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Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Doris Day
11distinguished individuals to receive Medal of Freedom at the White House
Doris Day
President George W. Bush will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor on Wednesday June 23, 2004, to Mormon Church President Gordon B. Hinckley, actress Doris Day, golfer Arnold Palmer, politician Edward Brooke, historian Vartan Gregorian, National Geographic Society Chairman Gilbert Grosvenor, cosmetics mogul Estee Lauder, actress Rita Moreno, ophthalmology researcher Arnall Patz, journalist Norman Podhoretz and economist and banker Walter Wriston the White House announced Friday.
They will join Pope John Paul II and journalist Robert Bartley as 2004 recipients.
President Truman established the award in 1945 to honor civilian contributions during World War II. It was reinstated by President Kennedy in 1963 to recognize distinguished peacetime service. The medal has been conferred on roughly 400 individuals since its introduction.
Bush will present the medals at a White House ceremony on Wednesday, although the president delivered the award to the pope during a visit to the Vatican earlier this month.
Honorees are recommended to the president by a Distinguished Civilian Service Awards Board. Past recipients include former presidents, astronauts, entertainers, scientists, religious leaders and victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Doris Day gets Presidential Medal of Freedom
Doris Day, who is being honored with a Presidential Medal of Freedom Wednesday in Washington, said her fear of flying will keep her from traveling to the capitol to accept it from President Bush. Day, who won an Oscar nomination for the 1959 romantic comedy Pillow Talk and made several gold records, blames her fear of flying on too many overseas trips with Bob Hope entertaining U.S. troops. "I saw him on his knees many a time, " she said. "In fact, we were all on our knees. We flew in snowstorms, whatever, to get to the next show. When I hit the ground, I said, 'Never again.'" The entertainer has also been recognized for founding the Doris Day Animal Foundation, which has sponsored annual Spay Days to reduce animal overpopulation. The Medal of Freedom distinguishes service in a range of fields, including the arts, sports, business and science.
Doris Day in 1989
Tuesday, June 22, 2004 · Last updated 4:15 p.m. PT
Doris Day fears flying, can't get to D.C.
By Bob Thomas
AP Writer
LOS ANGELES -- Doris Day is honored to be receiving a Presidential Medal of Freedom , but the entertainer's fear of flying will keep her from traveling to Washington Wednesday to accept it from President Bush.
"I am deeply grateful to the president and to my country," said the singer-actress, who turned 80 in April. "But I won't fly."
Day is one of 12 people being awarded the nation's highest civilian honor.
"My first reaction was, `For what?'" she said Tuesday by telephone from her home in Carmel Valley, south of San Francisco. "I'm not being coy, or looking for a laugh. I have never thought about awards, whatever I do."
Day won an Oscar nomination for "Pillow Talk" and made several gold records. She was named the No. 1 box office star four times. She also has been recognized for founding the Doris Day Animal Foundation, which, among other things, has sponsored 10 annual Spay Days to reduce animal overpopulation.
Day blames her fear of flying on too many overseas trips with Bob Hope entertaining U.S. troops.
"Bob would fly even if a cyclone was coming," she recalled. "I saw him on his knees many a time. In fact, we were all on our knees. We flew in snowstorms, whatever, to get to the next show. When I hit the ground, I said, `Never again.'"
The Medal of Freedom, established by President Truman in 1945 to recognize civilians for their World War II service, was reinstated by President Kennedy in 1963 to honor distinguished service in a range of fields, including the arts, sports, business and science.
Doris Day
Actress and singer, born Doris Mary Ann von Kappelhoff on April 3, 1924, in Cincinnati, Ohio. A brother, Richard, died before she was born. Another older brother, Paul, died in 1958.
Day was famous for her blond, fresh-faced, freckled, girl-next-door looks, which landed her numerous “good girl” roles in musicals and comedies in the 1950s and 1960s.Her parents divorced when she was a child, and Doris was raised by her mother. As a teenager, Day suffered injuries in an automobile accident and was hospitalized for a year, derailing an intended career as a ballet dancer. She turned to singing, and fronted the Bob Crosby and Les Brown bands in the 1940s.
