We've heard this song before

books:


	• Considering Doris Day Tom Santopietro Thomas Dunne Books, 2007 - 400 pages average customer review:based on 20 reviews view larger image
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Very glowing biography

The author really raves about Doris Day even when she is not that good, he'll defend her work. Doris is a very talented singer/actress who has done some very notable work. He is pretty honest about her clunkers, in movies/music, even though I might have liked that movie. However, he gives a good luck at her career through music, movies, and tv. He also provides a good overview of the era in which she worked, discussing how studios made movies in the 50's. It's a good, unvarnished book that you'll enjoy. There are a few lists at the end detailing all her movies/music along with his personal comments.

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At Least Consider It

Still, there is not a biography worthy of Doris Day to (this `day' - sorry). Mr. Santopietro goes into great length about Ms. Day's career from child to adult, including a big emphasis on her singing career (who knew?). But it doesn't rise to the status that any fan would hope for. This is the woman who spent more time in bed with Rock Hudson than any other woman in history! It's great to read the accolades of her singing career, but the observations on her film career fall short. While not Oscar material, Doris Day certainly had the attention of the world during her film career. There's not much dirt or insight here and I look forward to the next biography due in 2008, but it was sort of fun to hear about people who knew about Doris Day "before" she was a virgin!

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We've heard this song before

I do think Tom Santopietro is a flavorful writer. I'm a journalist and journalism teacher and editor and I've had a separate life in the music business and, Lord oh Lord, the terrible reporting and writing I've seen. Santopietro isn't terrible and is often quite delicious to read. And he's bright. But, as with his Streisand appraisal, everything here has been said before somewhere else and his meager quotes from Day herself come from the few sentences she spoke on a PBS documentary and published sources. I'm not sure that's a problem as Day never has been much of a commentator on her films or her music or her art. I think that is a consequence of her having always been a natural, instinctive talent with a strong honest streak. But in truth any of hundreds of Day fans could have written this book. That's not to take away from the fact Santopietro actually DID it and has gotten great reviews for it but I'm still wondering how--unless I'm missing something--he never noticed that the song "The Glass Bottom Boat," which he loathes, consists of new lyrics to the great standard "Soft As the Starlight," one of Day's great recordings. The great Day book is still down the road.--Wayne Brasler, University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, wbrasle@ucls.uchicago.edu.

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An Underrated Icon?

Today, forty years after her last film, how many would name Doris Day as the #1 female movie star of all time in terms of box office? This book definitely has value as a reference for Day fans particularly for its comprehensive catalog of her recordings. The author rates all her films, records, and TV shows. His opinions, of course, are subject to question. He tends to be repetitious and I sometimes found his overly personal and informal style to be annoying. It should be understood that the book is a detailed analysis of her career rather than her personal life.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

The biggest female box office attraction in Hollywood history, Doris Day remains unequalled as the only entertainer who has ever triumphed in movies, radio, recordings, and a multi-year weekly television series. America's favorite girl next door may have projected a wholesome image that led Oscar Levant to quip "I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin," but in Considering Doris Day Tom Santopietro reveals Day's underappreciated and effortless acting and singing range that ran the gamut from musicals to comedy to drama and made Day nothing short of a worldwide icon.
Covering the early Warner Brothers years through Day's triumphs working with artists as varied as Alfred Hitchcock and Bob Fosse, Santopietro's smart and funny book deconstructs the myth of Day as America's perennial virgin, and reveals why her work continues to resonate today, both onscreen as pioneering independent career woman role model, and off, as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian honor. Praised by James Cagney as "my idea of a great actor" and by James Garner as "the Fred Astaire of comedy," Doris Day became not just America's favorite girl, but the number one film star in the world. Yet after two weekly television series, including a triumphant five year run on CBS, she turned her back on show business forever.
Examining why Day's worldwide success in movies overshadowed the brilliant series of concept recordings she made for Columbia Records in the '50s and '60s, Tom Santopietro uncovers the unexpected facets of Day's surprisingly sexy acting and singing style that led no less an observer than John Updike to state "She just glowed for me." Placing Day's work within the social context of America in the second half of the twentieth century, Considering Doris Day is the first book that grants Doris Day her rightful place as a singular American artist.

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