Legendary actress and singer Doris Day dies at 97

Doris Day

Doris Day, the sunny Pillow Talk actress and singer who was far more than her persona, died of pneumonia — two months after celebrating her 97th birthday.

The Doris Day Animal Foundation confirmed that Day died — surrounded by friends — at her Carmel Valley, Calif., home. While she “had been in excellent physical health for her age,” according to the statement, she recently contracted “a serious case of pneumonia, resulting in her death.”

Calamity Jane and The Man Who Knew Too Much were among Day’s other best-loved films; the latter spawned “Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be),” which became her signature tune.

Day was the symbol of 1950s and 1960s wholesomeness. But the thrice-divorced star was neither a virginal figure off-screen, nor an innocent on-screen.

"Tomboyish and tough, or smart career woman, she may have capitulated to marriage and domesticity by the final frame, but only on her own terms," culture critic David Benedict once wrote about Day for London's Independent.

Day shared the screen with Hollywood legends Clark Gable (Teacher's Pet), James Cagney (Love Me or Leave Me) and Cary Grant (That Touch of Mink). She worked with James Stewart and Alfred Hitchcock (The Man Who Knew Too Much). She excelled in light comedies opposite the likes of James Garner, Rod Taylor and, above all, Rock Hudson.

With Hudson, Day enjoyed three of her biggest hits: the sly Pillow Talk, Lover Come Back, and Send Me No Flowers.

With Garner, she starred in The Thrill of It All and Move Over, Darling. With Taylor, she made Do Not Disturb and The Glass Bottom Boat.

The frothy, fun Hudson pictures helped make Day Hollywood's No. 1 draw in 1960, 1962, 1963 and 1964, per a long-running survey of theater owners. Among actresses, only Shirley Temple finished first that many times.

Despite her credentials, Day wasn't always held up as the Hollywood standard-bearer she was.

When the American Film Institute ranked the top 50 stars of the 20th century, Day's contemporaries Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor all cracked the top 10; Day, the most bankable actress of them all, didn't make the list.

A onetime Best Actress Oscar nominee, Day neither won a competitive an Academy Award, nor earned an honorary statuette.

In a 2010 New York Times column that advocated for Oscar to give Day her due, filmmaker Douglas McGrath (Emma) wrote that Day was discounted because she made her stock-in-trade "look easy."

Roger Ebert also made the case for Day: "Doris Day was a great star," the critic wrote in 1995, "and someday the record will be set straight on that."