Doris Day

Doris Day (born April 3, 1922) is a legendary American veteran television, stage, and film actress and singer who is perhaps best known for her highly successful CBS-TV sitcom/variety series, the self-titled The Doris Day Show which ran for six seasons, from 1968 to 1974. She is also perhaps equally noted for her reclusion from the paparazzi and the public spotlight since then, as well as her devotion to animal rights.

Doris Day Early life and career

Doris was born Doris Mary Ann Von Kappelhoff to German Catholic parents. She had two brothers, Richard, who died before she was born and Paul, a few years older. Her father and mother split when she was about ten. At fourteen, she had a dance act with a boy called Jerry Doherty, with whom - after winning $500 in a talent contest - she went to Hollywood. On returning to Cincinnati, aged 16, she was in a terrible car crash which almost ended her dancing career. At 18, she discovered that she could sing and began touring with the Les Brown Band, where she met Al Jorden, who she later married. He turned out to be a violent and abusive husband and, soon after the birth of her son Terry in 1942, she initiated divorce proceedings. In 1946, after entertaining the troops for a couple of years, she met and married George Weidler but this liaison lasted only eight months. In 1948, she made her first film, Romance on the High Seas (1948). While filming for Warner Brothers, she met Martin Melcher, who became her agent and later, on her 29th birthday, her husband. In 1958, her brother Paul died and it was around this time that her husband started to make her sign to do films that she did not want to make. This eventually led to her becoming ill from nervous exhaustion. By the time he died in 1968, Doris was bankrupt and owed thousands of dollars - it turned out that he had squandered virtually all the money she had ever made - but she was eventually awarded $22 million by the courts. She married for the fourth time in 1976 and since her divorce in 1980 has devoted her life to domesticated animal protection.

Doris Day Her Autobiograhy

In 1975, Doris released her autobiography, Doris Day: Her Own Story, an "as-told-to" work with author A. E. Hotchner. The book detailed her first three marriages:

• To Al Jorden, Her only child, son Terry Melcher, was born from this marriage. Jorden, who was reportedly physically abusive to Day, committed suicide in 1967 by a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

• To George Weidler, from March 30, 1946 to May 31, 1949. Weidler, the brother of actress Virginia Weidler, and Day met again several years later. During a brief reconciliation, he helped her become involved in the Christian Science religion.

• To Melcher, whom she married on her birthday, April 3, 1951. This marriage lasted far longer than her first two. Melcher adopted Terry (thus renaming the boy Terry Melcher), and produced many of Day's movies. After her autobiography was published, Day married one last time.

• Her fourth and last marriage was to Barry Comden, who was roughly a decade younger than her, from April 14, 1976 until 1981. Comden was the only husband whose career was outside of show business. Comden was the maitre d' at one of Day's favorite restaurants. Knowing of her great love of dogs, Comden endeared himself to Day by giving her a bag of meat scraps and bones on her way out of the restaurant. When this marriage unraveled, Comden allegedly complained that Day cared more for her "animal friends" than she did for him. Comden died on May 25, 2009, aged 74.

Relationship with son Terry Melcher

Doris's only child, son Terry Melcher, who by the 1960's had developed a succesful career as a rock music producer, recorded numerousl projects with several successful rock bands, eventually becoming famous for producing some latter-day recordings by The Beach Boys and The Byrds. In November 2004, he died from complications of melanoma,aged 62. Terry had also briefly made some recordings with ex-con and one-time aspiring rock singer Charles Manson before quickly severing ties with the notorious accused murderer upon learning of the murders of actress Sharon Tate at 10050 Cielo Drive in the Loz Feliz section of Los Angeles, (which was the one time residence of he and former girlfriend, actress Candice Bergen) and well-known local grocery store chain owners Tony and Rosemary Lo Bianco, allegedly at the hands of Manson's followers, known as his "Family".

Terry, who reportely was frightened at the prospect of the Manson family's alleged attempts to acost and possibly kill him at the Los Feilz residence, eventually testified against Manson and the followers involved the murders at the trial in 1969. Terry had originally made a brief attempt to become a surf music singing star in his own right, becoming a staff producer for Columbia Records in the 1960s eventually becoming a sought after producer and composer. He and his mother collaborated on Doris's last major hit song, Move Over Darling which became a hit in the UK in 1964.

Doris Day Present life

Now devoted wholeheartely to animal rights, Doris, who largely retired from entertainment altogether in 1975 after her appearance on a CBS-TV special 'Doris Day To Day, currently resides in Carmel-By-The-Sea, California.'