The dark days of Doris Day: The 'girl next door' had a dark side behind her squeaky clean public image

She was only 16, but Doris Kappelhoff didn't mince her words when trombonist Al Jorden asked her to accompany him to the cinema.

'He's a creep and I wouldn't go out with him if they were giving away gold nuggets at the movie!' she snapped.

Her mother, Alma, agreed. She didn't like the surly Jorden one bit. For a start, there was the age difference - he was 23, for goodness' sake! And those musicians were unreliable. And what if it interfered with her career?

Jorden lived locally in Evanstown, Cincinnati, where Doris had been born, and played in the same band as her. She'd been signed up after turning up with 100 other young hopefuls, clutching some sheet music, desperate to impress local entrepreneur and band leader Barney Rapp.

Only the image was wholesome: Doris Day, queen of the coy sex comedy

Rapp liked Doris - he liked most attractive, underage girls, as it happens, despite being married with a pregnant wife - and happily agreed to have her in his band.

Whether she also ended up in his bed is not clear, but considering his unsavoury nature and her unusually 'mature' attitude towards sex, it was more than likely - even though she was 'going steady' with someone her ambitious mother considered a very nice chap, a well-known local radio presenter, Fred Foster.

Yes, Doris might have been just 16, but she was already far from naive when it came to men. She was made aware of the harsh realities of sexual relationships early. Both her parents were Catholics and her father, Frederick, a music teacher, was a strict disciplinarian. But he wasn't very disciplined when it came to his own love life and embarked on a string of affairs - one of them with his wife's best friend.

Doris would hear them having sex in the room next to hers, and cry herself to sleep. After learning what was happening, Alma threw him out and they were divorced. The bottom dropped out of Doris's world. She would spend the rest of her life yearning for an unattainable family idyll.

'It was the only ambition I ever had,' she said. 'Not to be a dancer or Hollywood movie star, but to be a housewife in a good marriage.' Sadly for Doris, though she was to be a wife four times, she would never have a good marriage - largely on account of her own bad choices in men.

It was bandleader Barney Rapp who gave her the name that would earn her worldwide celebrity. This was 1940, and Doris Kappelhoff sounded too Jewish and was too long for the billboards.

The first song she performed for him was Day After Day, so Rapp re-baptised her Doris Day and soon had her performing at local venues. It was the start of a career that would span the next 30 years.

It was also the start of a romantic career that proved rather less glittering. Why Doris changed her mind about dating trombonist Al Jorden is unclear - but she did. She should have stuck with her first instincts.

It was she who broke the ice, asking him if he would not mind collecting her each evening and then dropping her home after the show. She subsequently described him as one of the glummest personalities she had ever met, but she stuck with him all the same.

All her life, Doris - like Judy Garland, Edith Piaf, Joan Crawford and many other stars - was to attract mean and moody types with whom she had (and, by all accounts, enjoyed) a sex life where passion constantly merged into violence. According to those who knew her, Doris Day actually wore her bruises with pride.

From the time of their first date, Jorden was bad news. He seemed to have a need to exert masculine power. He cheated on Doris, knocked her around and humiliated her in public.

One might just about have excused him for criticising her table manners - Doris had a fondness for wolfing down hamburgers with huge portions of ketchup and raw onions after the shows, usually in Jorden's car on their way home, and she would drop chunks of food everywhere. She also had a habit of talking with her mouth full and spitting, which cannot have helped his mood swings.

Soon into their relationship, she accompanied Jorden and some of the musicians from their band, Sign Of The Drum, on a weekend trip along the Ohio River in his 15ft speedboat. Jorden attempted to hit top speed while racing in the swell of a paddleboat.

The resulting waves overturned the craft and the occupants very nearly drowned; they were rescued by a passing boat manned by a local reporter and their near-tragedy made the front page of the Cincinnati Star.



Doris's terrified mother begged her not to have anything to do with this lunatic again, but the incident only drew them closer. Fred Foster the radio presenter (with whom she'd continued to toy) was unceremoniously dumped, and when Jorden asked her to marry him, Doris agreed.

The engagement held fast even when Jorden left the band to join another one and embarked on a nationwide tour. He swore to remain faithful, and Doris promised to wait for him.

While he was away, Doris was also signed up to another group, Band Of Renown, whose leader Les Brown recognised her incredible singing talent.

The star is now living as a recluse in California

Soon she was touring across the country, and the pressure began to take its toll - she started drinking and smoking two packs of cigarettes a day.

After the tour, Doris informed Les Brown that she was leaving the band to get married. Although he joined her mother Alma in begging her to think again, she was in love and she refused to listen. Her career, she declared, was of no importance.

In the spring of 1941, between matinee and evening shows in New York, where she was serving out her notice, Doris was married to Al Jorden. She was just 17. The reception, a last-minute affair, was held at a nearby greasy spoon.

The very next day, Jorden saw Doris giving a fellow musician a peck on the cheek, thanking him for a wedding present. He dragged her out of the theatre and through the streets, then up the stairs to their room at the Whitby Hotel, off Times Square, where he beat her senseless.

