Doris Day

Doris Day was born Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff on April 3, 1922 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her parents were Alma Sophia Welz and Wilhelm von Kappelhoff, a music teacher. She was named after silent movie actress Doris Kenyon, whom her mother admired.




Doris Day developed an early interest in dance, and in the mid-1930s formed a dance duo that performed locally in Cincinnati. A car accident on October 13, 1937 damaged her legs and curtailed her prospects as a professional dancer. While recovering, Doris Day took singing lessons, and at 17 she began performing locally.

While singing with the Les Brown band and briefly with Bob Hope, Doris Day toured extensively across the United States. Her popularity as a radio performer and vocalist, which included a second hit record My Dreams Are Getting Better All The Time, led directly to a career in films.

Doris Day made her film debut as Miss Georgia Garrett in Romance on the High Seas (1948).




The next twenty years she appeared in films such as Young Man with a Horn (1950),
Lullaby of Broadway (1951), Calamity Jane (1953), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956),
The Pajama Game (1957), Teacher's Pet (1958), Pillow Talk (1959), Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960), That Touch of Mink (1962), Send Me No Flowers (1964), The Glass Bottom Boat (1966), and With Six You Get Eggroll (1968).




From 1968 to 1973, Doris Day starred in her own television show The Doris Day Show.

After The Doris Day Show, she retired from the entertainment industry and devoted her time to animal rights.




Doris Day's interest in animal welfare and related issues apparently dates to her teen years when she was recovering from an automobile accident and took her dog Tiny for a walk without a leash. Tiny ran into the street and was killed by a passing car. Then tt was during the location filming of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), when she saw how camels, goats and other "animal extras" in a marketplace scene were being treated, that Doris Day began her lifelong commitment to preventing animal abuse.

Doris Day founded the Doris Day Animal League which was merged into The Humane Society of the United States in 2006. She also founded the annual Spay Day USA which is a one day spay/neuter event now managed by the Humane Society of the United States.




Doris Day was awarded The Presidential Medal of Freedom for improving conditions for animals throughout the US and beyond.

Doris Day was two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for Recording and one for Motion Pictures.

Doris Day was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
for: Pillow Talk (1959).

In 1989 she won the Cecil B. DeMille Award.

An accomplish singer and Grammy award winner, she has recorded over 650 songs. Doris Day is most known for her song "Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)", which she introduced in the 1956 film, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956).

Sentimental Journey and Secret Love were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Other notable songs of Doris Day include Love Somebody, It's Magic, A Guy is A Guy, Tea for Two, Young Man with a Horn, On Moonlight Bay, My Dreams Are Getting Better All The Time, Ain't We Got Fun, Autumn Leaves, and Imagination.




At the 50th Grammy Awards in 2008, she was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award.