Que Sera Sera

Doris Day has a new album out this week!!!

And before you stop and wonder whether this is one of my stroll down  my “memory lane” columns – this time reflecting on some date in the 1950s or 1960s, it is not.

The name of the album is “My Heart,” Miss Day’s first album of new music in many years. When it was released in Europe in September 2011, it immediately shot to the top of the British charts, making Miss Day the oldest person to ever have a Top 10 hit album of new material.

This record-breaking achievement surprised a lot of people but it shouldn’t have. For more than 65 years, Doris Day’s career has been filled with similar record breakers.

To this day she remains the No. 1 female box-office attraction in motion picture history according to the esteemed Quigley Polling, which has been conducted annually for some 80 years. In 2011 dollars, the box-office gross for her 39 films would be something north of $5 billion.  Day’s CBS television series was a regular entrant in the top ten shows on television in the late 60s and early 70s, generally winning its time slot.

In 1976, her autobiography, written in conjunction with A.E. Hotchner, topped the bestseller lists including the revered N.Y. Times list, for many months.

As a recording artist, Miss Day was Columbia’s top-selling female artist for years, recording more than 800 songs. She earned multiple Gold Records and sold tens of millions of records.

For the past 30 years or more, she has devoted her life to animal welfare, heading a Pet Foundation and Animal League and creating enormous awareness with respect to the plight of the “four-leggers” that she loves so dearly. She has also made it a habit of turning down hundreds of job offers for everything from Broadway musicals to Las Vegas shows, major motion pictures as well as television appearances.

To many, who are not familiar with her work, she sang only one song – her signature tune, “Whatever Will Be, Will Be” (Que Sera Sera), which she introduced in an Alfred Hitchcock thriller. Likewise, the notion that she played a “virgin” in dozens of films is not rooted in reality.

Doris Day starred in musicals, screen versions of Broadway musicals, musical biographies, musical dramas, suspense thrillers, westerns, musical westerns, domestic comedies, sophisticated comedies and slapstick comedies along with a spy thriller. As a singer, dancer and actress, she did it all and did it well.

During a time when the other top-flight actresses of her era would never have been caught dead performing with children, she effortlessly played a mother in more than a dozen films.

Doris Day and I became friends when I was 8 years of age and now, some 50 years later, we maintain that warm and affectionate relationship.

I admire her pluck and resiliency. She overcame many obstacles including a sadistic first husband who held a gun to her stomach when she was pregnant with their child. A third husband, together with a crooked lawyer, systematically pillaged and plundered her fortune leaving her deeply in debt after his death. None of this changed her upbeat philosophy about life and genuine optimism about the future.

Doris saw me through a plethora of mishaps and misfortunes, never being judgmental and always urging me to get-up and try again, learning from the missteps that plagued me.

“My Heart” contains enough good music to temporarily eradicate any and all stresses from your life caused by the uncertain state of the economy or the inundation of Presidential candidates. Day’s take on the Lovin Spoonful’s “Daydream,” the Beach Boy’s “Disney Girls,” “Hurry It’s Lovely Up Here” from the Broadway musical, “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever” and especially “You Are So Beautiful” are certain to bring a smile to your face and start you humming along with her.

Today, I salute a legend who also happens to be a legendary friend because she understands what friendship truly means.