Doris Day "Que Sera, Sera"

If it's true that men are such beasts,

this must account for the fact that most women are animal lovers.

Doris Day

Doris Dayborn Doris Mary Ann KappelhoffApril 3, 1922 – May 13, 2019

Doris Day died on today after contracting pneumonia. Her death was announced by her charity, the Doris Day Animal Foundation.

Everything that Doris Day ever did eventually wound up on television but I wanted to focus on her TV show.

When her 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. Day filed suit against Rosenthal in February 1969, won a successful decision in 1974, but did not receive compensation until a settlement in 1979.

Day also learned to her displeasure 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 performing on television, but felt obligated to do it. The first episode of The Doris Day Showaired on September 24, 1968, and, from 1968 to 1973, employed "Que Sera, Sera" as its theme song. Day 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, and functioned as a curtain raiser for the popular Carol Burnett Show. It is remembered today for its abrupt season-to-season changes in casting and premise.

Season 1 (1968–1969)

Day portrays Doris Martin, a widowed mother of young sons Billy and Toby (Philip Brown and Todd Starke). When the series premieres, she has brought her boys home to her father's rural ranch in Cotina in Mill Valley, north of San Francisco, California, after living in New York City for most of her adult life.

Other characters during this initial phase of the program include Doris's father Buck Webb (Denver Pyle) and their naive hired ranch hand, LeRoy B. Simpson (James Hampton). Their housekeeper initially is Aggie Thompson (Fran Ryan, who left after the first 10 episodes to replace Barbara Pepper as Doris Ziffel in Green Acres). The character left without explanation and was replaced by Juanita (Naomi Stevens). Lord Nelson is also included in the opening credits cast as Lord Nelson, the family's sheepdog.

Season 2 (1969–1970)

Doris begins to commute from the ranch to San Francisco, where she starts working as an executive secretary at Today's World magazine. New workplace characters are added: McLean Stevenson (who would later leave the series to star in M*A*S*H) plays her boss, Today's World editor Michael Nicholson, who is often referred to as 'Nick' by the other magazine executives; Rose Marie plays Doris' friend Myrna Gibbons, a fellow secretary at the magazine; Paul Smith portrays Ron Harvey, the magazine's assistant-editor and Myrna's boss. Pyle, Brown, and Starke remain regular cast members, while Hampton appears in only one episode, his character now married and owning a gas station in Mill Valley. Lord Nelson still appears uncredited as the family sheepdog in most episodes this season. There is no longer any housekeeper at the ranch, and no ranch hand was hired to replace Leroy. 

Season 3 (1970–1971)

Doris tires of the commute between her work and the ranch and relocates herself, the boys, and the dog to San Francisco, where they rent an apartment above an Italian restaurant owned and operated by married couple Louie and Angie Pallucci (Bernie Kopell and Kaye Ballard). At first Louie is angry with Angie for renting the apartment to a widow with children and a large pet, but he eventually cherishes their new tenants after Billy and Toby praise his pizza. Angie also becomes one of Doris's best friends. Doris begins writing articles for the magazine under the auspices of Mr. Harvey, the assistant editor, but is still mainly a secretary. All of the regular characters from the previous season remain, with the exception of Pyle's Buck, who appears in only two episodes; no episodes from Season 3 onward take place on his ranch. (Pyle, however, remains on the show's staff behind the scenes, serving as a frequent episode director.) Hampton's character LeRoy appears in only one episode; he now lives in Montana and travels the rodeo circuit to raise the money to buy his own ranch. In this season Doris' nemesis, Willard Jarvis (Billy De Wolfe), moves in next door, causing trouble for her and her family in a few episodes. Lord Nelson again is not included in the opening credits cast list, but appears uncredited in a handful of episodes this season.

Seasons 4–5 (1971–1973)

The fourth season sees a radical change in the series. Day's character suddenly becomes a swinging single career woman who goes by Miss instead of Mrs.). The entire cast from previous seasons, other than Day herself, and occasionally the Palluccis, are gone; even Doris Martin's two sons are no longer in the cast, with no explanation given, and are never referred to again. Doris Martin, still working for Today's World, now has a new editor, Cy Bennett, played by character actor John Dehner, and she is now a full-time staff writer, and later an associate editor. Jackie Josephjoins the cast as Doris' friend and Cy's secretary at the magazine, Jackie Parker. Doris lives in the same apartment and the Palluccis, Angie in particular, are still on hand in the fourth season. In season 5, there is no mention of the Palluccis owning the building; the estate of the owner, an elderly man named Mr. Carter, sells the building after Carter's passing to Doris's sometimes-nemesis, Mr. Jarvis, which initially alarms Doris, but she and the other tenants eventually accept him. In Season 4, Doris begins a romance with Dr. Peter Lawrence (Peter Lawford), which lasts until late into Season 5. That relationship is followed by one with old boyfriend Jonathan Rusk (Patrick O'Neal). The series continued with this format until it was canceled in 1973.

By the end of its run in 1973, public tastes had changed and her firmly established persona was 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 Today (1975). She appeared on the John Denver TV show 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. Much of that came from her interview with Rock Hudson, in which a visibly ill Hudson was showing the first public symptoms of AIDS; Hudson would die from the syndrome a year later.

Good Night Ms. Day

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa