#13: Pillow Talk by Doris Day

City: Hull, QC
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: December 1959
Peak Position in Hull ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Pillow Talk”
Lyrics: “Pillow Talk”

Doris Mary Anne Kappelhoff was born in 1922 in Cincinnati, Ohio. For most of her life, Day stated that she was born in 1924, but on the occasion of her 95th birthday, the Associated Press found her birth certificate that showed a 1922 date of birth. She was part of a dance duo into the mid-30s, but an October 1937 car accident with a freight train resulted in her having a broken leg. As she recovered, she found herself singing along with variety songs on the radio. She took singing lessons. During the eight months when she was receiving singing lessons, Day secured her first professional jobs as a vocalist on the WLW-Cincinnati radio program Carlin’s Carnival and in a local restaurant, Charlie Yee’s Shanghai Inn. During her radio performances, she first caught the attention of Barney Rapp who was seeking a female vocalist and asked her to audition for the job. According to Rapp, he had auditioned about 200 other singers.

In 1939, Rapp suggested the stage name Doris Day because the Kappelhoff surname was too long for marquees and he admired her rendition of the song “Day After Day”. She appeared in three Sounds (3-minute film shorts featuring a singer) with Les Brown and his Orchestra in in the early 40s.

In 1944, she recorded with Les Brown “Sentimental Journey”. The song became a number-one hit with the song from May 26 to August 4, 1945. Sales exceeded 5 million! In 1998, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In 1945 she had another number-one hit with “My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time” from April 7 to May 19, 1945, which was also a million seller. Doris Day also had notable Top Ten hits with Les Brown and his Orchestra that included “Till The End Of Time” (#3, 1945), “You Won’t Be Satisfied (Until You Break My Heart)” (#2, 1946), “The Whole World Is Singing My Song” (#6, 1946), and “Sooner Or Later” (#8, 1947).

In 1948, Doris Day and Buddy Clark had a number-one hit with “Love Somebody”. The duo also had a Top ten hit with “My Darling, My Darling”. Later that year, “It’s Magic” was a #2 hit for Doris Day, and in 1949 “Again” matched her chart success of her previous solo effort. In 1948, Doris Day appeared in her first feature film, Romance on the High Seas. This was the film that featured “It’s Magic” and also received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. She appeared at The 21st Annual Academy Awards in 1949, which was broadcast on television. The same year, Day released her first studio album on Columbia Records titled You’re My Thrill. 

In the early 50s, Day racked up more Top Ten hits with “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered”, “Shanghai” and a duet with Frankie Laine titled “Sugar Bush”. In 1952, she had a number-one hit with “A Guy Is A Guy”.

In 1953, Doris Day teamed up with Johnnie Ray and charted to #4 in the UK with “Let’s Walk That-A-Way”. The following year, she released her biggest hit record, “Secret Love”, which topped the pop charts for five weeks in the spring of ’54. The song was from the film Calamity Jane, and won an Academy Award for best Original Song. In 1999, “Secret Love” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Later in 1954, Doris Day’s “If I Give My Heart to You” peaked at #3. In 1956, Day had another big hit titled “Que Sera Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)”. The song was featured in the 1956 film, The Man Who Knew Too Much. The song won an Academy Award for Best Original Song. In 2012, “Que Sera Sera…” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Day earned a second Best Song nomination for “Julie” which was the theme song from the thriller film of the same name. The film grossed $11.3M (or $130M in 2024 US dollars).

Day had eight more releases to the end of 1958. But just one of these made the Top 40, “Everybody Loves A Lover”, which climbed to #6. She earned a Grammy Award nomination Best Vocal Performance Female for “Everybody loves a Lover”. Her single releases included theme songs to Teacher’s Pet and The Tunnel of Love. In 1958, Doris Day was the co-presenter at The 30th Annual Academy Awards. In 1959, Doris Day was nominated for Actress in a Leading Role at the Golden Globe Awards for The Tunnel of Love. In 1959, Day starred opposite Rock Hudson in Pillow Talk. The film earned $204M in 2024 dollars. Day was also nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Actress category. She lost out to Simone Signoret in Room at the Top. She was also nominated for a Best Actress award for the film at the Golden Globe Awards.

In the spring of 1959, Doris Day released “Love Me In The Daytime”, the debut release from her album Listen to Day. On October 6, Universal Pictures released Pillow Talk. The movie is a plot about Jan Morrow (Doris Day), an interior decorator, and Brad Allen (Rock Hudson), a womanizing composer and bachelor, who share a telephone party line. When she unsuccessfully files a complaint on him for constantly using the line to woo his conquests, Brad finds out she is rather pretty and decides to trick her by masquerading as a Texas rancher. The scheme seems to work until their mutual friend Jonathan Forbes (Tony Randall) finds out about it and exposes Brad.

Doris Day sang “Pillow Talk” during the opening credits. The theme song was released as a single.

“Pillow Talk” was written by Buddy Pepper and Inez James Walden. The song concerns a single gal who wonders about the boy she’s someday going to marry. She laments that all she does is “talk to my pillow.” She dreams there must be “a pillow-talkin’ boy for me.”

