- Betty Hutton, Annie Get Your Gun, 1950. “I bought it [for an unprecedented $700,000] to give Judy a kick,” said producer Arthur Freed. “That’s when she got sick… I had to take her out. The girl just couldn’t function. She couldn’t get out of bed.” Betty Hutton could. After Doris, Judy Canova, Bettys Garrett and Grable and Ginger Rogers were turned down. Betty Hutton could. After Doris, Judy Canova, Bettys Garrett and Grable, Ethel Merman (Broadway’s 1946 Annie) and Ginger Rogers were shot down at the pass.
- Virginia Mayo, Painting The Clouds with Sunshine, 1951. “Too much like my other musicals, ” said Day, passing the millionaire-hunting Carol to Mayo. Er, how many gold-diggers did Day play? (None). Maybe Doris simpy agreed wih director David Butler. “I thought it was terrible, and I think the audience agreed with me.”
- Peggy Lee, The Jazz Singer, 1952. British critic Paul Dehn referred to Day’s Calamity Jane that year as “emerging in a stinging temper from the honeycomb of sickly sweet pictures.” Warners had never experienced Day’s temper until denying their surprise new star the re-make of the first talkie. As a result, the studio lost her. Day’s husband, Marty Melcher, worked on slipping her Warner shackles four years early. He was also working on slipping money far from her bank accounts.
- June Allyson, The Opposite Sex, 1955. As ideas, plans, scripts and directors changed, the main role of Kay went from Grace Kelly to Esther Williams to Day to Eleanor Parker and, inexplicably, mousey Allyson! Commenting on new take of her 1938 The Women, Joan Crawford blasted “those pygmies in the remake.”
- June Allyson, My Man Godfrey, 1956. For the re-make of the 1935 romcom, neither Day or Allyson could match Carole Lombard as Irene Bullock.
- Ann Blyth, The Helen Morgan Story, 1956. Day had been here before as singer Ruth Etting in Love Me Or Leave Me, 1954… For six months, Warner Bros scanned some 32 possible Morgans, including Dani Crayne, Susan Hayward, Jennifer Jones plus singers Judy Garland, Helene Grayco, Peggy Lee, Jaye P. Morgan, Patti Page, Keely Smith. And even fashion model Nancy Berg. Morgan’s friends and fans were aghast when director Michael Curtis chose Blyth, with Cogi Grant dubbing the songs, when neither looked or sounded like Morgan. Curtiz said Blyth was the best actress for the rôle and Grant’s voice was better than Morgan’s “kind of high-pitched, low-voiced torch singing… it’s outmoded.” So, tell another story! Berg’s life, for example, was way heavier.
- Deborah Kerr, An Affair To Remember, 1956. Given the availability choice of Ingrid, Doris Day or Deborah Kerr, Cary Grant voted for Kerr in the first of their three films. They got on so well – and with director Leo McCarey’s relaxed shooting style – they improvised various scenes. McCarey also directed the original of this film, Love Affair, in 1938. (He preferred the first version – as solemn as its star Charles Boyer). Later that year, Grant partnered Bergman for Indiscreet – and made two rom-coms with Doris in 1961: Lover Come Back and That Touch of Mink.. He looked so good at 57, he made Doris look rather more than her demure 39.
- June Allyson, My Man Godfrey, 1957. Considering her future success as Universal’s favorurite virgin, odd to see that she lost Irene Bullock over a salary dispute. Godfrey, the butler, also changed from German star OW Fischer to the lighter, funnier, wittier David Niven.
- Mitzi Gaynor, South Pacific, 1958. Mary Martin, Broadway’s original Nellie Forbush, was frankly too old. So, all the youngstars were checked over : Doris, Judy Garland, Audrey Hepburn, Patti Page, Ginger Rogers, Elizabeth Taylor.
- Ann Blyth, The Helen Morgan Story (UK: Both Ends of the Candle), 1957. No, no, a thousand times… Miss Day would have nothing to do Miss Morgan’s loathsome life.
- Shirley Jones, Never Steal Anything Small, 1958. Universal tried to rematch Warners’ Love Me Or Leave Me team: James Cagney and Day. She was not available.
- Mitzi Gaynor, Happy Anniversary, 1959. Day felt this one could ruin her virginal screen image. Aw c’mon, girl – it was how, in the 50s, a TV set (well, three) nearly ruined marriage to David Niven. Mitzi was better which is why two years earlier she had already replaced silly Doris in South Pacific, 1957.
- Audrey Hepburn, The Children’s Hour, 1961. Hollywood’s #1 virgin suspected of being a Lesbian!! And with (bisexual) Katharine, not Audrey Hepburn, as her lover.Who would believe it?
- Debbie Reynolds, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, 1964. Now that is more like it. Metro bought it for her, but her flop MGMusical, Jumbo, created a new corporate mindset.
- Lee Remick, The Hallelujah Trail, 1964. According to screenwriter John Gay, Doris was interested in playing Cora Templeton Massingale. Director Sydney Pollack preferred Remick.