Another time, she and Jorden were walking past a news stand in New York and she pointed to a photograph of herself wearing a swimsuit on the cover of a magazine. Consumed by jealousy, Jorden slapped her repeatedly across the face in front of dozens of shocked fans.

Doris lost count of the number of times he called her a 'dirty whore'. The beatings were frequent and brutal. But after every manic, violent episode, he would fling her on the bed and make passionate love to her.

She soon discovered she was pregnant and despite the unsavoury elements to their relationship, she was delighted - and assumed Jorden would be too. But as soon as she gave him the news, her husband arranged an appointment with a back-street abortionist.

Doris's mother - usually a placid soul - told Jorden if the abortion went ahead, she would have him killed. Jorden then decided the unborn child was not his and gave Doris such a beating, she almost miscarried.

But still Doris refused to leave him. Four weeks before the baby was due, Jorden bought a gun and hid it in the glove compartment of his car, waiting for the right moment to kill her, and then himself.

One day, he pulled the car over into a lay-by and pushed the nozzle of the gun into Doris's stomach, intent on carrying out his plan - shooting her and their baby before blowing his own brains out.

Somehow, she managed to talk him out of this, and instead he beat her when they got home. For the rest of her life, Doris had a horror of riding in the front of a car.

In January 1942, leaving Doris alone in their apartment and vowing never to return, Jorden went travelling with his band and his latest mistresses.

Doris finally contacted her mother to say she'd had enough, and within hours Alma arrived and announced she had found a house for the two of them and the baby.

The following month, aged 18, Doris was rushed into hospital and after a gruelling 12-hour labour she gave birth to an 8lb son whom she named Terry - after a character in a favourite childhood book, Terry and The Pirates.

On hearing the news, Jorden begged for forgiveness - and, almost inevitably, Doris was foolish enough to give him another chance.

All she received in return was more abuse. Jorden insisted that Doris left all care of Terry to Alma. If the child cried during the night, Doris was prohibited from going in to comfort him, and if she disobeyed Jorden rewarded her with a slap.



After a night on the town with his latest squeeze he would stomp up the stairs, drunk, barge into Alma's room and rattle the bars of Terry's cot, bellowing at him until the terrified child screamed the house down.



Doris only put up with this a few times before calling in the locksmith when her husband was out and starting divorce proceedings. But as soon as she was free of him, she fell into a deep depression.



In her eyes even a low-life such as Al Jorden was better than no man at all. Her girlhood dream of marriage and a blissful family life was in ruins and now it seemed as though nothing would take its place.



In fact, it was the best thing that could have happened - not just for her health, but also for her career.



After the divorce, she had no more dealings with Jorden, and when she learned that he had finally put a bullet through his skull some years later, she shed no tears.

Thriller: Doris Day with James Stewart in Alfred Hitchcock's 1956 film The Man Who Knew Too Much

She started touring with Les Brown again, which meant leaving baby Terry with her mother. Over the next three years she enjoyed tremendous success with Brown, both on the road and in the recording studio.



On November 20, 1944, she released the song that was to make her a star - Sentimental Journey.



'I always feel a rise in my scalp or in the backs of my wrists when something is special,' she observed, 'whether it be a song or a man.' Clearly, she was a far better judge of the former.



The song became Doris's signature tune, occupying the number one spot in the charts for nine weeks in America. Millions of copies were sold and it became as potent a 'Forces Sweetheart' song as Vera Lynn's 'We'll Meet Again' and Marlene Dietrich's 'Lili Marlene'.



Hit after hit followed. Success was not exactly accepted graciously by Ms Day, however. She was not always the most likeable of characters. She was rarely modest when discussing her talents - something her peers forced themselves to accept because she was so gifted.



And her tantrums were legendary. She had a huge temper, and if she didn't get her own way she would slam doors, swear like a trooper and threaten to go back to Cincinnati.



Of course, within months of leaving Jorden, this incurable romantic announced she was in love again. This time, it was with saxophonist George Weidler - another bad choice.



Doris and Weidler made no secret of the fact that they were sharing a hotel room, something still considered scandalous for unmarried couples in those more innocent days.



Neither cared much for public opinion, but Les Brown, who always considered himself some sort of surrogate father figure for Doris, was mortified by her behaviour and asked her to stop seeing her lover.



According to Brown, Weidler was only marginally less obnoxious than Al Jorden and, in any case, fraternisation among band members was forbidden.



When his pleading did not work, Brown ordered the couple to split up. Weidler promptly headed for California, where he believed he could earn far more money, but not before announcing that he and Doris were getting married.



The wedding took place on March 30, 1946, with Doris declaring how this time she really had found the right man and they were going to live happily ever after.



Like the marriage to Jorden, this ceremony was slotted in between Weidler's matinee performance and Doris's evening show with Les Brown.



It also coincided with Doris appearing for the first time on Bob Hope's radio extravaganza, The Pepsodent Show.



Success after success: Doris Day with Rock Hudson in 1959's Pillow Talk

Although she had announced, once again, that she was going to quit singing to be a full-time wife and mother, this was an appearance she couldn't bear to miss - the show had a huge following. And it was a great success.

