Hollywood super-actress, singer and animal welfare activist Doris Day has died on Monday morning, at the age of 97.
The Doris Day Animal Foundation announced that Day died at her home in Carmel Valley, California. The foundation told the AP that she was surrounded by close friends when she passed.
She had been in recent health, according to the foundation said, saying she “had been in excellent physical health for her age, until recently contracting a serious case of pneumonia.
Doris Day was one of America’s most beloved actresses and was born Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff on April 3, 1922, in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Her first starring movie role was in “Romance on the High Seas” (1948), followed by “My Dream Is Yours” (1949) and “It’s a Great Feeling” (1949). Audiences took to her beauty, terrific singing voice and bubbly personality, and she turned in fine performances in the movies she made (in addition to several hit records).
In 1953, Doris Day starred in “Calamity Jane” (1953), which was a major hit, and several more followed: “Lucky Me” (1954), “Love Me or Leave Me” (1955), “The Man Who Knew Too Much” (1956) and what is probably her best-known film, “Pillow Talk” (1959).
She began to slow down her filmmaking pace in the 1960s, even though she started out the decade with a hit, “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies” (1960). Today, she runs the Doris Day Animal League in Carmel, California, which advocates homes and proper care of household pets.
She was one of the biggest female stars of all time, and starred in films such as Calamity Jane and Pillow Talk and had a hit in 1956 with Que Sera, Sera.
Her screen partnership with Rock Hudson was one of the biggest box-office draws of the 1950s and ’60s.
She injured her right leg in a car accident in October 1937 which reduced her prospects as a professional dancer.