Happy 95th Birthday to Doris Day a popular movie
star from the Golden Age of Hollywood
Cut Doris Day some slack for ‘forgetting’ her real age,
being a woman in Hollywood has always been hard
If today’s Hollywood
actresses complain about the pressure to stay ageless and the lack of
meaningful female roles post-35, then imagine Doris Day in 1962
Doris Day, in-keeping with her sunny 50s movie persona,
has been terribly jolly about her ‘Birthday Surprise’ from the Ohio Associated
Press. Day, it transpires, is not celebrating her 93rdbirthday
today as fans may have thought. She is 95. For many, many decades Doris Day has
been trimming a little excess slack off her real age. But, as Morrissey
from The Smiths once said about white-lies, “There is always some-one,
somewhere, with a big nose, who knows.” And Day’s game is up. Her birth
certificate has been located. “I have never paid much attention to birthdays,”
the star responded in good humour, “but it’s great to finally know how old I
really am!” Day’s representatives say the mistake probably happened years ago
when she was auditioning for a role and was simply never corrected. Personally,
I’d have responded to the journalist with a chucked shoe and a string of
expletives quite out of kilter with a twinkly-eyed nonagenarian. If I was 95,
having lived with that ‘misunderstanding’ for so long, I wouldn’t thank any
young, sharp-elbowed thing hoping to win a humorous headline out of my supposed
vanity. Associated Press could take that birth certificate, roll it up and
shove it somewhere tight and dark.
There has to be some high-points to extreme
ageing, and I intend ‘suffering fools very badly’ to be my raison d’etre.
Tripping
Doris Day up on her actual age, in 2017, feels crass. It also makes no
allowance for the difficult era in which she thrived. If today’s Hollywood
actresses complain about the pressure to stay ageless and the lack of
meaningful female roles post-35, then imagine Doris Day in 1962, aged 38,
cough, playing the love interest of Cary Grant inThat Touch of Mink. Day
was at this point one of the only female leading box-office stars. But while
Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Rex Harrison and her other co-stars, all much older
than her, were maturing like fine wines and enjoying roles as heroes, villains,
professors, judges and general avuncular presence, Doris Day, on the other
hand, must have known her limitations.
As audiences, we have only recently begun to question where all the good female
actors go. If Doris Day’s tactic, back in the 50s and 60s was to gently forget
she was the age she was; I think we can cut her some slack.
Doris Day Discovers Just
How Old She Is — And It’s Quite A Surprise
Age is just a number forDoris Day―
a higher number than she thought.
The star of such films as “Pillow Talk” and “That Touch of Mink”
discovered thatshe turned 95 on Monday, not 93 as believed by
many including Day herself, The Associated Press reported.
AP recently dug up Day’s birth certificate from Ohio’s Office of Vital
Statistics, revealing a birthdate of April 3, 1922, for Doris Mary Kappelhoff,
her real name before show business. Day, who had presumed she was born in 1924,
was delighted with the news.
“I’ve always said that age is just a number and I have never paid much
attention to birthdays, but it’s great to finally know how old I really am!”
Day said in a statement Sunday.
Even as of early Monday, a Google search of “Doris Day” and “age”
indicated 93.
Day’s spokesman, Charley Cullen Walters, told AP a story circulated that
Day’s age may have been miswritten on an audition form many years ago, leading
to the mixup.
While the age difference may not be as great as she thought, Day can
still rib pal Betty White for being older, if just by a few months.White turned 95in January, Vulture noted.
Now that Day’s birthdate is official, we want to wish her a happy
birthday ― a happy95thbirthday.
