When we were just a little dead pool, we asked Doris Day, when will she die? Will it be 2004? Will it be 2005? Will she ever be the second Drop 40 hit of the year at an embarrassingly late date? Yep, the wide-eyed girl-next-door, Hollywood legend and friend of closeted gay actors everywhere, Doris Day has finally learned that the future is not hers. She was picked in every DDP going back at least as far as 2004 and possibly earlier, so we’ve been waiting on her passing a long, long time. Or, to put it in perspective, the last time Doris Day wasn’t selected for a DDP team, all three Bee Gees were still alive.
What can we say about Day as an actress and singer? She was alright, I suppose. Perhaps the last actress who embodied the Hays Code, All-American morality in screen form, there were occasional subversions of her persona (the absolutely stunning on modern viewing lesbian subtext of Calamity Jane for instance), but at the end of the day she was a very earnest person who liked animals and right-wing politicians. Her death means there are now no people still alive mentioned in the lyrics of “Look At Me, I’m Sandra Dee”, only one person alive who had a top 40 single in 1952 (Vera Lynn) and only four people alive specifically named in the lyrics to “We Didn’t Start the Fire” (Brigitte Bardot, Chubby Checker, Bob Dylan and Bernie Goetz). Que sera sera…
Doris Day
April 3, 1922 – May 13, 2019
Died aged 97 (88 picks, 3 jokers)