America’s Sweetheart, the Girl Next Door,sex goddess hiding in plain sight—Doris Daywas a lot of things during her film and television career. Some are accurate; some are not so accurate. Day’s legendary career first began withRomance on the High Seasin 1948. Originally,Judy Garlandwas slated for the rolebut turned it down. After Garland’s original replacement was unable to take the part, the role went to Day. After that, the sky was the limit for the beautiful singer and actress. She’d go on to appear in musicals, sex comedies, and even as one ofAlfred Hitchcock’s many blondes inThe Man Who Knew Too Much. But 1968 was a transitional year for Day; it marked what would be her final film,With Six You Get Eggroll, and the beginning of a new venture:The Doris Day Show. While the feel of the show exuded a lighthearted air, the backstory of how it came to be is anything but sunny.
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How Did ‘The Doris Day Show’ Happen?
Martin Melcher, Day’s third husband and manager,squandered her $20 million fortunealong with her lawyerJerome Rosenthalthrough sham investments, shady deals, ill-fated venture capital projects, and bankrupt hotels. Day, all the while, was in the dark about what was happening tohermoney, and not only did he sink her life’s earnings, he put her $500,000 in debt. Men. Initially, Day was uninterested in a sitcom, but when reality hit her that her husband of 17 years had burnt through her millions, she didn’t really have a choice. Not only did she have to star in the series to stay afloat, but per her own autobiography,Doris Day: Her Own Story, Day’s husband signed her up to participate in the show without her awareness. She only learned about the show weeks before it was set to film. As Day famously sang, “Que sera, sera/whatever will be, will be.”
Life is change, and that ethos is exemplified in the five seasonsThe Doris Day Showran. In the first season of the show, Day, a widow, moves herself and her two sons away from the big city and to her father’s ranch in California. In life imitating art, or art imitating life — however you want to look at it — Day’s husband died in 1968. While she didn’t relate to the “Ms. Chastity Belt” persona the public viewed her through, Doris Daywasable to identify with her sitcom self, Doris Martin: a widow whose late husband left her with a lot to be responsible for.
‘The Doris Day Show’ Was Constantly Changing
The show’s freshman season was bucolic, depicting Day in the way that many people viewed her: the perfect woman. Staying true to Day’s love of dogs, there was a sheepdog in the series as well. Many of the first season’s storylines revolved around her sons and Day’s Doris Martin having to swoop in to solve whatever dilemma they were facing. But life on a ranch in rural California felt too small for someone whose star shined as brightly as Day’s. For the second season, Day found a life outside the ranch setting and began commuting to San Francisco because of a secretarial job at a fictional magazine,Today’s World. In the second season, Doris Martin’s world expanded beyond the bounds of motherhood and being a daughter, and the show incorporated new characters at her new job.
After enduring a constant commute between the ranch and San Francisco, for the third season, Doris Martin moved her boys and her sheepdog into an apartment in the city. The show was no longer the countryside feel-good it began as and instead evolved into following a woman who was doing it all, balancing parenting and career on her own and still wearing her beautiful smile. Doris' father Buck (Denver Pyle), though originally a main character, only appears in two episodes in the third season, and was written out after the show moved away from the ranch. By this point, the show had already let go of characters and replaced them with new people to fill the frame. Doris Martin, still working as a secretary, began to write articles for the magazine.
But it was thefourth season that changed everything, practically reinventing the entire show. Gone was the ranch, the family maid, Day’s fictional father… and even her sons? Yep. Starting with Season 4, Doris Martin’s sons, who initially played such large parts in the series, were no longer in the show. It was as if they vanished into thin air. The series didn’t even bother to coherently write off her two sons — in with Season 4, out with two boys — and never offered an answer for their vanishing. By this point, Day was the only remaining original cast member on what was now trulyThe Doris Day Show, with some former series regulars making occasional appearances. After five seasons ofThe Doris Day Show, however, Day decided not to renew her contract in 1973.
Doris Day Was Let Down by Many Men
In a sense, the series began with a version of Day we were familiar with — the Day who played mothers in films likePleaseDon’t Eat the DaisiesandThe Thrill of It All. And while Day was fantastic as a mother, she was at her best when she was a career woman who found herself the object of desire for Hollywood’s hottest leading men like inPillow Talk,Lover Come Back, andThat Touch of Mink. PerhapsThe Doris Day Showbecame cognizant of this and remade her into the type of woman she was most loved for. Day began the series being the mother of boys and the daughter of a man — her character’s mother wasn’t a part of the show, but as with her own life, it was usually just her.
Day had been let down by men so often before — her first husband, whom she married when she was only 19, abused her, while her second husband left her when he realized she was destined to be a star, and her third husband took up 17 years of her life and left her with $500,000 in the hole to show for it. Her fourth and final marriage also ended after five years. Even her longtime lawyer since 1949, Rosenthal, who was half of the duo that spent her fortune, let her down. Fortunately, Day was able to sue Rosenthal and won — though, according to Day’s son Terry, she never received all that she was entitled to. Rosenthal would go on tobe disbarred by the California Supreme Court in 1987, 19 years after his dispute with Day began, for his unethical dealings. This isn’t to say that all men disappointed her. One of Day’s dearest friendships was with fellow co-star and Hollywood heartthrobRock Hudson, whomade a historic appearanceon her variety show,Doris Day’s Best Friendsin 1985, being the first major celebrity to become a face of AIDS; though he was clearly sick, he wanted to keep his promise to her.
The Doris Day Showwas a defining point in the actress’s career; the beginning of the series markedthe end of her film careerand the end of the series marked Day stepping away from the entertainment industry. Day’s personal life at the end of the sitcom mirrored how her fictional life began onThe Doris Day Show; Day had been a career woman, and now she was ready to be out her own bucolic existence and did so in Carmel-by-the-sea, California on a seven-acre estate where she devoted the rest of her life to the welfare of animals.
Doris Day Refused to Be Underestimated
Many oversimplified Doris Day. To some, she was Ms. Prim and Proper, as Rizzo (Stockard Channing) sang inGrease, “Hey, I’m Doris Day/I was not brought up that way.” Some claim that shesymbolized patriarchal ideasfor the ideal womanhood of her time, but have they actually seen great portions of her work? Many of her movies pushed the limits during her time —Pillow Talk, one of Day’s most famous films, almost wasn’t made because the studio was worried that it was too risqué. She was often misinterpreted as being virginal when most of her characters weren’t objected to sex, just objected to strange bedfellows; the women she portrayed weren’t just going to give any man the best night of his life. The all-knowing look in her blue eyes let us in on the open secret that she was always the wiser.
While many have misconstrued notions of Day just being the all-American Girl Next Door, one thing is clear: she should never have been underestimated. Whether it was troublesome men or a narrow lens of how people viewed her, Day proved that she was a woman who would come out on top. Resilience, something Day embodied onscreen and offscreen, was evident in her character onThe Doris Day Show. Just like Doris Martin, Doris Day had to pick up the pieces, dust herself off, and make a way forward for herself.