Over the next four years, she became Hope's regular guest on his shows. And despite his initial dislike of her, the two became friends. He always addressed her as 'J B' even on the air. This was a private joke, for the initials stood for 'Jut Butt', on account of her shapely derriere.



It was Hope who introduced Doris to the man that would make her a movie star - her first agent, Al Levy.



Shrewdly, Levy recognised Doris's enormous potential, not as a band and radio singer, where he believed her talents were being wasted, but as a solo performer and potential movie star.



Doris, for all her pretence that fame did not interest her, pricked up her ears when he mentioned Hollywood. She cabled Weidler to ask him to find them a family home in Los Angeles. The best he could come up with was a trailer in a park off a main road full of drug dealers and other undesirables - hardly a good start to married life.



Matters weren't helped when Doris insisted Alma should move in with them to help care for little Terry. Though Weidler was not violent, he wasn't fond of his stepson - and he was cheating on Doris already.



After just a few weeks, aware that her second marriage was not working out, Doris asked Al Levy to find her work as far away from her husband as he could.



He managed to secure her a contract in New York and she headed back there with Terry and Alma. In a fit of jealousy, Weidler wrote to her, demanding a divorce, convinced his wife's continued success would only end up driving a wedge between them.



Desperately miserable, Doris left Terry in their hotel room with Alma, and scooted back to Hollywood as fast as she could to beg Weidler to reconsider. The couple spent one last night together, during which Weidler told Doris he had never loved her.



'I could not doubt his strong desire for me,' she later observed, 'But I guess his desire not to be Mr Doris Day was even stronger.'



The next morning they parted, after a marriage that had lasted less than eight months. Yet again, it was to prove only to help Doris's career, as she began accompanying Al Levy, as his date, to parties being thrown by anyone who counted in Hollywood.



It was at one such bash that she was introduced to director Michael Curtiz, who gave her her first movie role in Romance On The High Seas.



Though the film was no masterpiece, the title track, It's Magic, sung by Doris, reached number two in the U.S. charts and was nominated for an Academy Award, replacing Sentimental Journey as her signature tune and selling a million copies within a month of its release.



While making the film, Doris started what could most politely be termed a rather 'exciting' phase in her social life.



As well as now smoking three packets of cigarettes a day, she was having an affair with a leading actor of the day, Jack Carson.



What Carson did not know was that Doris was actually 'cheating' on him with her estranged husband - the pair enjoyed several amorous reunions when Weidler's band was performing locally.



Weidler apologised to Doris for treating her so badly and swore that he had turned over a new leaf and found religion. He had become obsessed with Christian Science - which Doris also decided to adopt.



Just to complicate affairs, Doris was also sleeping with a third man - Al Levy.



Although apparently bisexual, her agent enjoyed having women in his power. Doris played straight into his hands by allowing him to wine, dine and seduce her.



Once George Weidler had told her he wanted her back, she told Levy that although the sex had been good, he would have to be satisfied with just being her agent.



Levy did not take kindly to being relegated from the bedroom and began to stalk her when she was out on the town with Weidler or Jack Carson.



Matters came to a head when Doris met him for dinner and told him to back off. Levy followed her back to her hotel room where he attempted to rape her. Even for Doris, with her strange tolerance for violent lovers, this was too much.



She went to see Levy's business partners at Century Artists, Richard Dorso and Marty Melcher, and Levy was forced to relocate to New York to run the firm's office there to avoid her pressing charges.



But no sooner was Levy gone than Marty Melcher moved in on her - and she started sleeping with him, too, as well as teaching him about Christian Science.



So she was now seeing Marty Melcher, George Weidler, Jack Carson - and her handsome co- star in another film, Steve Cochran, boyfriend of none other than Joan Crawford, who would always hate Doris for stealing her man.



Cochran was a notorious womaniser, whose formidable vital statistics had earned him the Hollywood nickname 'Mr King Size'. As if this wasn't enough, Doris was also sleeping with one of the openly gay bit-part actors from the musical The West Point Story, and was involved with yet another star, a certain Ronald Reagan.



She said two things impressed her about Reagan - his skill on the dance floor and his ability to have an intelligent conversation. The two would sneak off to his apartment high in the Hollywood Hills and make love while marvelling at the panoramic view below.



Somehow, despite all the energy she was expending on her socialising, her career was going from strength to strength. She was earning $5,000 a week, and making movie after movie for Warner Brothers.



Marty Melcher negotiated fantastic deals for her - and was obsessed with the prospect of walking her down the aisle, although he was not yet divorced from his wife, Patty Andrews, of the singing trio The Andrews Sisters.



When a gossip column reported that Doris and her manager were having an adulterous affair, Patty immediately filed for divorced and Melcher asked Doris to marry him when he was free.



She accepted at once and promised to give up the half-dozen or so men in her life.



Doris Day and Marty Melcher were married on April 3, 1951 - her 27th birthday - and to start with it seemed that she had finally found marital happiness. Ultimately, however, this marriage was going to prove yet another disastrous mistake.



Adapted from Doris Day: Reluctant Star by David Bret, published by JR Books on June 25 at £17.99. © David Bret 2008.



To order a copy at £16.20 (p&p free), call 0845 606 4206.

