Happy 90th Birthday Doris Day!

Doris Day (born Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff; April 3, 1922)[1] is an American actress, singer, and animal rights activist.

Day began her career as a big band singer in 1939. Her popularity began to rise after her first hit recording, "Sentimental Journey", in 1945. After leaving Les Brown & His Band of Renown to try a solo career, she started her long-lasting partnership with Columbia Records, which would remain her only recording label. The contract lasted from 1947 to 1967, and included more than 650 recordings, making Day one of the most popular and acclaimed singers of the 20th century. In 1948, after being persuaded by Sammy Cahn, Jule Styne and her agent at the time, Al Levy, she auditioned for Michael Curtiz, which led to her being cast in the female lead role in Romance on the High Seas.

Over the course of her career, Day appeared in 39 films. She was ranked the biggest box-office star, the only woman on that list, for four years (1960, 1962, 1963 and 1964) ranking in the top 10 for ten years (1951–1952 and 1959–1966). She became the top-ranking female box-office star of all time and is currently ranked sixth among the top 10 box office performers (male and female), as of 2012. She received an Academy Award nomination for her performance in Pillow Talk, won three Henrietta Awards (World Film Favorite), received the Los Angeles Film Critics Association's Career Achievement Award and, in 1989, received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in motion pictures. Day made her last film in 1968.

Day has also released 31 albums, and her songs have spent a total of 460 weeks in the Top 40 charts. She has been awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and a Legend Award from the Society of Singers. In 2011, she released her 29th studio album, My Heart, which debuted at No. 9 on the UK Top 40 charts. As of January 2014, Day is the oldest living artist to score a UK Top 10 with an album featuring new material.

When third husband Martin Melcher died on April 20, 1968, a shocked Day discovered that Melcher and his business partner Jerome Bernard Rosenthal had squandered her earnings, leaving her deeply in debt. Rosenthal had been her attorney since 1949, when he represented her in her uncontested divorce action against her second husband, saxophonist George W. Weidler. In February 1969, Day filed suit against Rosenthal and won the then-largest civil judgment (over $20 million) in the state of California. (She later settled for about one-quarter of the amount originally awarded.)

Day also learned that Melcher had committed her to a television series, which became The Doris Day Show.

"It was awful", Day told OK! Magazine in 1996. "I was really, really not very well when Marty [Melcher] passed away, and the thought of going into TV was overpowering. But he'd signed me up for a series. And then my son Terry [Melcher] took me walking in Beverly Hills and explained that it wasn't nearly the end of it. I had also been signed up for a bunch of TV specials, all without anyone ever asking me."

Day hated the idea of doing television, but felt obliged to it. "There was a contract. I didn't know about it. I never wanted to do TV, but I gave it 100 percent anyway. That's the only way I know how to do it." The first episode of The Doris Day Show aired on September 24, 1968, and, from 1968 to 1973, employed "Que Sera, Sera" as its theme song. Day grudgingly persevered (she needed the work to help pay off her debts), but only after CBS ceded creative control to her and her son. The successful show enjoyed a five-year run (its second season finished in the Top 10 of the Nielsen ratings), and functioned as a curtain-raiser for The Carol Burnett Show. It is remembered today for its abrupt season-to-season changes in casting and premise. It was not widely syndicated as many of its contemporaries were, and was re-broadcast very little outside the United States, Australia and the UK. By the end of its run in 1973, public tastes had changed and her firmly established persona regarded as passé. She largely retired from acting after The Doris Day Show, but did complete two television specials, The Doris Mary Anne Kappelhoff Special (1971) and Doris Day to Day (1975). She appeared in a John Denver TV special in 1974.

In the 1985–86 season, Day hosted her own television talk show, Doris Day's Best Friends, on CBN. The network canceled the show after 26 episodes, despite the worldwide publicity it received.

Her strong commitment to animal welfare began in 1971, when she co-founded "Actors and Others for Animals". She started her own non-profit organization in the late 1970s, the Doris Day Animal Foundation and, later, the Doris Day Animal League. Establishing the annual observance Spay Day USA in 1994, The Doris Day Animal League now partners with the Humane Society of the United States and continues to be a leading advocacy organization. In 2004, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush in recognition of her distinguished service to the country.

Day has since retired from acting and performing, but has continued her work in animal rights causes and animal welfare. She currently lives in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.

 [1]NOTE: there is a highly contentious public disagreement over which year of birth is correct, 1922 or 1924. Day gave the latter year during her career and elsewhere; but census records and her official biographer cite the earlier year.