One day soon the news will spin around the world that Doris Day is dead.
I was watching Calamity Jane [1953] once again last night - sadly, I missed the opening number (The Deadwood Stage), which to my mind is the best song in the film - and thought that it is extraordinary how such amazing people can touch millions of lives for a few years and then disappear into the past, like the Gloria Swanson character in Sunset Boulevard [1950].
Joe Gillis: "You're Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big."
Norma Desmond: "I am big. It's the pictures that got small."
Doris Day is the top-ranking female movie star of all time, and sixth most popular star of either sex of all time. Despite all of her on-screen success, she seems to have had a very unhappy life. Her best friend - actor Rock Hudson - died of AIDS in 1985. After four more or less completely unsuccessful marriages (the first of which left her nearly penniless as a result of her former husband's fraud), she retired and lived alone, and has been alone for more than 30 years. She is now 88 years old, and cannot live forever. She never won an Oscar, and efforts to nominate her for an honorary Academy award for lifetime achievement have so far been unsuccessful. This is as tragic a fact as anything I know.
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