Showing posts with label Doris Day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Doris Day. Show all posts

Sunday, April 3, 2022

Doris Day

Artist: Doris Day
LP: By the Light of the Silvery Moon [10" EP]
Song: "Be My Little Baby Bumble Bee"
[ listen ]
Song: "King Chanticleer"
[ listen ]

Happy 100th Birthday to Doris Day! If you're like me, you always hoped someone would lure Doris out of retirement (her last movie was released in 1968) to star in one last comedy...or maybe even to star in one of those horror movies featuring a formerly-super-famous actress! (I bet Doris was good with an axe well into her 70s and 80s.) Anyway, it seems appropriate that Doris and her centennial birthday have brought me out of retirement here on the blog. 

This year I revived my tradition of bringing a Doris Day birthday cake to work...but now, working at USPS with 40 or 50 colleagues, I had to supply a much larger cake than I've ever had to before. Sadly, of those 40 or 50 at work, only about 5 of them had ever even HEARD of Doris Day before, with one colleague actually even able to reference something about not eating the daisies. But if someone has to drag these youngsters, many of them raised outside the USA, kicking and screaming into mid-20th-century America, then I'm happy to be assigned the role. 

In addition to the Doris Day shrine in the break-room, the cake was accompanied by a Doris Day playlist I'd put together on my phone the night before. I couldn't figure out how to photograph my phone with the playlist on the table by the cake, since I also needed my phone to take the photos. (I bet somebody younger and more tech-savvy could've shown me how to do it.) Anyway, in spite of nobody having heard of her, and in spite of somebody pausing my Doris Day playlist every time I left the break-room, the cake was a hit with the USPS crew and it was gone by the end of the day!

[ Doris Day: April 3, 1922 — May 13, 2019 ]

Saturday, April 3, 2021

Doris Day

Artist: Doris Day
LP: Love Me Or Leave Me
Song: "Stay On the Right Side, Sister"
[ listen ]
Song: "Love Me Or Leave Me"
[ listen ]

I loved Doris Day...but she left me anyway. If Doris hadn't died in the spring of 2019 (or anytime thereafter), she would be celebrating her 99th birthday today! Is anyone else taken aback by the fact that James Cagney's ham-fisted turn in "Love Me Or Leave Me" was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar in 1955, whereas Doris' moving and highly dramatic performance as singer Ruth Etting was ignored? It's preposterous! Happy Birthday, Doris Day. You deserve the gold.

[ Doris Day: April 3, 1922 — May 13, 2019 ]

Friday, April 3, 2020

Doris Day

Artist: Doris Day w/ Jack Smith
LP: 7" single
Song: "Cuddle Up a Little Closer"
[ listen ]

I think what Doris and Jack mean is that if you're like 9 or 10 feet away, cuddle up until you're only six feet away to create the greatest possible amount of intimacy while still maintaining adequate social distancing. Oy vey. A global pandemic. 

The only good thing about Doris Day passing away last May and not being around to turn 98 today is that, if she WERE still alive, I'd constantly be worrying that this goddamn virus was gonna' get her. She's too dignified for that. Happy Birthday, Doris Day. I miss you.

[ Doris Day: April 3, 1922 — May 13, 2019 ]

Saturday, May 25, 2019

Doris Day [1922-2019]

Artist: Doris Day
LP: Latin For Lovers
Song: "Be True to Me (Savor a Mi)"
[ listen ]
Song: "Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars (Corcovado)"
[ listen ]

I knew it would happen someday, and Doris had already been on Earth for 97 years, but some people live to be 113, right? I heard the sad news of Doris' death in the way I'd always I imagined I would. My radio alarm clock, set to NPR news, came on at 6:15am on Monday, May 13th, like any other day. After some other news I don't remember now, the morning host announced, "It's being reported that actress and singer Doris Day has died." My heart sank. I don't remember what came next, but later that morning, as I drove to work, I heard a more extensive biographical tribute to Day, one of my favorite ladies in the history of music, the movies, and the world.

