As the world mourns the passing of an icon from the golden age of Hollywood, we will take a moment to honor Doris Day, not as an actress or a singer, but as an animal rights advocate. When she retired from show business in the 1970s, Doris Day, the star of Calamity Jane, Pillow Talk, and The Man Who Knew Too Much, devoted her time and energies to helping animals. As Day once said, “I have found that when you are deeply troubled, there are things you can get from the silent, devoted companionship of a dog that you can get from no other source.”
When she was just 14 years old, Doris Day wasn’t dreaming of being an actress or singer. She had a passion and talent for dance. She had made a trip from her home in Cincinnati to Hollywood to see if she had a shot at working as a dancer in the movies. The response she got was so favorable that Day returned to Ohio and made plans for a permanent move to California. But tragedy struck. The night before she was supposed to leave for Hollywood, the car she was riding in was struck by a train. The injuries she sustained meant an end to Day’s budding dancing career. She faced months of recovery. Doris Day often said that the was able to keep her spirits up during her convalescence because of the constant companionship of her dog, Tiny. She wrote about Tiny in her autobiography, “He never left my side, understood my moods, and gave me the kind of companionship that only a dog can bestow.”
Doris Day’s love affair with dogs expanded to include other animals as well. While on location in Africa for the filming of the 1956 Alfred Hitchcock movie, The Man Who Knew Too Much, she witnessed the poor treatment of animals used as extras in the film. One scene of the movie was set in a bustling marketplace and Hitchcock wanted dogs, sheep, goats, camels, and other animals to be in the scene to give it the realistic feeling of an African market. Doris Day was shocked at the treatment of the animals and the condition in which they were kept. She demanded that the animals be properly fed and housed and even went on strike—refusing to work at all—until her demands were met. The studio agreed to her demands and constructed proper pens and feeding stations. This incident sparked in Doris Day a lifelong commitment to working on behalf of animals.
Doris Day, along with fellow actresses Angie Dickinson, Diana Basehart, and Lucie Arnaz, co-founded Actors and Others for Animals, the first of several non-profit animal protection organizations started by Day. During this time, Doris Day even used her home as a shelter for unwanted animals. Word got around, and soon, people were dumping stray dogs and cats—even entire litters of kittens and puppies—over her privacy gate in the dead of night. Even as the number of animals increased, Day never refused a dog or cat. She offered them a place of refuge, got them veterinary care, and worked to find them good homes. Despite being a famous singer and actress, Doris Day insisted on visiting the homes of would-be pet owners prior to adoption, just so she could be assured that they family would provide a safe, loving home.
Understandably, the task of care for so many unwanted animals became overwhelming. In 1978, Doris Day stared the Doris Day Pet Foundation, which is now called the Doris Day Animal Foundation, to take over the day-to-day operations of her pet rescue endeavors. Day used her celebrity status to secure donations to build a facility and to hire a staff to do the work that she was doing. It freed her up from the daunting work and allowed her pet rescue work to expand. The main focus of this foundation was spaying and neutering pets to decrease the number of unwanted animals.
Through her work with animals, Doris Day realized that there was a need for legislation to protect them. She founded yet another organization in 1987, the Doris Day Animal League. The goal of this group, that existed alongside the Doris Day Animal Foundation, was to reduce the pain and suffering of animals through education, legislative initiatives, and the enforcement of current regulations and statutes designed to protect animals. The Doris Day Animal League worked with lawmakers to ensure that the rights of animals were being considered. The Animal League also started Spay Day USA, which has now expanded into World Spay Day, a day in February of each year devoted to increasing awareness about spaying and neutering pets. The Doris Day Animal League merged with the Humane Society of the United States to form a unified voice for animal advocacy in Washington D.C.
Doris Day enjoyed a successful career in the entertainment industry and became a superstar of the 1950s and 1960s. Not content to enjoy a quiet, relaxing retirement, the singer and actress embraced the cause of animal rights and devoted the last few decades of her long life to dogs, cats, horses, and other animals. Her work on behalf of animals was where she found her passion. As Doris Day often said, “I’ve never met an animal I didn’t like, and I can’t say the same thing about people.”