Doris Day

Born: April 3, 1924
Where: Cincinnati, Ohio

When she was little, Doris Von Kappelhoff asked her stage mother: "What will I be?"

"A dancer," came the confident reply, but the talented little girl's preferred career was a doomed option, after a car accident badly injured her right leg.

The born performer became a singer and took her stage name from the song Day By Day.

Day is one of the most talented, high-profile and influential stars to emerge since the end of WWII.

A heroine of American popular culture of the 1950s and 60s, she made her entry to films in 1948 after a highly successful singing career in a band.

For the next two decades Day defined the wholesome blonde girl-next-door in musicals, dramas and innocent but seductive sex farces.

Her debut film, Romance on the High Seas, brought her immediate fame in 1948 and from then on the starring role offers came flooding in.

From cult Classic Calamity Jane to Alfred Hitchcock's remake of his thriller The Man Who Knew Too Much, Day's versatility never failed to impress audiences and critics.

Her popular peak came when she left musicals and starred in a series of teasing sex farces in which leading men (usually Rock Hudson) attempt to break through Day's prim and proper exterior.

Teacher's Pet, opposite Clark Gable; and the smash hit Pillow Talk, opposite Hudson, began Day's complete domination of box office charts for at least five years.

Legendary Hollywood wit Oscar Levant famously said: "I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin."

Since the decline of her career, she has retired, devoting most of her energies to pet adoption and animal rights advocacy.