Doris Day

Doris Day packed four careers into one lifetime, two each in music and movies. The pity is that all most people remember are her movies, from Teacher's Pet (1957) onward, as the quintessential all-American girl, cast opposite such icons of masculinity as Clark Gable and Rock Hudson. She also transposed this following to television at the end of the '60s with a situation comedy that lasted into the early '70s. If most people remember her as a singer, it's usually for such pop hits as "Secret Love" and her Oscar-winning "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)," which became her signature tune.

But before all of that, from 1939 until the end of the '40s, Doris Day was one of the hottest, sultriest swing-band vocalists in music. That body of work -- which contains at least one unabashed, classic early-'40s recording, "Sentimental Journey" -- is one of the most impressive in the fields of swing and popular jazz, and deserves to be heard far more than it is. Moreover, before those late-'50s comedies, Day had a film career that included adaptations of Broadway musicals (The Pajama Game), classic thrillers (The Man Who Knew Too Much), and searing social drama (Storm Warning).

She was born Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff on April 3, 1922, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her father was a music teacher, choir master, and church organist. Her mother loved popular music, especially (surprisingly) country music. Her parents divorced when she was 12, and Day lived with her mother and older brother in College Hill, Ohio. From age six, she had taken dancing lessons, and that was the career she ultimately intended to pursue. In 1937, when she was 13, she and a young male partner won a $500 prize in an amateur dance contest. The family decided to pursue stardom in Hollywood for their young child. Her hopes for a career in dance were shattered on the trip out West in an automobile accident that severely injured her right leg