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97. Remarkable age.
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Posted: |
May 13, 2019 - 11:35 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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The 1948 musical comedy ROMANCE ON THE HIGH SEAS marked popular band singer Doris Day's film debut and the beginning of her successful career at Warner Bros., to which she was under contract until the mid-1950s. Day’s role of "Georgia Garrett" was originally intended for Judy Garland, but negotiations with MGM fell through. The part was also offered to Betty Hutton, who subsequently became pregnant.
According to her 1975 autobiography, Doris Day: Her Own Story (co-written with A.E. Hotchner), Miss Day attended a Hollywood party the night before she planned to leave for New York City. Also at the gathering was lyric writer Sammy Cahn who, taking Doris aside, explained that she would be the right match for the Cahn-Jule Styne score of this upcoming film. When, at Mr. Cahn's urging, Doris sang "Embraceable You" for the party crowd, she was heard by director Michael Curtiz, who then asked her to test for the role of "Georgia Garrett."
Day recalled that during her screen-test song, "A Rainy Night in Rio" (music by Arthur Schwartz, lyrics by Leo Robin), Michael Curtiz at first instructed her to move around in the frenzied film style of Betty Hutton. Doris then requested to perform the number in her natural, more sedate manner.
This was Doris Day's first acting role, and she was extremely naive about how movies were made. She wrote in her autobiography that the first scenes to be filmed would be aboard the cruise ship, and on the first day, she walked onto the sound stage and asked when they would be leaving for the boat. The crew broke up laughing. Even so, some sequences for the film were shot in Cartagena, Columbia, and in Rio de Janeiro and Bahia, Brazil.
When she saw herself in "dailies" early in the film's production, Day claims she was so embarrassed by her own performance she asked Michael Curtiz to recommend a drama coach. "No, no!" Curtiz replied, "You're a natural just as you are - if you learn how to act, you'll ruin everything."
Doris Day and Jack Carson in ROMANCE ON THE HIGH SEAS. Day and Carson, who met while making this film, had a brief romance.
In its review of the film, Variety said: "A charming and talented newcomer...Miss Day is a winner, any way you look at her!" Although she had 4th billing in this film, audience reaction to Doris Day was so strong and immediate that Warners signed her to a 7-year contract, during which she appeared in dozens of films and became a Top Ten Box Office star.
Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn's song "It's Magic" was nominated for an Oscar. That song and 5 other Day tunes from the film were released on the 1998 Rhino compilation CD “Doris Day - It's Magic: Her Early Years At Warner Bros.”
It was because of his supporting role in this film that Oscar Levant was to later concoct one of his best-remembered witticisms, "I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin!"
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Posted: |
May 13, 2019 - 1:38 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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Jack Carson and Doris Day co-starred in 1949’s MY DREAM IS YOURS. Carson plays “Doug Blake,” an agent who loses his main client, a radio singer (Lee Bowman). In New York, Doug searches everywhere for a replacement act and is about to give up when he hears “Martha Gibson” (Day), a turntable operator for a jukebox service. For singing to Doug, rather than playing a record, Martha loses her job, and so misses Doug when he hurries to the station to sign her.
Certain elements of the Doris Day character's "back story" were "lifted" from Day's off-screen life at the time. Day had been a popular radio singer and recording artist. The subplot of her heartbreak at being separated from her young son in this film also reflected Day's true life experience: While pursuing her career as a big band singer, Day had to park her son Terry with his grandmother and rarely saw her child face-to-face. One of her first decisions after signing a contract with Warners was to move both her son and mother to Burbank and establish a "real home" for her family.
Michael Curtiz directed the film. In a 1995 BBC television documentary, director Martin Scorsese discussed MY DREAM IS YOURS at length, and noted that its central story of a relationship that breaks up because of two competitive show business careers greatly influenced his 1977 film NEW YORK, NEW YORK.
The novelty song "Tic, Tic, Tic" that Doris Day's character sings for her first audition was written to take advantage of the publicity surrounding the atomic clock which had just been invented. That song and 4 other Day tunes from the film were released on the 1998 Rhino compilation CD “Doris Day - It's Magic: Her Early Years At Warner Bros.” The film grossed $5.5 million at the box office.
Doris Day and Jack Carson in MY DREAM IS YOURS
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Strangely enough, my mom was asking me if she was still alive yesterday upon hearing her name mentioned in the song "We Didn't Star the Fire" on our way home from seeing Tolkien. Talk about a creepy coincidence.
Still sad to hear of her passing, though.
