American actress Doris Day appeared in 39 feature films released between 1948 and 1968. Day began her career as a band singer and eventually won the female lead in the Warner Bros. film Romance on the High Seas (1948), for which she was selected by Michael Curtiz to replace Betty Hutton. She starred in several minor musicals for Warner Bros., including Tea for Two (1950), Lullaby of Broadway (1951), April in Paris (1952), By the Light of the Silvery Moon (1953) and the hit musical Calamity Jane, in which she performed the Academy Award-winning song "Secret Love" (1953). She ended her contract with Warner Bros. after filming Young at Heart (1954) with Frank Sinatra.
Day's portrayal of singer Ruth Etting in Love Me or Leave Me (1955) with James Cagney was well received by critics and was a box-office hit. She also appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), Andrew L. Stone's Julie (1956) and George Abbott and Stanley Donen's The Pajama Game (1957).
Day appeared with Rock Hudson and Tony Randall in three films: Pillow Talk (1959), Lover Come Back (1961) and Send Me No Flowers (1964). She ranked No. 1 at the box office in 1960, and again from 1962 until 1964. Day starred in several other romantic comedies, including That Touch of Mink (1962) with Cary Grant, The Thrill of It All and Move Over, Darling (both 1963), both with James Garner. After the failure of Do Not Disturb in 1965, Day's film career began to decline. She last ranked as a top-ten box-office star in 1966 with the hit film The Glass Bottom Boat.
Her final films Caprice, The Ballad of Josie (both 1967), Where Were You When the Lights Went Out? and With Six You Get Eggroll (both 1968) were critical flops but achieved reasonable success at the box office. Day declined the role of Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, a role that eventually went to Anne Bancroft.[1] In her published memoirs, Day said that she had rejected the part on moral grounds, finding the script "vulgar and offensive."[2]
When her film career ended, Day turned to television with her situation comedy The Doris Day Show (1968 - 1973), which ran for five seasons and 128 episodes. She made several other television appearances throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Day, who was an animal lover, launched the series Doris Day's Best Friends (1985 - 1986), which ran for 26 episodes. She was an honoree at The 50th Annual Grammy Awards in 2008, and was last seen in archive footage in the 2009 documentary What a Difference a Day Made: Doris Day Superstar.
| Year | Title | Role | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1948 | Romance on the High Seas | Georgia Garrett | |
| 1949 | My Dream Is Yours | Martha Gibson | |
| 1949 | It's a Great Feeling | Judy Adams | |
| 1950 | Young Man with a Horn | Jo Jordan | |
| 1950 | Tea for Two | Nanette Carter | |
| 1950 | Jan Wilson | ||
| 1950 | Storm Warning | Lucy Rice | |
| 1951 | Lullaby of Broadway | Melinda Howard | |
| 1951 | On Moonlight Bay | Marjorie "Marjie" Winfield | |
| 1951 | I'll See You in My Dreams | Grace LeBoy Kahn | |
| 1951 | Starlift | Herself | |
| 1952 | Aimee Alexander | ||
| 1952 | April in Paris | Ethel "Dynamite" Jackson | |
| 1953 | By the Light of the Silvery Moon | Marjorie "Marjie" Winfield | |
| 1953 | Calamity Jane | Calamity Jane | |
| 1954 | Lucky Me | Candy Williams | |
| 1954 | Young at Heart | Laurie Tuttle | |
| 1955 | Love Me or Leave Me | Ruth Etting | |
| 1956 | Josephine Conway "Jo" McKenna | ||
| 1956 | Julie | Julie Benton | |
| 1957 | Katherine "Babe" Williams | ||
| 1958 | Teacher’s Pet | Erica Stone | |
| 1958 | Isolde Poole | ||
| 1959 | It Happened to Jane | Jane Osgood | |
| 1959 | Pillow Talk | Jan Morrow | |
| 1960 | Please Don't Eat the Daisies | Kate Robinson Mackay | |
| 1960 | Midnight Lace | Kit Preston | |
| 1961 | Lover Come Back | Carol Templeton | |
| 1962 | That Touch of Mink | Cathy Timberlake | |
| 1962 | Billy Rose's Jumbo | Kitty Wonder | |
| 1963 | Beverly Boyer | ||
| 1963 | Move Over, Darling | Ellen Wagstaff Arden | |
| 1964 | Send Me No Flowers | Judy Kimball | |
| 1965 | Do Not Disturb | Janet Harper | |
| 1966 | Jennifer Nelson | ||
| 1967 | Caprice | Patricia Foster | |
| 1967 | Josie Minick | ||
| 1968 | Where Were You When the Lights Went Out? | Margaret Garrison | |
| 1968 | With Six You Get Eggroll | Abby McClure |
