
Hollywood legend Doris Day has died at the age of 97.

Her death was announced by her charity, the Doris Day Animal Foundation, on Monday.

The foundation said in a statement that she was surrounded by close friends and 'had been in excellent physical health for her age, until recently contracting a serious case of pneumonia.'

She died at her estate home in Carmel Valley, California, where she has lived in solitude for the last several decades with her dozens of pets.

The charity also revealed that 'her wishes were that she have no funeral or memorial service and no grave marker.' Instead, she wanted fans to donate to the charity she founded to save animals.

Day charmed America in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, starring in an astonishing 39 films in just 20 years. On screen, she was a bright-eyed goody two-shoes and she often referred to herself as 'America's virgin'.

Her personal life, however, was marred by darker episodes.

All four of her marriages collapsed; her first husband beat her, the second left her, the third squandered her fortune and her fourth felt overlooked by her for her dogs.

She also suffered a bout of mental illness in 1950s at the height of her career.

But her greatest loss was the death of her only child, Terry, in 2004. He died aged 64 after battling melanoma.

In recent years, Day was seldom seen publicly.

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Doris Day, shown in the 60s, (left) and (right) on her 97th birthday on April 3, has died

In addition to starring in some of the most iconic Hollywood films of all time like Pillow Talk, Love On The High Seas and Love Me or Leave Me, Day was a Grammy-winning singer and started her career aged 15 in Les Brown's band.

Her songs Sentimental Journey, Secret Love and Que Sera Sera have all been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Day, unlike her contemporary rival Marilyn Monroe, embodied a wholesome presence that America fell in love with.

In her biography, she wrote about in her biography, Doris Day: Her Own Story.

Her first husband beat her when she was pregnant, her second left her because he knew she would become a star and 'didn't want to become Mr. Doris Day', and her third controlled her social life and career then died, leaving her in debt and forced to return to work.

Doris Day as Calamity Jane in 1953. Her extraordinary body of work includes 39 films shot between 19948 and 1969 and a handful of Grammy-winning songs

Day in Love Me or Leave Me in 1955 (left). She was a gifted singer, dancer and actress who got her start singing for live bands in the 1940s. She is seen, right, in Love On The High Seas in 1948

With Frank Sinatra in the 1954 film Young At Heart (left) and as Jennifer Nelson in the 1966 film The Glass Bottom Boat (right)

Day is shown with Rock Hudson in their 1964 film Send No Flowers. They appeared in several films together including Pillow Talk

Doris Day and Rock Hudson in Pillow Talk, one of her most iconic films, in 1959

Day is pictured in 1965 when she was 43

'I have the unfortunate reputation of being Miss Goody Two-Shoes, America’s Virgin, and all that, so I’m afraid it’s going to shock some people for me to say this, but I staunchly believe no two people should get married until they have lived together,' she said.

Elsewhere, she wrote: 'My public image is unshakably that of America's wholesome virgin, the girl next door, carefree and brimming with happiness, an image, I can assure you, more make-believe than any film part I ever played.

'But I am Miss Chastity Belt and that's all there is to it.'

Born Doris Marianne von Kappelhoff, she grew up in Evanston, Ohio.

Her parents were a music teacher and a housewife and she dreamed of a dance career, but at age 12, suffered a crippling accident: a car she was in was hit by a train and her leg was badly broken.

Listening to the radio while recuperating, she began singing along with Ella Fitzgerald, 'trying to catch the subtle ways she shaded her voice, the casual yet clean way she sang the words.'

DORIS DAY'S 39 FILMS 1948- Romance on the High Seas 1949- My Dream Is Yours; It's a Great Feeling 1950- Young Man with a Horn; Tea for Two; The West Point Story 1951- Storm Warning; Lullaby of Broadway; On Moonlit Bay; Starlift 1952- I'll See You in My Dreams; The Winning Team 1953- April in Paris; By the Light of the Silvery Moon; Calamity Jane 1954- Lucky Me 1955- Young at Heart; Love Me or Leave Me 1956- The Man Who Knew Too Much; Julie 1957- The Pajama Game 1958- Teacher's Pet; Tunnel of Love 1959- It Happened to Jane; Pillow Talk 1960- Please Don't Eat the Daisies; Midnight Lace 1962- Lover Come Back; That Touch of Mink; Billy Rose's Jumbo 1963- The Thrill of It All; Move Over Darling 1964- Send Me No Flowers 1965- Do Not Disturb 1966- Glass Bottom Boat 1967- Caprice; Ballad of Josie 1968- Where Were You When the Lights Went Out? 1969- With Six You Get Egg Roll Advertisement

Day began singing in a Cincinnati radio station, then a local nightclub, then in New York.

