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Milwaukee Sentinel (29/Jul/1993) - For the love of Doris: Fair having one of those days

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For the love of Doris: Fair having one of those days

Mark Saturday, Aug. 14, on your calendar with lots of cute little freckles.

It's Doris Day at the State Fair!!!

THE Doris Day of "Pillow Talk" will not be there, but the fair folks will be honoring any Doris who shows up. That's why they declared it Doris Day.

"We're celebrating everyone named Doris," Julie Carlson, director of public relations, said.

Doris Day at the fair came about for a practical reason.

"We need to have a name for every day so there's something at top of the page of the daily schedule," Carlson said pragmatically. The fair has a senior day, veterans day, children's day or some such day.

But there was nothing for Aug. 14, so the staff began brainstorming.

Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah Day was rejected, as was Go Ahead, Make My Day, ("too violent," said Carlson). The staff considered Dennis Day, the late Irish tenor who appeared on Jack Benny's radio and television shows, and Morris Day, the rhythm and blues singer who gained fame in Prince's movie, "Purple Rain," but turned them down, perhaps because some generations do not know them.

But everyone knows Doris Day, that cute, wonderful singer and reasonably good actress whose face always got fuzzy when the camera moved in so the freckles and later the wrinkles would not show.

Day's image will not be used at the fair because of commercial reasons, but there will be pink T-shirts saying, "Celebrate Doris Day," and there will be a Doris Day look-alike contest.

Will contestants need to have freckles to participate?

That's up to the judges, who will decide whether they prefer "an earlier Doris look or a later Doris look," Carlson said. However, she noted contestants need not have that fuzzy, hazy look to participate.

Anyone named Doris will receive a souvenir packet, including a State Fair cookbook, one of the T-shirts and other fair memorabilia. The fair also is thinking about inviting all Dorises to march in the daily parade.

Though some people think of THE Doris Day only as an actress in sappy movies, like "Pillow Talk," she was a popular box office star in her heyday and worked with some of the era's top actors and directors.

A big band singer turned actress, she stopped the show in her 1948 movie debut in "Romance on the High Seas" when she sang "It's Magic." Her rendition of "Secret Love" in the 1953 hit, "Calamity Jane," won an Oscar for the song.

She acted in movies with Gary Grant, Clark Gable, Ronald Reagan and, of course, Rock Hudson. She won praise for her performance of torch singer Ruth Etting in "Love Me or Leave Me" with James Cagney.

She starred with James Stewart in the Alfred Hitchcock-directed "The Man Who Knew Too Much." Millions remember her loud, wailing rendition of "Que Sera, Sera" as she sang her son out of the clutches of the Communists, who were holding him captive in an embassy.

There's no indication THE Doris Day, who is now 69, will show up at the State Fair, but Carlson said any Doris who does appear will get the free souvenir packet. Proof of Dorisness or Dorisity will be needed "an employee ID, a state ID or anything with a name printed on it," she said. "I think we're going to be pretty flexible about that."

And any Doris who shows up with a friend named Rock is certain to get star billing.

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