Singer, actress and animal rights activist Doris Day has died at 97. An aspiring dancer as a child, her mother took her to Hollywood for dance lessons, but she was injured in a car accident and started taking singing lessons instead; her music coach was so impressed she started giving her three lessons for the price of one. Day made her vocal debut on Cincinnati’s powerhouse WLW Radio and soon began singing with touring big bands, including Les Brown, with whom she had her first hit record in 1945, “Sentimental Journey,” an anthem for GIs returning from World War II. She broke into films, despite having no acting experience, with director Michael Curtiz’s “Romance on the High Seas” in 1948, and by the early 1960s she was voted America’s #1 movie star four years in a row. She was an Oscar nominee for 1959’s “Pillow Talk” with Rock Hudson. In 1985 he appeared on her “Doris Day’s Best Friends” TV show to disclose that he was diagnosed with AIDS. Above: with home-run kings Roger Maris, left, and Mickey Mantle, who made cameos in her 1962 picture “That Touch of Mink.” (AP)
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