A bandleader changed her name to Day, after the song Day after Day, to fit it on a marquee.

Her Hollywood career began after she sang at a Hollywood party in 1947. After early stardom as a band singer and a stint at Warner Bros., Day won the best notices of her career with Love Me or Leave Me, the story of songstress Ruth Etting and her gangster husband-manager. She initially balked at it, but the 1955 film became a box-office and critical success.

But she found her greatest success in slick, stylish sex comedies, beginning with her Oscar-nominated role in Pillow Talk.

She and Rock Hudson were two New Yorkers who shared a telephone party line and initially hated each other.

Romance on the High Seas, another of her notable films, had been designed for Judy Garland, then Betty Hutton.

Both bowed out, and Day, recommended by songwriters Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, won the role.

Warner Bros. cashed in on its new star with a series of musicals, including My Dream Is Yours, Tea for Two and Lullaby of Broadway.

Her last film was With Six You Get Eggroll, a 1968 comedy about a widow and a widower and the problems they have when blending their families.

With movies trending for more explicit sex, she turned to television to recoup her finances.

The Doris Day Show was a moderate success in its 1966-1973 run on CBS.

Her showbiz career began singing in bands, first in Cincinnati and then in New York where a bandleader changed her name to Day.

She had become enthralled with the notion of becoming a singer as a teenager while listening to the radio as she recovered from a broken leg.

She married for the first time at the age of 17, to trombonist Al Jorden who she said beat her while she was pregnant with her son Terry.

Terry was born in 1942.

A year later, she left his father and went back to singing in a band.

She was married to her second husband, George Weidler, for three years until 1949.

In 1951, after briefly dating Ronald Reagan, she married film producer Martin Melcher.

They were together for 17 years and he was her hard-pushing agent.

He encouraged her to work tirelessly but was suspected of pocketing many of her royalties for himself.

She blindly defended him.

In the early 50s, while filming Calamity Jane, Day's mental health took a turn. She became prone to panic attacks but continued working.

Melcher was in charge of all her contracts and deals and, as a result, Day never truly knew how much she was getting paid.

Day's first husband was a trombone player Al Jorden. They are shown around the time of their 1940 marriage (left). She left him in 1942 after he continued to beat her, including when she was pregnant with her first and only child. They married when she was 17 and divorced when she was 20. Her second husband was the saxophonist George Weidler. They parted in 1946 because, he said, he knew she would become a star and he did not want to become 'Mr. Doris Day'

Day is pictured with her third husband, Martin Melcher, in 1955 (left). They were together for 17 years but a series of catastrophic investments made by him left her penniless. He died in 1968. She stood by him until his death. She is shown with her fourth and final husband, the restaurateur Barry Comden, right, in 1976. They divorced in 1982. He said he was tired of being looked over by her for her 14 dogs

HOW DORIS HAD TO CLAW BACK HER FORTUNE AFTER BEING LEFT PENNILESS BY HER THIRD HUSBAND Despite working flat-out for 20 years to earn tens of millions of dollars, Day left her finances in the hands of her third husband, Marty Melcher. It was a fatal decision which left her in debt by the time he died in 1978. She was unaware of how he he and his business partner Jerry Rosenthal had squandered her $23million fortune (the equivalent to more than $100million in today's money). She was able to save herself with her property portfolio and with the help of her son, the musician Terry Melcher, before his death in 2004. She also took Rosenthal to court over her misappropriated funds. After a lengthy battle, she was finally awarded a pitiful $3million in 1985. A judge had decided she was owed much more - $85million - but Rosenthal appealed and she was given a fraction of the amount. Advertisement

As her son Terry grew older, he begged her to leave him but she stayed in fear that she would become bankrupt if she left him, as he threatened.

She stayed with him until he died of a stroke in 1968. Afterwards, she learned how much of her fortune he had squandered.

First, she was hit with a tax bill for $500,000.

It led her to discover that she had no money in the bank but only personal possessions.

