Commentary : Day or Night, Doris Is Dandy

Let me now praise Doris Day.

Even in the ‘50s and ‘60s, when she was one of the top box-office stars in the world, Doris Day tended to be taken for granted and dismissed by critics. But now she and her career are being rediscovered. Oh, happy Day.

Last month, PBS offered a welcome reassessment of Day’s work in films, records and TV. “Doris Day: A Sentimental Journey,” produced by James Arntz, included interview segments with a still sunny Day, who proved disarmingly unpretentious about her tremendous success.

“If I can do it, you can do it,” she said. “Anybody can.”

Meanwhile, Warner Home Video has finally released some of Day’s earliest films, including her movie debut in “Romance on the High Seas” in 1948, among other lighthearted and lightheaded musicals.

These were the pictures she made before she became a virgin, as the wags would have it, in a series of sex farces starting with “Pillow Talk” in 1959.

But as Arntz’s tribute points out, Day didn’t just do light comedy. She was extremely effective playing intense dramatic parts in films like “Love Me or Leave Me,” the biography of torch singer Ruth Etting; and Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” with James Stewart.

At whatever she did, Day was a natural, a performer who embodied determined womanhood on the screen. In the ‘50s and ‘60s, that was no small accomplishment. No less formidable a fan than novelist John Updike said on the PBS special, “She just kinda glows for me.”

The documentary recounted her failed marriages and the one that seemed to succeed, to agent and producer Martin Melcher. After Melcher died in 1968, Day was shocked to discover she was not worth $20 million as she had thought. She was broke.

Melcher had entrusted her funds to a disreputable lawyer. Day sued. Day agreed to star in “The Doris Day Show,” on CBS from 1968 to 1973, so she could earn enough money to pay her legal fees. Some of her fortune was recovered.

Earlier this year, Day was suing again. The Globe, a supermarket tabloid, published a story claiming Day had become a “bag lady” of the Carmel area, rummaging through trash cans to find food for her dogs. Day filed a $25 million libel suit, yet to be settled.

Obviously, Day’s life has the makings of a good movie, a drama with songs. But who could play the lead? Who could sing that well and act that well, too?

A few years ago, Day reappeared after a long absence to accept an honorary Golden Globe award. Seeing her again, warm and radiant, I realized how much I’d always loved her and how much I had missed her.

There ought to be other awards. This year’s Kennedy Center Honors have already been given out, but it’s not too early to think about next year’s winners. The American Film Institute might consider Day for its next Life Achievement Award as well.

Conveniently enough, the man in charge of both is producer George Stevens Jr. If someone wanted to, they could write to Stevens at the Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C., 20566. It could help. It couldn’t hurt.

Que sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be. As James Cagney said in the famous last line from “Love Me or Leave Me”: “Gotta give her credit; the girl can sing. About that, I was never wrong.”