Doris Day is dead.
Ann and I have been dreading this moment and no sense repeating all the
accolades that will be posted and written, all deserved.
But to me, a piece of me has died. The only way I can put
it is I loved her public persona. I felt the same way when John Updike passed away, one who occupied my reading life and made sense of the
changes in America, decade by decade. Can it be he has been gone ten years now?
Doris Day occupied my idealized fantasies of the girl next door during
the same period, fresh, wholesome, shorn of pretense. This is something that cannot be faked. She was radiant, buoyant, and whenever I
needed a pick me up, all I needed was to watch, yet again, one of her films as
her inherent goodness was infectious.
Her talent was peerless. I don’t think anyone in film could match her
for her ability to act, sing, and dance, especially in the comic realm. She was the whole package, and projected a
special kind of lovable personality.
One theatre/film critic, who will remain nameless, has criticized
her as being merely an average singer. Perhaps
her voice was not exceptional. Nor was
Sinatra’s. But there was that something
else that made their singing extraordinary.
Sinatra’s phrasing and ability to capture his audience as if he was
singing to you might be the best way to describe his gift. Doris’ was to project her golden personality
in song. Just listening to one of her
recordings, I see her radiant smile in my mind.
We’ve usually heard her with big bands but she would have
made it as a cabaret singer if movie land did not appropriate her for their own
in some 40 films. One of those was a biopic
where she played cabaret singer, Ruth Etting, with Jimmy Cagney, demonstrating
both her acting ability and cabaret style in “Love Me or Leave Me” (1955). Or one can hear her with pianist André Previn
on the 1962 album “Duet” and appreciate her gift for singing without the silver
screen prop, that sparkling personality still shining through.
In a world sorely in need of rectitude and hope another “companion”
of ours has passed, but at least we have her films and recordings to remind us
of what can be. RIP Doris Day.