She learned that together, her late husband and a manager had thrown away $20million of her money which is the equivalent of $140million.

Her only assets were the homes she owned and she harnessed them, with the help of her son, to rebuild her wealth.

In 1976, she married restaurateur Barry Comden but the pair parted ways in 1982.

Day said they were 'incompatible' but Comden said he was tired of being kicked out of bed to make room for their dogs.

'She had 14 dogs, and the final straw was when I was kicked out of bed to make way for Tiger, a poodle,' he said before his 2009 death.

Day continued working until the 1980s but devoted the last portion of her life to animal rights.

In 1985, she won a multi-million dollar settlement from her late husband's business partner Jerry Rosenthal but it was the last time she appeared publicly.

Her true love: Day is shown with her son, Terry, in 1950. He was her only child and was born in 1942, to her and her first husband

Terry took his stepfather Marty Melcher's name after he married his mother but they never got on. They are shown, the three of them, on the set of Calamity Jane in 1953. Terry begged his mother to divorce Melcher as he got older but she refused

Melcher became a musician but died in 2004 after battling melanoma. He looked after his mother as an adult and helped her rebuild her fortune after his stepfather squandered it. They are shown, left, in 1984. Right is his son, Ryan, who is Day's only heir

Afterwards, with the help of her son, she used the settlement and her vast property portfolio to rebuild her fortune.

Day devoted the last part of her life to animal rights

At the time of her death, her estimated net worth was $200million but it is unclear how much of it she has left to her charity.

Although mostly retired from show business since the 1980s, she still had enough of a following that a 2011 collection of previously unreleased songs, My Heart, hit the top 10 in the United Kingdom.

The same year, she received a lifetime achievement honor from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

Friends and supporters lobbied for years to get her an honorary Oscar.

In 2004, while being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, President George H.W. Bush said it was 'a good day for America when Doris Marianne von Kappelhoff of Evanston, Ohio decided to become an entertainer.'

She did not make the ceremony in person because she had a fear of flying.

Day spent the final years of her life committed to animal rights' work.

Among her most famous quotes is 'I've never met an animal I didn't like, and I can't say the same thing about people.'

In 1978, she founded The Doris Day Foundation.

On the charity's website, she is affectionately described as 'The Dog Catcher of The Beverly Hills.'

'We all had at least one of ‘those Doris Day animals.' If you would see Doris on the street or at the studio, chances are you would end up with some homeless cat or dog Doris was sponsoring.

'She carried around photos of the animals who needed homes, and then she'd actually come over to inspect your house to make sure you were up to it,' one star once said.

THE MANY LOVES OF DORIS DAY, AMERICA'S VIRGIN WHO WAS ETERNALLY UNLUCKY IN LOVE DESPITE WINNING THE WORLD'S HEARTS

Day's first husband was a trombone player Al Jorden. They are shown around the time of their 1940 marriage

Al Jorden, 1941–1943

Day's first marriage was when she was just 17.

She married the trombone player, Al Jorden, and quickly fell pregnant with her first and only child, Terry.

She described him, years after their divorce, as a 'psychopathic sadist' who tried to give her pills to miscarry their baby.

She also claimed that he beat her senseless when she was eight months pregnant with Terry.

They met when she was a singer in a band.

She returned to music after their divorce and looked after Terry alone.

Her second husband was the saxophonist George Weidler

George Weidler, 1946-1949

Day described her second husband, the saxophonist George Weidler, as a gentle man.

They married in 1946, just as the wave of her stardom was about to crash.

For their brief marriage, she tried to live contently as a Los Angeles housewife. He converted her to Christian Science.

The pair parted ways amicably when Doris' star was on the rise.

He is said to have told her that he did not want to go through life as 'Mr. Doris Day.'

Marty Melcher, 1951-1968

Melcher was the love of Day's life and her partner for the longest time.

He was also her pushy, money-grabbing agent who squandered her fortune and died, leaving her millions of dollars in debt.

Melcher was the love of Day's life and her partner for the longest time.

They married in 1951 and he adopted Terry as his own son.

Publicly, they were the picture of happiness and often posed together happily on the set of her films.

Friends worried, however, how controlling Melcher was over his wife's stardom.

He negotiated her contracts and set her fees, taking a large cut for himself. It was said that Day never truly knew how much she was being paid.

She was scarcely at home to look after Terry because Melcher pushed her to work relentlessly.

