Customer Reviews

The Doris Day Companion: A Beautiful Day

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Did you know that THE DORIS DAY SHOW was negotiated and became a done deal without the knowledge or consent of its star? Everything you ever wanted to know about Doris Day's career is right here in this book. It goes into great detail about her films, her radio series, her television series, her records, her TV specials, everything! We even get story lines, stars, and extra notes about every single episode of her successful television series. Interviews with her co-stars and with the mega-star herself give us an inside view of not only the productions, but also the human beings behind the characters we saw on screen. Terrific book! Well worth the price and more.

THE DORIS DAY COMPANION is a enjoyable book saluting one of the least heralded triumphs of the lovely, legendary star Doris Day. Doris Day's amazing movie career is well-remembered for the twenty years she reigned as one of the biggest movie stars in the world starring in many classic films, as is her standing as a peerless pop female vocalist with scores of vintage recordings currently on the market on compact disc yet her five-year run as one of the most popular stars on television in THE DORIS DAY SHOW (1968-1973) has long been something of a footnote despite the great success of the series at the time. Perhaps the tremendous success of her movies on DVD and her music on CD in recent years opened the door to THE DORIS DAY SHOW finding it's way onto the market in seasonal DVD sets and they too have become best sellers, certainly there are very television series of the 60s/70s which have every one of it's television seasons on the market like TDDS (season five has not been released yet but is pictured in the book). Now on the heels of those DVD sets comes a book dedicated to the history of the program with detailed episodic guides, exclusive interviews with most of the surviving cast members (including Doris Day herself!), tons of trivia, photographs, even a reproduction of a MAD magazine article spoof on the series (fortunately one of the milder satires published in that magazine).

This is clearly a labor of love by two devoted Doris Day fans who are clear-eyed enough not to overstate the excellence of the program while finding much to admire. THE DORIS DAY SHOW was a fun, sweet show but it wasn't one of the alltime great sitcoms, it actually wasn't even that funny (as the authors note, it was more of a light drama with comedy.) The scripts weren't that great but Doris' devoted public tuned in for years and the star was always charming and appealing and giving 100 percent, supported by a very good if too quickly-changing supporting cast (the series had three major overhauls during it's run, most infamously in the final two seasons when not only Doris' office staff at Today's World magazine completely changed but her two children vanished as if they never existed!) It's a great tribute to Doris as a woman that the whole cast has happy memories of working with her, one can easily imagine others being bitter in similar situations on other shows. Interview chapters are sprinkled throughout the book. It's also nice to see director and writer credits in the book for the individual episodes, very few books on TV series give this much information. And kudos to the authors for spotting all the episodes featuring excerpts and riffs from Doris' recordings, I had no idea her music was used this extensively on the show.

The book also features a episode guide to Doris' one-season dog-oriented program DORIS DAY'S BEST FRIENDS from 1985 (how about a boxed set on that series, MPI Home Video?), as well as a listing of her 1950's radio program and a section on ads from her movies. The book concludes with chapters by the authors detailing the history of their affection for the star. Certainly most of the readers of this book could well write their own chapter because there have been very few stars as beloved as Doris Day and the one of the happiest conclusions one can draw from this book is it is love well placed, for as all her coworkers testify, this is a truly wonderful, giving, caring lady just like we always knew.

Wonderfully realized, this is a must have for the fans of Doris. Full of insight and meticulous research. A very welcomed addition for everyone, from the die hards to newbies just coming to appreciate this terrific lady's substantial legacy.

I LOVE DORIS DAY ,BUT COME ON OVER $20.00 FOR PAPER BACK BOOK IN LOW MONEY TIMES ALL OVER WORLD!! WHAT A RIP-OFF!! AND I SURE DORIS DAY WOULD SAY THE SAME THING! ROBERT H