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Posted: |
May 13, 2019 - 2:09 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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Jack Carson and Dennis Morgan (and more than a dozen other Warner Bros. stars) play themselves in IT’S A GREAT FEELING. The backstage film was the story of a waitress (Doris Day) at the Warner Bros. commissary who is anxious to break into pictures. She thinks her big break may have arrived when two actors (Carson and Morgan) agree to help her.
Day didn’t consider this as much of a picture, but she was enjoying the role of movie actress and it came naturally to her. She also liked the regular hours of the studio, compared to the late night hours she had spent on the bandstand for several years.
IT’S A GREAT FEELING was Day's third film with Jack Carson, and her first in which she received billing above his.
On working with him, Day wrote in her autobiography:
“He helped me enormously with my technical indoctrination into movie acting. He taught me dozens of tricks about how to move to precise camera marks without actually looking for them, how to handle myself in close-ups so that my face or profile rather than the back of my head would be in a shot, how to sustain the evenness of a performed scene. ... Since we were also going together, we'd often discuss some of these things in the evening, and there's no doubt that my relationship with Jack helped me considerably in my early going”
David Butler directed this 1949 film. Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn's song "It's a Great Feeling" was nominated for an Academy Award. That song and 3 other Day tunes from the film were released on the 1998 Rhino compilation CD “Doris Day - It's Magic: Her Early Years At Warner Bros.” Reflecting Day’s increasing popularity, the film grossed $5.7 million at the domestic box office.
Doris Day in IT’S A GREAT FEELING
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Posted: |
May 13, 2019 - 2:33 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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In 1950’s YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN, Kirk Douglas played a legendary trumpet player named “Rick Martin,” a role loosely based on the life of cornet player Bix Beiderbecke, a renowned jazz musician of the 1920s and 1930s. Doris Day plays a singer and Martin’s friend, “Jo Jordan.”
Day wrote that she was unhappy making this film, which brought back stressful memories of her early career as a band singer, and also because Kirk Douglas and other co-star Lauren Bacall (having dated at one time in real life) seemed to intentionally shut her out, making her feel unwelcome.
The three main actors all proved to be remarkably long-lived. All were around to celebrate the 64th anniversary of the movie's release. Lauren Bacall passed away in 2014 at the age of 89. Both Kirk Douglas and Doris Day were around for the film's 69th anniversary. Day passed in 2019 at the age of 97. As of May 2019, Douglas is the sole survivor at age 102.
Doris Day, Kirk Douglas, and Lauren Bacall in YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN
Even while married to pinup-girl Betty Grable, Harry James (musical adviser and behind-the-scenes trumpet player for Douglas) was notorious for his womanizing. Peter Levinson, in his biography of James (Trumpet Blues) notes that during the filming of this movie, James contacted Doris Day's manager to ask what he thought were James' chances of "nailing" Day.
While making this film, Kirk Douglas tried to warn Doris Day about taking financial advice from her then manager Martin Melcher. Douglas had gotten burned by Melcher, and thought Day was naive to be so trusting of him. Not only did Day ignore Douglas' advice, she later married Melcher and, after his death in 1968, discovered that he had squandered the fortune she had earned during her 20-year film career, and left her seriously in debt to the IRS.
Michael Curtiz directed the film, his third with Day. All of the jazz and pop standards on the soundtrack were conducted by Ray Heindorf. Thirteen tracks from the soundtrack were released on a Columbia/Legacy CD in 1999. YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN grossed $4.7 million at the U.S. box office.
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Posted: |
May 13, 2019 - 5:00 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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Doris Day had her first non-singing dramatic role in 1951’s STORM WARNING. The film proved to be the final Warner Bros. film for two long-time studio stars. Lauren Bacall was suspended by Warner Bros. after she refused the role of "Marsha.Mitchell." The following day, Ginger Rogers was named as star. Bacall stated, "I am neither a puppet nor a chattel of Warner Bros. studio to do with as it sees fit." Shortly afterward, Bacall was released from her contract with the studio. After completing this film, co-star Ronald Reagan left Warner Bros., where he had been under contract since 1937.
In the film, model "Marsha Mitchell" (Rogers) takes advantage of an out-of-town assignment to visit her newly married younger sister, “Lucy Rice” (Day). On her arrival, Marsha secretly witnesses a lynching. Later, she comes to realize that Lucy’s husband (Steve Cochran) was part of the lynch mob. Ronald Reagan plays county prosecutor “Burt Rainey.”
When she heard she would be co-starring with Ginger Rogers, Doris Day was delighted. Before her success as a big band vocalist, Day had aspired to be a dancer, and Rogers had been one of her childhood idols.
Stuart Heisler directed the film, which had an unreleased score by Daniele Amfitheatrof. STORM WARNING grossed $3.6 million at the box office.
Steve Cochran, Doris Day, and Ginger Rogers in STORM WARNING
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