As Terry grew older and Day worked herself to the bone, she developed mental health struggles and became prone to panic attacks that only Melcher could relieve by comforting her on the set of her films.

Towards the end of their marriage, he became ill, quickly. She resisted her son's pleas to leave him and nursed him until his death in 1968 despite telling him that she was unhappy and even, once encouraging him to keep a mistress.

After his death, she learned that he had spent all of her $23million fortune. It was the equivalent to more than $140million in today's money.

Melcher had worked with his business partner, Jerry Rosenthal, to waste it. With Terry's help, Day sued Rosenthal and recovered only a fraction of it.

Barry Comden, Day's fourth and final husband, was a Los Angeles restaurateur

Barry Comden, 1976-1981

Comden, Day's fourth and final husband, was a Los Angeles restaurateur.

They married in 1976 after he befriended her by giving her a bag of meat scraps for her dogs as she left one of his restaurants.

Their wedding was at a friend's home.

An elated Day thought she had finally found her match.

'At last I'm romantically fulfilled,' she said 'Barry's a beautiful person, and we have a marvellous relationship, the most marvellous I've ever had!' she said.

It was during their marriage that she bought the gargantuan Carmel estate where she lived until her death.

Their happiness was sadly shortlived and by 1981, they were divorced.

He told The Sunday Mail in 1996 that it was because she loved her dogs more than him.

'She had 14 dogs, and the final straw was when I was kicked out of bed to make way for Tiger, a poodle,' he said.

Day said they were 'just' incompatible.

HOW DORIS DAY WENT FROM SILVER SCREEN SIREN TO THE 'DOG CATCHER OF BEVERLY HILLS' WHO ROUNDED UP ANIMALS IN THE NIGHT AFTER A LIFETIME OF HEARTACHE

Doris Day is shown in 2000 in one of her few public outings in the last 20 years

Day has long been synonymous with Hollywood's golden era.

But in her final years, she lived in tattering homes, caring for animals in a heartbreaking separation from the glamorous pin-up the world remembers her as.

After the death of her third husband, she stopped making movies and, save for The Doris Day Show, retreated from the camera all together.

Instead, she lived quietly in Carmel, Califonia, caring for animals.

Her life, however, was a lonely one and before his death, her beloved son Terry searched for someone to keep her company.

He once offered Sydney Wood a job which merely entailed 'taking Mom to lunch.'

For all her failed marriages, Day's true heartache came in 2004 with the unexpected death of her son.

She never spoke about it publicly and could not muster the strength to attend his private funeral service.

Her only heir is her grandson, Terry's son Ryan.

Over the last decade, there were rumors of a 'a figure, looking like a little old bag lady, stealing through the streets of Carmel in the middle of the night, rounding up stray dogs and emaciated cats and putting them into her car.'

On her charity's website, she is described as 'the dog catcher of Beverly Hills'.

She celebrated her recent birthday in April at home but 300 fans gathered in Carmel in tribute to her.

Hollywood's queen of tears... who had so much to cry about: On screen she was the innocent golden girl who could weep on cue, but Doris Day - who's died aged 97, survived abuse, four failed marriages and the theft of her millions

By Tom Leonard for The Daily Mail

Iconic US sweetheart Doris Day has died aged 97 after a battle with pneumonia

Doris Day famously could weep on cue and — for all her image as Hollywood's ultimate sweet and innocent 'good girl' — she had plenty to cry about.

Many actors remember moments of unhappiness when they need to open the tear ducts and 'Miss Lachrymose', as she was known in the industry, had many to draw on.

The victim of a wife-beating first husband, she endured a second who couldn't stomach her success, a third who ruined her financially and a fourth with whom she was deeply unhappy.

Little wonder that in later life she devoted herself to animals instead.

The iconic actress and singer — one of the biggest stars in Hollywood history, and 'America's Sweetheart' in her Fifties and Sixties heyday — died yesterday aged 97.

She was surrounded by close friends at the mansion home in Carmel Valley, California, where at one stage she kept as many as 50 stray dogs.

The Doris Day Animal Foundation said she 'had been in excellent physical health for her age, until recently contracting a serious case of pneumonia, resulting in her death'.

According to the foundation, Doris did not want a funeral or memorial service and wanted to be buried in an unmarked grave.

