I went up and down stairs
on my hands. I got up in the morning on my hands and went to
bedthat way,’ she revealed years later. ‘I won the prize easily.’
It was this tenacity that saw Day survive a near-death
accidentto become one of the most successful actresses and
singers during Hollywood’s Golden Age, starring in 38 films
andrecording more than 650 songs. When she died in May
thisyear at the age of 97, the many obituaries written about her
servedto remind us what an icon she truly was, and also how,
afterretiring from acting, she became a leading animal rights
activist. ‘[She] inspired so much of what I do,’ wrote Stella
McCartney,who knew Day through her own family’s work
supportinganimal rights. ‘An iconic woman who I was hugely
honouredto meet and share precious moments with.’
She was born Doris Mary Kappelhoff on 3 April 1922
in Cincinnati. Early in her career, someone (possibly her
mother)shaved two years off her age. And it was only on
her 93rd birthday, when her birth certificate was unearthed,
that Day realised she was in fact turning 95. Her father,
William, was a music teacher and her mother, Alma,
a housewife. Day was ten when she discovered her dad was
havingan affair after he snuck the woman into the bedroom
nextto hers during a house party. ‘I pulled the pillow over my
headand burrowed my crying face into the sheet, but there
was no way to shut out the awful things I was hearing,’ Day
revealedin her 1975 self-titled memoir. Although she couldn’t
bearto tell her mother what she’d overheard, Alma soon
learnedof the affair and divorced her husband a year later.
By the time she was 14, Day was winning dance
competitions with a boy named Jerry Doherty, including
a citywide contest that earned them $500 [about £400]. They
spentthe money on a training programme at the celebrated
Fanchon and Marco studio in LA in 1936, and afterwards Alma
decided to move to California permanently for the sake of her
daughter’s career. However, on 13 October 1937 – the night
before their departure – Day, then 15, was in a friend’s car when
it was hit by a train on a level crossing. Day, the driver and
two other passengers survived, but were all seriously injured.
‘I probed my right leg and discovered I was bleeding,’ she said.
‘Then my fingers came to the sharp ends of shattered bones
protruding. I kept saying, “How will I dance?” Then I fainted.’
When she regained consciousness, doctors told her it would
be an uphill battle to walk again, let alone dance, so the move
to LA was cancelled and her mother took a job as a cook at a
restaurant. While recuperating from numerous operations,
Day would sit in the restaurant and sing along to the jukebox.
TheHollywood sweetheart with a turbulentlove life off screen gave up acting to become ananimal rights activist. Following her recentdeath at 97,Michelle Davies looks back at her lifeRealisingher daughter had a talent for singing, too, Alma paid
for lessons and Day soon landed a regular slot on the radio.
In 1939, then 17 and fully recovered, she joined a local big
band and changed her surname to Day, after the first song
she ever performed live,Day After Day. Two years later, on
a recommendation by Bing Crosby’s brother Bob, she joined
one of America’s most successful big bands, the Les Brown
band. With them she recorded her first single,Sentimental
Journey, which became a worldwide hit – and her first
American number one – in 1945 after it was adopted as an
anthem by troops returning home at the end of World War II.
It was after joining the band that Day met her first husband,
trombonist Al Jorden. She was 18 and he was 23, and their boss,
Les Brown, warned her off marrying him. He rated him as
a musician, but didn’t like his personality, as Jorden was prone
to jealous outbursts. It was the day after their wedding, in
March 1941, that Day realised Brown had been right after
Jorden reacted furiously to a wedding present she was given by
a colleague. ‘The minute we walked into our apartment, he
spun me round and hit me in the face,’ she said. ‘I put my
hands up to protect myself, but he hit me again and again.’
Jorden abused Day throughout the marriage, and when she
fell pregnant in 1941 he tried to force her to have an abortion.
Once their son Terry was born on 8 February 1942, she kicked
Jorden out and filed for divorce. Within eight months of the
marriage ending in February 1943, Day fell in love with
saxophonist George Weidler. They married in March 1946,
but he walked out after only eight months because he couldn’t
handle being second billing in the relationship.
In 1948, with six more top-ten hits under her belt after
Sentimental Journey, Day was offered the lead role in the film
Romance On The High Seas.For someone who had little self-
confidence in her looks, seeing herself on screen was
excruciating. ‘Acting in films had never so much as crossed
my mind. I was a singer,’ she said. ‘There I was, a pancaked,Clockwisefrom left: at a
Hollywood pool in 1950;
with Les Brown, whose
band she joined in 1941;
Day and her mother, Alma.
Far left: photographed
in the mid-50s