Modern Screen (Dec 1953 - Nov 1954)

what really happened to doris day (Continued from page 32) worried about her. She looked drawn and tired. They didn't want to start a picture and have her collapse midway. After all, she'd been none too strong when she made Calamity Jane with Howard Keel. The front office boys talked to Marty. Where Doris is concerned, her husband is the only court of appeal. A new contract was coming up. Why couldn't Doris be reasonable? The studio had worked her too hard. Everyone agreed to that. Yes, she deserved more money. No question about it. How about $150,000 a picture, two pictures a year, a five-year deal? How about Martin Melcher Productions to be released through Warner Bros.? Okay, only let the girl get herself checked over. Doris went to a doctor, a great doctor, and she was given a complete physical. A tumor was found near the left breast. She was told honestly, but with tact. You can imagine the thoughts that raced through her mind. She was sure, first of all, that the tumor was malignant, cancerous. She thought of Dixie Lee Crosby who had been killed by that disease. She recalled other people similarly afflicted. She wondered what would happen to Terry, her young son, if she should die. To die at thirty! Her emotions ran amuck. Tears ran down her cheeks and she cried in her heart. But her staunch faith in her religion brought her strength. She wondered if the answer didn't lie in prayer. Prayer has brought her great happiness in the past. Prayer has the power to conquer and rectify and cure. And she started to pray, but around her there were people, kind people whom she loved and respected and admired, including the great doctor, and he said, "Look, honey. There's only one way we can tell about the tumor, only one way we can find out whether it's malignant or benign. We've got to take it out. At least, we've got to take out a piece and have it analyzed." You can imagine the conflict that raged in this lovely girl's soul — the conflict between her religion and medicine. She was prevailed upon to enter a hospital and on September 24, she was admitted to St. Joseph's in Burbank. A biopsy was performed on the left breast. A small tumor, no more than two-by-four centimeters was removed and taken down to the pathology laboratory. Doris was kept on the operating table. If they should find that the tumor was benign, then Doris had nothing to worry about. The surgeon would merely suture the incision and home she'd go, good as new. If the tumor were malignant, a radical mastectomy would have to be performed to stop the possible spread of cancer. In his laboratory, the pathologist took the tumor and placed it on the microtome, a slicing machine. A blast of carbon dioxide instantly froze the tumor so that it would be firm enough for dissection. While he worked, the doctor, the nurses, and Doris Day, their patient, waited. They waited and they prayed. Doris, of course, was anesthetized. In the operating room, there was only silence and hope. The pathologist took a glass rod and picked up a small sample from the tumor. He dropped it into a jar of water and stained the tissue with toluidine blue so that the cellular structure would be easier to determine. Then he slipped the tissue fragments onto a pair of glass slides. Delicately, he placed them under his microscope. He looked at one, then at the other. Then he smiled. "Benign," he said. "Benign." The word was flashed to the operating room. Everyone was smiling. The doctor closed the wound. When Doris awoke she was told the truth. Absolutely no cancer. She could go home with peace of mind. Physically, she was okay. "Dut peace of mind did not come easily, and at home she developed an anxiety neurosis, a constant apprehension, a psychogenic illness of sorts, and the doctor recommended that she see a specialist. Doris complained of nervousness and fatigue and a tendency to be easily upset. To her, this was frightening, because all her life she has been an energetic, hardworking girl and suddenly she had flagging ambition and a disinclination and partial inability to work or even to play. Fatigability in girls like Doris Day rarely comes as a result of metabolic exhaustion, although Doris has frequently suffered 80 any more home like you? Yes, you. Up-to-date, fashion-conscious, movie-going you. Bet there are. Bet you can name several kindred souls right in your own family who thumb through your copy of MODERN SCREEN every month — before you even get a chance to look at it. Not to mention your best friend who wants to borrow it and your brother who can't resist cutting out the pinups. No need to hunt frantically for the perfect gift for all these perfect people. Just give them a year's subscription to MODERN SCREEN. Fill out the coupon below and mail it to us with your remittance. It's easy. And so inexpensive, you can afford to subscribe for yourself as well! SUBSCRIPTION IN THE U.S.A. AND CANADA FOR ONE YEAR $2.00; TWO YEARS $3.50; THREE YEARS $5.00. ""FOREIGN SUBSCRIPTIONS $3.00 A YEAR. PLEASE SEND CHECKS OR MONEY ORDERS ONLY. MODERN SCREEN Subscription Department, 10 West 33rd Street, New York 1, N. Y. NAME , . ADDRESS CITY ZONE STATE 11/3 from a marked anemia. More frequently, the fatigue is a result of emotional difficulties, the foundations of which can be traced to childhood conflicts. I went to grade school with Doris Kappelhoff in Cincinnati, and while I never knew her well, I knew something about her family life. The Kappelhoffs lived in the ground floor of a three or four-story brick building, and I think the first-born child, a boy, died before Doris was born. She's the baby, and there's an older brother, Paul. Her father was one of those rigid, toostrict fathers, a Teutonic mixture of sentiment and discipline. He used to teach music, and I think Doris was afraid of him. I'm sure that practically all of her nervousness can be attributed to her relationship with her father. Her parents were divorced when she was eleven or twelve, and I think her youth ended then. Her mother, a sweet and thoughful woman, enrolled her in dancing school and later took her to Hollywood where Fanchon & Marco signed her and her youthful dancing partner, Jerry Dougherty, for a series of kiddie stage shows. I think she was thirteen, maybe fourteen at the time. Already she was becoming a bread-winner. I am not a physician and I do not know the underlying causes of the psychoneuroses, but in the case of Doris Day I honestly think that this girl is unhappy because she doesn't want a career but is trapped by one. Against her own inclination, she has become big business. Recording contracts, her own radio show, TV rights, a new Warner Brothers deal, the leading light of Martin Melcher Productions. Marty Melcher looks after all this with the superb competence born of experience. He has been an agent, he has worked in the music game for many years. He has had to learn all the angles, and he's learned them well. According to some reporters there is no sharper man in Hollywood than Marty Melcher, Doris is indeed fortunate in having such a man to look after her finances. T Tnfortunately, Marty looks after every thing. When he was going with Doris, he helped move her furniture, he repaired things around the house, he made fast friends with her son, Terry. He advised her mother. In short, he became a father substitute, and psychologically, this may turn out to have been a very bad thing. As I say, it all depends on the childhood relationship between Doris and her father. There is a psychological process termed, "recall," and it is hampered by another one termed, "repression," but in the weeks to come if Doris can look back into her youth and recall emotional experiences she has sought to repress, the answer to her nervousness and her current instability may be found. Perhaps she will discover that she disliked her father because he refused to remain with her mother. Perhaps she disliked him for several other reasons. Perhaps in her subconscious, she has transferred that dislike to her fathersubstitute, to Marty Melcher, the overseer of her career. Perhaps she refuses to admit any of this to herself and herein lies the basis for her personal conflict. These are all possibilities and I suggest them because in similar cases they have been found valid. To my way of thinking, Doris, in her subconscious, not only regards her husband as a father -substitute and a psycho S logical crutch but as a figure synonymous Si with career. And her career, as I've said, \\ has never been particularly pleasurable to her.