Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff  was born on April 3, 1922, in Cincinnati, Ohio, the daughter of Alma Sophia (nee Welz), a housewife, and William Joseph Kappelhoff, a music teacher and choir master. All of her grandparents were German immigrants. For most of her life, Day reportedly believed she had been born in 1924 and reported her age accordingly; it was not until her 95th birthday, when the Associated Press found her birth certificate, showing a 1922 date, that she learned otherwise. The youngest of three siblings, she had two older brothers: Richard (who died before her birth) and Paul, 2-3 years older.

Having become primarily recognized as a musical-comedy actress, Day gradually took on more dramatic roles to broaden her range. Her dramatic star-turn as singer Ruth Etting in Love Me or Leave Me (1955), co-starring James Cagney, received critical and commercial success, becoming Day's biggest hit thus far. Day said it was her best film performance. Producer Joe Pasternak said, "I was stunned that Doris did not get an Oscar nomination." The soundtrack album from that movie was a No. 1 hit.  Day starred in Alfred Hitchcock's suspense film, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) with James Stewart. She sang two songs in the film, "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)", which won an Academy Award for Best Original Song, and "We'll Love Again". The film was Day's 10th movie to be in the Top 10 at the box office. In 1956, Day played the title role in the thriller/noir Julie with Louis Jourdan.  After three successive dramatic films, Day returned to her musical/comedic roots in 1957's The Pajama Game with John Raitt. The film was based on the Broadway play of the same name. She worked with Paramount Pictures for the comedy Teacher's Pet (1958), alongside Clark Gable and Gig Young. She co-starred with Richard Widmark and Gig Young in the romantic comedy film, The Tunnel of Love (1958), but found scant success opposite Jack Lemmon in It Happened to Jane (1959).  Billboard's annual nationwide poll of disc jockeys had ranked Day as the No. 1 female vocalist nine times in ten years (1949 through 1958), but her success and popularity as a singer was now being overshadowed by her box-office appeal.

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