- Julie Andrews, The Sound of Music, 1965. Two years before the musical reached Broadway in 1959, Paramount secured rights to Germany’s 1956 Die Trapp-Familie – and quickly cancelled the re-make when Audrey declined to play the choir’s mother, Maria Von Trapp. Fox’s 1957 South Pacific star Mitzi Gaynor then made “a whopping offer” for the musical only to be beaten by Fox which played safe by wanting either Anne Bancroft, Leslie Caron, Doris Day or Grace Kelly wed to Bing Crosby (of all Austrians!) as the Von Trapps. Later as directors changed from Stanley Donen, George Roy Hill, Gene Kelly and a deaf William Wyler to Robert Wise, TV actress Sandra Church and Fox’s 1954 Oklahoma! star Shirley Jones were potential Marias. Critic Pauline Kael famously tried to bury “the sugar-coated lie that people seem to want to eat” but it saved Fox from the near bankruptcy of the Cleopatradebacle.
- Anne Bancroft, The Graduate, 1967.
- Barbra Streisand, Hello Dolly! 1968.
Dolly Levi was a match-maker. Therefore, not suppposed tyo be young enough for a blushing bride. And yet Fox avoided the show’s award-winning Broadway star, Carol Channing, and offered Dolly to Julie Andrews, Carol Burnett, Doris Day, Shirley MacLaine, Debbie Reynolds and (gulp!) Elizabeth Taylor! (All she knew about singing was having wed (Debbie’s) Eddie Fisher). La Barb and co-star Walter Matthau hated each other. She had, he said, “no more talent than a butterfly’s fart.” As the shoot went from bad to worse, Streisand called Arthur Laurents, theBroadway/Hollywood scenarist who started her off in I Can Get It For You Wholesale (he beefed up her role because ”she was simple, vulnerable, moving, funny,. mesmerizing, anything she wanted to be.” Sp, she called him from the Dolly set. “I’ve got a tap dancer for a director. [Gene Kelly]. What can I do?” “Nothing.“ “Nothing??II” “Nothing. You shouldn’t have taken the part. You’re at last 20 years too young.” But hot, certified and incorporated. -
Anne Jackson, The Secret Life of an American Wife, 1968. George Axelrod wrote it as “one of the few Hollywood sex comedies in which sex actually occurs.” No wonder Doris fled.
- Jean Seberg, Paint Your Wagon, 1969. Paramount first considered Doris opposite Bing Crosby in what would have been the version lite. The rights passed to Paramount, where the first choice was Bing Crosby. Liter!Barbra Streisand, Hello, Dolly!, 1969. Doris was a somewhat genteel choice notion when poor Charol Channing, Broadway’s Dolly, was turned down. “She can’t carry a movie,” said the Fox suits, despite her Oscar nomination for her test (really), Thoroughly Modern Millie, 1967. La Barb and co-star Walter Matthau hated each other. She had, he said, “no more talent than a butterfly’s fart.”
- Liv Ullmann, 40 Carats, 1973. Oh, c’mon, our Doris as a forty something getting the hots for a toy-boy while on a Greek vacation. Why not ask her for Deep Throat II.
- Jay W MacIntosh, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1977. If Doris had accepted Mrs Fields, Mr would have been Rock Hudson, just like the old days at Universal. The mindless morass of most Pepper and Abbey Road songs formed, said Newsweek’s David Ansen, “a dangerous resemblance to wallpaper.” After 43 credits, McIntosh moved into law, Hollywood law (entertainment, bankruptcy, real estate law) in 2002.
- Angela Lansbury, Murder She Said, TV, 1984-1996. Following her second divorce, 1981, Doris passed on a Pillow Talksequel with Rock Hudson. And (after her face lift) refused $300,000 for the pilot and thereafter $100,00 per episode. All in the Family’s Jean Stapleton was also in the mix. Lansbury could not resist the real steal of a pitch: Miss Marple being played by Agatha Christie, herself – aka mystery writer Jessica Fletcher. Lansbury made a whole new career, cottage industry and pension out of 698 Candelwood, Cabot Cove, Maine.
- Diane Keaton, Running Mates, TV, 1992. Running for the White House, that is. Planned as her comeback with Dennis Hopper – no place for such a perennial virgin! Ended as a tele-movie.
- Debbie Reynolds, Mother, 1996. After Nancy Reagan passed, Albert Brooks contacted Doris. “I don’t want to do movies anymore, yours or anyone else’s!” Interesting, felt Brooks, that she reached the decision… “in my presence.” His next call: Esther Williams.
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“She was a true star in more ways than one. I had the privilege of hanging out with her on a few occasions. Visiting her in her Californian home was like going to an animal sanctuary where her many dogs were taken care of in splendid style. She had a heart of gold and was a very funny lady who I shared many laughs with. Her films like Calamity Jane, Move Over, Darling and many others were all incredible and her acting and singing always hit the mark. I will miss her but will always remember her twinkling smile and infectious laugh as well as the many great songs and movies she gave us. God bless Doris. – Paul McCartney.
Birth year: 1922Death year: 2019Other name: Casting Calls: 25