Doris Day, one of the great actresses of our time, has passed away peacefully at her home in West San Dimas, Nevada, surrounded by her family and friends.
Born Martha Prudence Birkenstock to the Birkenstock sandal fortune, Day changed her name in the mid-1940s when people began to suggest she may be foreign with such a funny name. She used the power and influence money gives Americans — even back then — to earn her way into a movie career that would span nearly six decades.
She is most famous for playing herself in commercials with Madge, and Annie Oakley in those old Annie Oakley movies. In 1959, Day became the official spokesperson for the NRA, which was a very different organization at the time.
According to family historian and Doris Day’s great-grandson, actor and producer/director Charlie Day, She made the NRA what it is today:
“Great Gamma was a tough lady. She took the NRA from some organization that taught gun safety and focused on things like marksmanship to the political powerhouse it is today. All she had to do was call her friend, Grover Norquist, and he took it from there. Now, the NRA covers for more gun deaths than ever before, making sure people know it is never, and they mean never, the gun that is at fault.”
Doris Day has been married and widowed 7 times to men mostly too insignificant to mention. She had thirteen children and outlived them all, along with the family parrot, Butters. She is survived by 126 grandchildren and great-grandchildren and 6,804 cousins. A full listing is accessible on Google, where you should really be headed by now.
Day will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery with her 1st husband, Captain Sandiford Batt, whose destroyer went down off the coast of Korea, saving Red Foreman from church on Sundays.
