The Doris Day Show Radio Program

Background

Young Doris Mary Ann Von Kappelhoff of Cinncinati showed all the promise any starry-eyed midwest girl might hope for by the age of 14. A gifted dancer, she'd already been out to Hollywood to gauge interest in her dancing talent. The reviews were good enough to send her and her dance partner back to Cinncinati to begin packing up for Hollywood on a permanent basis. But the night before her and her partner were to take off back to Hollywood a car she was riding in was hit by a train. The damage to her legs essentially foreclosed any possiblity of pursuing a dancing career.

Picking herself up, dusting herself off, and starting all over again, Doris concentrated on her singing talent--while confined to a wheelchair--and within two years she was touring with Les Brown and his band as one of his singers. Still only 16 at the time, she'd taken the name Doris Day and represented herself as being 18. She met and married trombonist Al Jorden and within two years her only child, Terry, was born. Citing an abusive relationship, the couple divorced in the Spring of 1943.

Then a single mom with a baby, Doris Day continued touring with bands, recorded a few hit records, did some of her first Radio work, and caught the attention of Bob Hope who took her out on tours with his U.S.O. shows stateside and overseas.

With an exponentially growing following, Doris Day embarked on an equally successful Film career during the 1940s. Her first starring Film role came as Miss Georgia Garrett in Romance On the High Seas (1948) for Warner Brothers. Over the next four years she appeared in increasingly prominent roles for Warner Brothers:

• 1949 My Dream Is Yours
• 1949 It's a Great Feeling
• 1950 Young Man with A Horn
• 1950 Tea for Two
• 1950 The West Point Story
• 1951 Storm Warning
• 1951 Lullaby of Broadway
• 1951 On Moonlight Bay
• 1951 I'll See You in My Dreams
• 1952 The Winning Team
• 1952 April in Paris

Doris Day had arrived; the sweetheart of America and one of the top three favorite females stars of American soldiers, Marines, airmen and seamen the world over. Almost every new song she recorded shot to the top of the charts--and carried her collaborators with her. Doris Day had become a hot property in every medium known to man.

The Billboard of March 8th 1952 teased CBS' interest in a Doris Day-starring vehicle for Radio

CBS first began teasing a possible Doris Day Radio vehicle during the Spring of 1952. Pitched as a half-hour, weekly feature, their proposed deal would give CBS six months of exclusive selling rights to the vehicle.

CBS raises the curtain on The Doris Day Show--sustained

The Doris Day Show premiered over CBS in a 25-minute format on Friday, March 28th 1952. Doris Day, one of Hollywood's least starstruck Film stars made her first solo outing in a Radio series a family affair. Drawing on the many artists and friends that had helped her during her meteoric rise to stardom, The Doris Day Show's guests for her premiere program were Danny Thomas, her co-star from I'll See You In My Dreams (1952) and Mrs. Gus Kahn, the wife of prolific songwriter Gus Kahn. I'll See You In My Dreams was based on the life of Gus Kahn and his wife Grace. Danny Thomas had portrayed Gus Kahn and Doris Day portrayed Grace Kahn.

Over the course of the next year, Doris Day's featured guests continued to be drawn from her co-stars in Film and the key musical artists that had helped her achieve her meteoric success. Ray Bolger, Gordon MacRae, Kirk Douglas, Danny Thomas, Cornel Wilde, Howard Keel, George Murphy, Frankie Laine, Gene Nelson, Mary Wickes, and Ronald Reagan had all co-starrred with her in Film. In fact the only noticeably absent repeat Film co-star during The Doris Day Show was Jack Carson, with whom she'd reportedly had a romantic relationship that had failed.

Doris Day's premiere program also set the tone for another recurring feature throughout the series--regular reminders of the sacrifices being made by American Armed Forces in Korea--and throughout the world. For the remainder of the half-hour run of The Doris Day Show, Doris dutifully granted written requests from G.I.s and their units around the world for a favored song during her programs.

During the Summer of 1952 Lever Brothers approached CBS and Doris Day with a twice-weekly 15-minute live production, but Doris Day turned it down on spec. She wanted to preserve her freedom to do Film work. Two-a-week live broadcasts would have been too limiting. Much to CBS' relief Rexall Drugs was casting around for a Summer filler to sponsor while The Amos 'n' Andy Show took it's Summer break for 1952. Rexall picked up the tab through the 26th installment of The Doris Day Show.

When Rexall's sponsorship ran out, CBS thought the timing might be right to use The Doris Day Show to promote their ambitious plans to launch a line of custom high end televisions under their CBS-Columbia, Inc. subsidiary. As late as December 1st 1952 when the two-page LIFE magazine ad (below) appeared, CBS-Columbia was gambling that their deal for a disused Mack Truck plant would provide them the manufacturing plant they needed to produce their new televisions. That deal fell through in January 1953. CBS-Columbia pulled their sponsonship of The Doris Day Show when the plant deal fell through.

The show reverted to sustaining through March 24th 1953, almost a year to the day from the series' premiere. CBS attempted to carry the production further in an abbreviated, 15-minute format, with Louella Parsons occupying the first 10 minutes of the previously slotted 25-minute Doris Day programs. That last format change spelled the beginning of the end for the series. The Doris Day Show left the air after nine more, 15-minute programs. As Doris Day would later famously sing, "Que Sera, Sera."

But that wasn't the end of a Doris Day Show.

Series Derivatives:

Notes on Provenances:

The most helpful provenances were the log of the RadioGOLDINdex and newspaper listings.

What you see here, is what you get. Complete transparency. We have no 'credentials' whatsoever--in any way, shape, or form--in the 'otr community'--none. But here's how we did it--for better or worse. Here's how you can build on it yourselves--hopefully for the better. Here are the breadcrumbs--just follow the trail a bit further if you wish. No hobbled downloads. No misdirection. No posturing about our 'credentials.' No misrepresentations. No strings attached. We point you in the right direction and you're free to expand on it, extend it, use it however it best advances your efforts.

We ask one thing and one thing only--if you employ what we publish, attribute it, before we cite you on it.

We continue to provide honest research into these wonderful Golden Age Radio programs simply because we love to do it. If you feel that we've provided you with useful information or saved you some valuable time regarding this log--and you'd like to help us even further--you can help us keep going. Please consider a small donation here:

We don't pronounce our Golden Age Radio research as 'certified' anything. By the very definition, research is imperfect. We simply tell the truth. As is our continuing practice, we provide our fully provenanced research results--to the extent possible--right here on the page, for any of our peers to review--or refute--as the case may be. If you take issue with any of our findings, you're welcome to cite any better verifiable source(s) and we'll immediately review them and update our findings accordingly. As more verifiable provenances surface, we'll continue to update the following series log, as appropriate.

All rights reserved by their respective sources. Article and log copyright 2011 The Digital Deli Online--all rights reserved. Any failure to attribute the results of this copywritten work will be rigorously pursued.

[Date, title, and episode column annotations in red refer to either details we have yet to fully provenance or other unverifiable information as of this writing. Red highlights in the text of the 'Notes' columns refer to information upon which we relied in citing dates, date or time changes, or titles.]