Most of her friends and co-stars passed away long ago but she was mourned by her myriad celebrity fans who adored her disarming on-screen charm, not to mention extraordinary singing voice.

'She was the World's Sweetheart and beloved by all,' said actor William Shatner. 'God bless Doris Day! What a voice. What a legend,' said singer Boy George.

'The one, the only, the woman who inspired so much of what I do, I love you, my calamity Jane,' said fashion designer Stella McCartney, whose father Paul became Doris's friend in her later years.

'She was a true star in more ways than one,' added Sir Paul. 'I will miss her but will always remember her twinkling smile and infectious laugh as well as the many great songs and movies she gave us.'

With her blonde hair, dazzling smile and perky screen presence, Doris Day became a huge box office draw in films such as Pillow Talk, Move Over Darling and Calamity Jane, sharing chaste love scenes in romantic comedies with Rock Hudson, Cary Grant and James Garner.

But the star endured a difficult childhood that was overshadowed by her parents' toxic marriage

Although she made 39 films and many TV shows, she is best remembered for a song — Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be) — which she belted out to James Stewart in the Hitchcock film The Man Who Knew Too Much.

Years later, Day liked to say 'Que Sera, Sera' to fend off intrusive questions about a personal life that was the opposite of the sparkling romances of her films.

Although her wholesome, sunny image was a construct of her Hollywood advisors — the pianist Oscar Levant once quipped: 'I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin' — she didn't want to disappoint fans and she played along for years.

She was born Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff in a German neighbourhood of Cincinnati, Ohio, on April 3, 1922 — and suffered an unhappy childhood that was overshadowed by her parents' toxic marriage.

Her father was a professional musician who hated popular songs — and to bait him, Day's mother would get the little girl to perform a song he particularly loathed.

As a young child, she caught her father with another woman, creeping into a bedroom during a party at their home. She recalled crying herself to sleep listening to them. 'I heard him and I heard her,' she said.

From her childhood onwards, Doris said she dreamed of being the perfect wife with a perfect husband.

It's possible she just tried too hard — at least two of her husbands would blame her for the break-up of their relationships while a third would say she was too exhausting to keep up with.

Doris was encouraged by her mother to become a dancer but such ambitions were shattered when, aged 13, she was involved in a terrible car accident.

The car, driven by a friend after a pahurty, became stuck on the rails at a level crossing and was crushed by an oncoming train. One of Doris's legs was crushed and she spent over a year on crutches.

She turned to singing instead. A local bandleader, Barney Rapp, gave her a job and her stage name after hearing her sing 'Day By Day'.

Doris was just 17 when she fell in love with trombonist Al Jorden who helped her with her singing. They married when she was 19.

Jorden immediately showed a dark side to his character when he punched her on their wedding night, the first of many beatings.

When she became pregnant, he insisted that she have an abortion. When she refused, he hit her in the stomach in the hope that she would lose their baby.

She didn't, although by the time their son, Terry, was born, she had managed to flee her brutal and paranoid husband.

For all her dreams of being the perfect wife, Doris was hardly the perfect mother. She soon went back on the road with her band and left her mother, Alma, to bring up her son.

Terry — her only child — would later say that 'mother' was a word for him that had no meaning. 'My grandmother was my total parent,' he explained.

Ol' Blue Eyes: The iconic actress had on-screen magic in Young at Heart in 1965 with Frank Sinatra

Doris married second husband, George Weidler, a saxophonist, when she was 22. They lived in a trailer park and the marriage lasted just eight months.

It was significant chiefly for Weidler introducing her to Christian Science — a faith notorious for hostility to modern medicine and its insistence that believers should heal themselves through prayer.

Day would say of Weidler: 'We had a strong physical attraction for each other, but I didn't realise that it takes much more than that to make a marriage work.'

Even after they split up, they would occasionally reunite for bouts of passionate sex — behaviour that could not be more different from her screen persona and which fulfilled a need she never denied she had for physical relationships.

She was also rumoured to have had an affair with Bob Hope — who she met frequently because Hope's musical director Les Brown was Doris's bandleader. Hope nicknamed her 'Jut Butt', explaining: 'You could play bridge on her ass.'

Co-stars such as Kirk Douglas were amazed by her innocent frankness, wondering as they chatted over lunch if she was really being herself or 'in character'

Without any acting experience, Doris got her big Hollywood break when director Michael Curtiz — looking for an 'All-American Girl' —- cast her in the 1948 romantic comedy musical It's Magic.

