Doris Day, Legend of Hollywood's Golden Age, Dies at 97

Doris Day, one of the most beloved stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, has died at the age of 97. The news was confirmed by the Doris Day Animal Foundation.

Day's film career began in 1948 with Romance on the High Seas. Over the course of her two-decade screen career, she appeared in movies such as Calamity Jane and Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much. Among her most popular are Pillow Talk, which costarred Rock Hudson and earned her an Academy Award nomination, Move Over, Darling, featuring James Garner, and The Pajama Game, opposite John Raitt. From 1959 through 1969, she received six Golden Globe nominations for best female performance in three comedies, a drama (Midnight Lace), a musical (Jumbo), and her television series, The Doris Day Show.

Also a vocalist, Day was usually ranked among the country's top 10 singers between the years 1951 and 1966. Between 1949 and 1958, Billboard's annual poll of radio DJs ranked Day as their No. 1 female vocalist nine times out of 10. Among the songs she originated are "Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)," which won an Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Over the course of her career, Day earned a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in motion pictures, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association's Career Achievement Award.

In 1978, Day founded the Doris Day Pet Foundation, now the Doris Day Animal Foundation. The organization funds other nonprofit causes throughout the United States that share its mission of helping animals and the people who love them.