Doris Day on AllMovie

Before another actress named Doris Day became a renowned 1950s and '60s movie star, singer, and Rock Hudson-screen partner, the first Doris Day played a smattering of small roles in mostly B-movies. Born in 1920, this Day sang in nightclubs and did theater before making her film debut opposite singing cowboy Roy Rogers in Republic Pictures' The Saga of Death Valley (1939). Over the next several years, Day also appeared in Thou Shalt Not Kill (1939), Village Barn Dance (1940), and the MGM Joan Crawford vehicle A Woman's Face (1941). After her last film, the Bob Hope espionage tale They Got Me Covered (1943), Day left the movies to pursue a career as one of the first female aerial daredevils.