He spent most of the time during her screen test wiping away her tears. It was Curtiz who dubbed Day 'Miss Lachrymose' for her uncanny ability to cry on demand.

Equally useful was her ability to memorise a script after reading it just once. The film instantly established Doris as a star at 26 and also set in stone — as far as Hollywood publicists were concerned — her image as squeaky clean.

Co-stars were amazed by her innocent frankness, wondering as they chatted over lunch if she was really being herself or 'in character'.

Doris often played singers and hated lip-syncing so she usually sang live on the set.

In 1951, aged 29, she married third husband Marty Melcher, a pushy, greedy movie producer who insisted on having a cut in the proceeds from all her future films.

He was loathed in Hollywood, where he was known as 'Mr Day' for continually interfering in her career, making impossible demands that were usually for himself rather than her.

He pressured her into making various films she had no interest in making, and turning down parts —such as the 'older woman' in The Graduate, that she wanted.

Doris, pictured with co-star Ronald Reagan, never felt comfortable being a Hollywood superstar or a sex symbol

They fought at work and in their private life. After he followed her into Christian Science, she complained bitterly that the faith became more important to him than their marriage.

Christian Science almost proved the death of Doris while she was shooting the 1956 film Julie.

Because of their shared religious faith, Melcher refused to let her see a doctor for weeks after she started haemorrhaging for what turned out to be an intestinal tumour.

Eventually, she did see a doctor and had to have a hysterectomy. Decades later, Day — who returned to Christian Science in later life — would alarm friends concerned by her increasing frailty by baulking at taking even an aspirin.

She left Melcher at least once but confided to friends that she needed —more than he did — the sexual side of their marriage.

The star only learned Melcher had swindled her out of her £15 million fortune — leaving with her with debts of around £350,000 — after he died in 1968.

He had also signed her up to a five-year contract for a TV series, The Doris Day Show, that she'd known nothing about — although she accepted the part and it became a huge hit.

Doris was charged with fraudulently trying to evade income tax and the allegation was only thrown out of court when she proved she'd known nothing about what her husband had been up to.

In the end she had a nervous breakdown — one symptom of which was when she dived fully clothed into a friend's swimming pool — but she eventually won $22 million (£17 million) in damages from Melcher's attorney and other associates who had mismanaged her money.

In 1976, she married for the fourth time, to restaurateur Barry Comden. This time, Day studiously kept their marriage out of the limelight, not even mentioning him in her Who's Who entries, let alone allowing him to be photographed with her. However, they, too, ended up divorcing six years later.

All she could say was 'it is better that we live apart' while Comden claimed: 'She kicked me out of bed to make room for her animals.'

Doris had by then retired from showbusiness and public life, devoting her time to her pets and stray animals.

She became known locally as deeply eccentric (although when a newspaper dubbed her a mad 'bag lady', she successfully sued).

She would drive her own animal ambulance to a spot where she heard a dog or cat had been run over to care for it, and would appear in supermarkets counting out her discount coupons as she loaded up on pet supplies.

She opened an animal hospital and turned her huge home over to her pets, serving them gourmet food and tucking dozens of cats and dogs into specially-made beds at night. Many dogs would pile on to her own kingsize bed.

Doris never felt comfortable being a Hollywood superstar or a sex symbol. James Garner, who co-starred with her in two films, once described her as 'a very sexy lady who doesn't know how sexy she is'.

She largely cut herself off from her old life, not even attending her son's funeral when he died of cancer in 2004.

Staff who looked after her complained she could be miserly and demanding, not even giving a former PA who broke a front tooth opening a pack of food the money to go to the dentist.

In her later years, all but a handful of her smaller pets had to go as her carers grew terrified one might knock her over and kill her.

The only fellow star with whom she stayed closely in touch was Rock Hudson. She claimed she loved him, although his homosexuality would have put paid to any romance.

When she launched her last TV show — about dogs — in 1985, Hudson was at the press conference.

She was stunned by his shattered physical appearance but, having no idea he had Aids, Doris reassured everyone he just had flu. Hudson died soon afterwards.

The star once nicknamed The Virgin Queen for the purity of her roles went into hiding for weeks, spending most of the time doing what she always did so well: crying.