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Celebrated and sometimes struck for its sunshine, the singer turned actress often represents women whose independence defies the atmosphere of lightness that characterizes the domestic life of the 50s and early 60s.
When Doris Day won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association 's Career Achievement Award in 2011, some personalities protested, but many others appreciated the expected recognition for one of the most attractive movie stars of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. last half century. Mrs. Day, who passed away today at the age of 97, has shown charm and skill in many genres of films and she was ahead of her time as a feminist pioneer often under -estimée.
Day, of course, started as a big-band singer, and some of us grew up listening to her hit songs (many of which are from her films) and savoring her silk interpretations of ballads as well as impertinent numbers. I remember one of my high school classmates, one of my high school classmates, who had asked to borrow my copy of the album. Show time (yes, we still had albums at the time) because he was so captivated by the interpretation of Broadway and Hollywood classics by Day.
Day made her big-screen debut in 1948 and had her greatest period of cinematographic success in the 1950s and early 1960s. She made the annual list of the most famous movie stars several times over. this period, ranking number one four times – in 1960, 62, 63 and 64 – at a time when male actors began to supplant actresses. Hollywood rate. It eventually became the first female draw in the 20th century at the box office.
Some critics who came after her hour of glory overturned the role she played in some of these films, portraying her as a typical housewife – or, even worse, as a "professional virgin" – but that's not the case. is a too simplistic reading of these films. Critic Molly Haskell, one of her defenders, pointed out that in many of her blockbuster movies of the '50s and' 60s, Day was playing the role of a woman with a thriving career, far ahead of her time, at one time where domesticity was rooted. Reflecting her own past, she played a big band singer in Young man with a horn, the singer of the flame Ruth Etting in Love me or leave meand a successful singer who reluctantly abandoned her career under pressure from her husband in Alfred Hitchcock The man who knew too much.
But her roles as workers were not limited to singers. She played a factory worker and union organizer at The pajama set, professor of journalism at The pet of the teacher (co-written by a woman, Fay Kanin), successful interior architect Confession on the pillow (the 1959 romantic comedy that earned Day his only Oscar nomination), and a director of advertising in Lover Reviens. And of course, she played a Wild West shooter Calamity Jane, the image that turned it into a full-fledged movie star. (His portrayal of the film's Oscar-winning song, "Secret Love," did not hurt.)
Day played in dramas and thrillers (the last category including not only Hitchcock, but also Julie and Midnight lace, which opposed him to threatening men), and some would say that his best performance was his dramatic turn as a mistreated wife in 1955. Love me or leave me, playing in front of an electrifying James Cagney. But there is no doubt that her strong point lies in the romantic comedies she's produced with co-stars such as Rock Hudson, Cary Grant and James Garner, where her ability to joke placed her among the best actresses of the screen. And while some of these films may have overemphasized the fierce protection of her characters' virginity, one could also argue that she was a pioneer of the #MeToo era.
It is unfortunate that Day abandoned the musicals after Billy Rose's Jumbo, a charming circus film dating back to 1962 and featuring its unparalleled rendition of Rodgers and Hart classics such as "My Romance" and "This Can & # 39; t Be Love". Her husband managing director, Martin Melcher, was disappointed with the film's disappointing recipes and led in romantic comedies that seemed more lucrative. But in the 1960s, the scripts of these rom-coms became more and more worn out and ended the film career of Day at the end of the decade. Things could have been different if Day had seriously considered the proposal of director Mike Nichols to confide her as the adulteress, Mrs. Robinson. The graduation. Melcher refused to show him the script and Day later wrote in his autobiography that the role did not really fit with the image that she had so carefully cultivated.
Day is not the only actor to make assumptions about what could have been if only she had chosen one part rather than another. She ended up withdrawing from the cinema when she was in her forties. Most of her images are those of the dynamic characters she played when she climbed high, acting gracefully and singing brilliantly. This is not the worst legacy for any of the enduring icons of the screen.
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