It's a little strange to me that I became one of Doris Day's biggest fans. It all started about 20 years ago when I picked up a used paperback copy of her 1976 biography "Doris Day: Her Own Story" at a little junk shop in Raymond, WA on a road trip with my friend Marisa. I read the book, then began watching her movies, and started to look for her records and CDs. Her movies are not all excellent; some of her albums aren't all that great. But some of them are. And Doris is always superb. Her warmth, emotion, and an overall sense of enjoyment of life radiate from everything she does. 

My film recommendations would of course include hits like "Pillow Talk" (1959), "Love Me or Leave Me" (1955), "Send Me No Flowers" (1964), "It's a Great Feeling" (1949), Hitchcock's "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1956), and "Calamity Jane" (1953). But I'd also suggest lesser-known titles like "Romance On the High Seas" (her first, in 1948), "Storm Warning" (a small-town noir from 1951 in which Doris turns up at a KKK rally in the woods - no kidding!), the bizarre and entertaining "Billy Rose's Jumbo" (1962), and "Move Over, Darling" (1963). 

My favorite Doris Day LP is this one, "Latin For Lovers," recorded in November of 1964 and released in the spring of 1965. By this time, Day's voice had matured into beautifully aching, purring, liquidy, velvety bliss. She really is at her best here; her voice is simply gorgeous. It's really a shame that this record was one of her last.

For me the sky may have lost one of its brightest stars, but it certainly has been a pleasure spending so much time on Earth along with Doris Day. You can read all about her life and career here, and find her obituary in The New York Times here

Doris Day
[ April 3, 1922 — May 13, 2019 ]
Golly, how we will miss you, Doris.

Wednesday, April 3, 2019

Doris Day

Artist: Doris Day
LP: Bright and Shiny
Song: "Bright and Shiny"
[ listen ]

Happy 97th birthday to Doris Day! It's a great feeling to know that Doris Day still walks the earth (and the dogs) somewhere out there at the same time I do. Her music lifts me up, and these days I need it more than ever. I bought a birthday cake and took it to work. Everyone ate it, but only two people bothered to say thanks. Next year they have to name three Doris Day movies before they get a slice. You can find an exclusive birthday interview with Doris at The Hollywood Reporter here, and go here to read all about this delightfully lovely one-of-a-kind lady. 

 [ Doris Day at 97 — Happy Birthday, Doris! ]

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Doris Day

Artist: Doris Day
LP: 7" EP
Song: "I'm Gonna Ring the Bell Tonight"
[ listen ]

I'm kinda' sick today, but I still went to work. I'd picked up a cake at Fred Meyer that looked like one of the hats Doris Day might have worn in ROMANCE ON THE HIGH SEAS, and I wanted to share it with my co-workers today for Doris' 96th birthday! Even though half of them (in their 20s, you know) have only a vague idea of who Doris Day is. But they got pictures in their email inboxes today, you can rest assured. Anyhow, it was a white cake with lemon filling, small and round like this one, but it was done up with a sort of '50s green frosting with pink highlights, with a pink candy flower in the center. Why didn't I take a picture of it before it was devoured? I do not know. Life is full of regrets. Now I'm heading over to the sofa for a film festival.

[ Happy Birthday, Doris Day! ]

Monday, April 3, 2017

Doris Day

Artist: Doris Day
LP: Day Dreams
Song: "I Didn't Know What Time It Was"
[ listen ]

When Doris sings "I didn't know what year it was..." in the ballad posted above...well, that's actually based on a true story! I and lots of other people, including Doris herself, thought she was going to be celebrating her 93rd birthday today, but someone dug up her Ohio birth certificate and found out that she was born on April 3, 1922, and not in 1924! You can read about all that zaniness in the Los Angeles Times. So I guess that screws up the cake I brought to work for the 211 team today, but we all enjoyed it anyway. It's a white cake with a raspberry layer and lemon frosting, with colored sprinkles on the side.


Funny thing is, back in April of 2011 when I had some friends over for Doris' birthday and a home screening of ROMANCE ON THE HIGH SEAS, I'd gotten mixed up about what year she was born and bought a big "89" candle to stick on the cake. Only later in the week did I realize she had actually turned 87...but now it seems that my candles were right all along! 

In any case, however old she is, I hope Doris Day has had a wonderful birthday today. Such a lovely woman—her music, her movies, her dogs...I'll be having Day Dreams for the rest of my days.

[ Happy Birthday, Doris Day! ]