Doris Day-isn’t just saying “que sera sera”–whatever will be, will be. She is releasing a new album at age 89. Like Betty White, she’s as vital as ever.
I bring this up right now because next week the Motion Picture Academy is going to meet and choose its next lifetime achievement award honorees. Doris is the most notorious hold out in movie history. In the past, anyone who’s tried to honor her or interview her has been rebuffed.
But it turns out that Day has been giving some interviews to the BBC for this album of unreleased material. The reason is that the recordings were made by her late son, Terry Melcher. There are four unreleased tracks co-written by Melcher with Beach Boy Bruce Johnston, as well as a cover of Billy Preston‘s “You Are So Beautiful.” (Whoever wrote the copy lists this as a Joe Cocker song, but he just recorded it. Billy wrote it.) The album, called “My Heart,” hits stores from Sony Music in September.
I do think the Academy should just go for it and give Miss Day a special Oscar. She doesn’t like to travel too far from her Carmel, California home. But my guess is, once it’s announced, she could be persuaded to spend a few days at the Beverly Hills Hotel. For the record, she has one Oscar nomination– for “Pillow Talk” in 1960. But for so many other films, from Alfred Hitchcock‘s “The Man Who Knew Too Much” to “Love Me Or Leave Me,” Doris deserves her own gold statue.
The Academy should also not worry about being turned down by Miss Day. They didn’t worry about Jean Luc Godard, and he screwed ’em anyway. I doubt Doris Day will follow that route.