Buddy Pepper was born Jack Retherford Starkey in 1922 in rural Kentucky. At the age of five, in 1928, he started to play piano. He showcased his musical gifts around the age of seven, playing piano and singing on stages throughout his hometown. In 1930, he had his own “song and piano program,” airing every week on local Louisville radio station WHAS. At age eleven, he performed as the star piano soloist in the Steedman Philharmonic Club at the Brown Hotel in Louisville, playing Mozart’s D Major Piano Concerto. Around 1930, Starkey created a Vaudeville act with his friend Jack Pepper, called “Buddy and Florence Pepper.” It was at this time that Starkey first went under his stage name “Buddy Pepper.” By 1937, they were discovered by Universal Pictures. In 1938, Pepper appeared in his first film, the musical That Certain Age. He became friends with other child stars, including Judy Garland. Pepper performed in a half dozen other movies until 1942. From 1942 to 1945, Pepper served in the United States military. In 1950, he wrote “Sorry”, a Top 30 hit for Frank Sinatra. From April to September 1951, he accompanied Judy Garland on her tour of Europe. However, his major claim to fame is cowriting “Vaya Con Dios” for Les Paul and Mary Ford. It was the number-one hit of 1953. In the mid-50s, Pepper was Marlene Dietrich’s pianist. In addition to composing music for Pillow Talk, in 1960, Pepper wrote the score for the film Portrait in Black. Pepper died in 1993 of heart failure at the age of 70.

Inez James was born in 1919. She collaborated with Buddy Pepper on several of the 26 films she wrote music for. She also co-wrote “Vaya Con Dios”. She died in 1993 at the age of 74.

“Pillow Talk” peaked at #1 n Hull (QC), #2 in Towson (MD), #4 in Salt Lake City, and #7 in Regina (SK).

Though she was shut out of the Top 40 in the USA and Canada in the 1960s, Doris Day had one more Top Ten international hit. In December 1963, the film Move Over Darling was released by 20th Century Fox. The comedy starred Doris Day and James Garner. The theme song, “Move Over Darling” was sung by Doris Day. It climbed to #1 in Hong Kong, #4 in New Zealand, and #8 in the UK. Day earned another Golden Globe nomination in the Actress in a Leading Role category. Between 1959 and 1964, Doris Day received five nominations in a Best Performance/Actress in a Leading Role category at the Golden Globes.

In 1963, Day appeared opposite James Garner in a comedy about a woman who gets hired to be on TV commercials promoting Happy Soap. The Thrill of It All earned $11,793,000.00 (or over $121M in 2024 US dollars). The previous year, That Touch of Mink, co-starring with Cary Grant, earned $17.6M (or $183M in 2024 US dollars). In 1964, Doris Day appeared opposite Rock Hudson and Tony Randall in Send Me No Flowers. The movie earned an equivalent of $92M in 2024 US dollars.

In 1989, Doris Day won a Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes for “outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment.”

From 1968 to 1973, she was the host of 128 episodes of The Doris Day Show on CBS. The TV sitcom earned her a Golden Globe nomination in 1969. For the 1985-86 season, she came out of retirement and hosted the TV talk show Doris Day’s Best Friends. Rock Hudson, Doris Day’s frequent costar from a string of 1960s romantic comedies, was the guest star on the first episode of this show (taped in mid-July ’85). However, what was meant to be a heartwarming, nostalgic reunion was marred by the fact that Hudson, who had been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS the year before, was visibly ill and seriously struggling. It was one of his last public appearances before his death in October 1985.

Over the years, Doris Day appeared on numerous TV shows. She appeared twice as a mystery guest on What’s My Line? (1954 and 1957), The Bob Hope Show, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Merv Griffin Show, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, The Mike Douglas Show, and others.

Between 1949 and 1985, Doris Day released 32 studio albums. She starred in 39 feature films between 1948 and 1968. In 2004, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush.

On her 95th birthday it was discovered that the singer/actress had fibbed about being born in 1924. The Associated Press found her birth certificate from 1922. Doris Day died in May 2019, at the age of 97, or pneumonia. At her request, there was no funeral, public memorial, or grave marker.

Married four times, her son Terry Melcher (born Terry Day), was an executive producer for both The Doris Day Show and Doris Day’s Best Friends. He wrote the Top Ten surf hit “Hey Little Cobra” for the Rip Chords (1964). Melcher also wrote “Kokomo” for the Beach Boys, which became a number-one hit in 1988, and nominated for Best Song at the Golden Globes.

October 25, 2024
Ray McGinnis

References:
Benjamin Lee, “Doris Day, celebrated actor and singer, dies aged 97,” Guardian, May 13, 2019.
David Kaufman, Doris Day, The Untold Story of the Girl Next Door, (Virgin Books, 2020).
Michael Feinstein, with forward by Paul McCartney, Doris Day: Images of a Hollywood Icon, (Hermes Press, 2022).
Lynn Elber, “Birthday surprise for ageless Doris Day: She’s actually 95,” Associated Press, April 2, 2017.
“Broken Leg Perils Career of Cincinnati Dancer – Girl, 16, Is Injured on Eve of Trip to Hollywood,” Cincinnati Enquirer, October 15, 1937.
“Doris Day talks about Rock Hudson, Ronald Reagan, and her own story,” Pittsburgh Press, August 3, 1986.
“President Bush Presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom,” White House, June 23, 2004.
“Rock Hudson – Mystery Illness,” July 15, 1985.
“Producer Terry Melcher Dies at 62,” Billboard, November 22, 2004.
“Buddy Pepper, composer and actor, is dead at 70,” The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Kentucky, February 12, 1993.

CKCH 970-AM Hull (QC) Top 15 | December 19, 1959