Day appeared with Frank Sinatra on the Saturday Night Hit Parade in the late 1940s, and he and bandleader Artie Shaw encouraged Day to try acting as a career. In 1948 she got her start by substituting as a last minute replacement for Betty Hutton in Romance in the High Seas , the first of a series of films she did for Warner Bros. She starred in a rambunctious Calamity Jane (1953); and in Young at Heart (1954). In 1956, Day co-starred with Jimmy Stewart in Alfred Hitchcock’s remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much , which included one of her trademark songs, “Que, Sera, Sera. ”
In 1957 she appeared with John Raitt in The Pajama Game , one of the better stage-to-screen adaptations of a Broadway musical. Songs from the film included “Steam Heat,” “Hernando’s Hideaway” and “Hey, There.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, she was teamed with the leading men of the day, Cary Grant and Rock Hudson, in a series of popular bedroom farce comedies, including Pillow Talk (1959; for which she was nominated for an Academy Award), Lover Come Back (1962) and That Touch of Mink (1962). Other highlights of the 1960s included Please Don’t Eat the Daisies (1960), Billy Rose’s Jumbo (1962), Send Me No Flowers (1964) and The Glass Bottom Boat (1966). Her last film was With Six You Get Eggroll (1968).
In 1968 she embarked on a TV career, starring in The Doris Day Show , which ran until 1973. In 1976 she co-wrote her autobiography with A. E. Hotchner, entitled Doris Day: My Own Story . Day returned to TV in 1985-86 to star in a cable show, Doris Day and Friends .
Day’s sunny film persona belied a life behind the scenes that was filled with stress and unhappiness. Her first two marriages failed. The first marriage was at age 17 in 1941 to a volatile musician, Al Jorden, which lasted two years and produced a son, Terry, born in 1942. In 1946 she married and divorced George Weidler. Her 1951 marriage to third husband, Marty Melcher, appeared to be tranquil on the surface, but after he died in 1968, she discovered that, as her agent, he had mismanaged her finances as well as her career, leaving her bankrupt and without any prospects of work.
In 1974 she was awarded $22.8 million in a suit against her former lawyer and manager, Jerome B. Rosenthal, for malpractice in handling her affairs. She eventually settled for $6 million. Her fourth marriage, to Barry Comden, lasted from 1976 to 1981.
An activist in animal rights, Day currently runs the Doris Day Animal Foundation in Carmel, California, which advocates the proper care of pets. A&E
Que Sera, Sera Doris Day [Written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans] When I was just a little girl I asked my mother What will I be Will I be pretty Will I be rich Here's what she said to me Que sera, sera Whatever will be, will be The future's not ours to see Que sera, sera What will be, will be When I grew up and fell in love I asked my sweetheart What lies ahead Will we have rainbows Day after day Here's what my sweetheart said Que sera, sera Whatever will be, will be The future's not ours to see Que sera, sera What will be, will be Now I have Children of my own They ask their mother What will I be Will I be handsome Will I be rich I tell them tenderly Que sera, sera Whatever will be, will be The future's not ours to see Que sera, sera What will be, will be Que Sera, Sera
This song was written for Alfred Hitchcock's 1956 re-make Of his 1934 film "The Man Who Knew Too Much" Starring Doris Day & Jimmy Stewart
Doris Day [The Biography] by Eric Braun released April 1st 2004.
Doris Day’s Milestones
1948 Film acting debut in "Romance on the High Seas"; instantly became a star of light musicals under contract to Warner Bros.
1950 Played first dramatic role in a film in which she did no singing, "Storm Warning".
1951 Made a first appearance on the annual exhibitors' poll of top ten boxoffice stars; placed 9th; repeated again the following year, placing 7th.
1954 Left Warner Bros. after starring in "Lucky Me"; made only three movie musicals thereafter.
1959 First teaming with Rock Hudson, "Pillow Talk"; also marked her one Oscar nomination for Best Actress.
1959-1966 Made the annual exhibitors' poll of top ten boxoffice stars eight years in a row, more than any other female star since the start of the poll in 1932 except for Betty Grable (who made it ten years in a row from 1942-1951).
1962 Last full-fledged movie musical, "Billy Rose's Jumbo".
Topped the annual exhibitors' poll of top ten boxoffice stars three years in a row, a records among adult female stars (child star Shirley Temple was Number 1 for four years in a row 1935-1938).
1968 Last film, "With Six You Get Eggroll".
Played Doris Martin on the popular TV sitcom, "The Doris Day Show"; acted on show in order to pay legal fees to sue lawyer who mishandled her finances.
Became an vocal presence for pet adoption and pet's rights advocates.
1991 Subject of TV biographical documentary, "Doris Day: A Sentimental Journey".
1991 Sued supermarket tabloid, The Globe , for publishing that she was living like a "bag lady" who rummaged through trash cans to feed her dogs.
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Medal History
