Former monthly contribution by late TCM host Robert Osborne for the Star of the Month programming in the TCM newsletter Now Playing in January 2003.
I can't imagine a better way to start the New Year than in the company of the lady who's our Star of the Month for January: Doris Day. Can you think of a sunnier, more positive or more optimistic person to usher in a new year that we hope will be sunnier, more positive and more optimistic than the one just past? Besides being a lady who has added brightness, zing and class to every movie she's ever been associated with, the girl born Doris Von Kappelhoff in Cincinnati back in 1924 is also one of those terrific talents who has never received anywhere near the back-patting she deserves. There's been no Oscar (and only one nomination, in 1959 for Pillow Talk), no Kennedy Center Tribute, no AFI Lifetime Achievement Award or salute from the Lincoln Center. What she has received, however, is something even better–the public's devotion; an adoration clearly demonstrated all those years she was voted by movie exhibitors and organizations like the Golden Globes as "the most popular actress in the entire business."
Something about Doris Day I've always found particularly fascinating is that despite the fact she's always presented such an uncomplicated, often carefree image, her life has been anything but, all of which she detailed with writer A.E. Hotchner in her 1976 autobiography called “Doris Day: Her Own Story.” It's been a life of struggle, tragedies, frustrations, vexations and strange twists of almost Greek-tragedy proportions. (There are even indications that her son Terry had been the intended victim in the infamous Charles Manson carnage in 1969; that's how dark some aspects of Doris' life have been.) But, she never let any of it take her away from what she always considered her main mission–delivering the goods on-screen like a pro.
This month we'll be showing a dozen of her most noteworthy movies, among them several musicals (of course!) including her first one, 1948's Romance on the High Seas and her last full-scale song show, 1962's Billy Rose's Jumbo. We'll also have a nifty sampling of what an accomplished comedienne she became, in her classic comedies such as the aforementioned Pillow Talk with Rock Hudson and 1962's That Touch of Mink with Cary Grant. We'll also be bringing you Doris, sans song, in the intense 1956 suspense thriller Julie, plus–the piece de resistance–1955's Love Me or Leave Me, the film where both the dramatic Doris and the one-of-a-kind musical star merged in the performance of a lifetime. (How she missed an Academy Award nomination that time out is one of the mysteries of the ages.) In between films, I'll also be talking about some of the other interesting aspects of her career and life; why she wouldn't play Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, and why she wasn't cast in two of the roles she seemed destined to play, South Pacific and The Sound of Music. We promise you some very interesting and happy (Days) ahead in January.
