DELIGHTFUL AND DELOVELY – AT 9:21 A.M. ET:  Many readers ask why I don't write more about the performing arts, where I spent some of my career.  I pledge that I will, then I don't, but I'll pledge again.

That having been said, you must check out the short, fluffy and endearing interview of Doris Day in London's Telegraph.  The interviewer:  Sir Paul McCartney.  Now here are two real legends talking to each other.  The occasion is the release, at age 87, of Doris Day's first album of new material in 17 years.  Doris is one of the top, best-selling recording artists of all time. 

Those of us of a certain age remember Doris Day as the quintessential "girl next door" of American movies of the 1950s.  It had not, however, always been that way.  She shot to fame in 1945 with "Sentimental Journey," a favorite of GIs coming home from World War II.  And she became, with her sultry voice, a terrific torch singer.  But when she went to Hollywood her peachy-cream looks spelled "wholesome" to the casting people, and Doris Day was transformed.  This led Oscar Levant, one of the leading wits of the time, to remark, "I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin."

Her rendition of "Que Sera, Sera," in Alfred Hitchcock's "The Man Who Knew Too Much," became a screen classic, and mothers around the nation started singing it to their children as a goodnight song.

Doris Day's interview with Sir Paul marks her reemergence after many years of guarded privacy.  Sir Paul went to her home in Carmel, California to conduct it.  I'm sure he doesn't give that treatment to too many people.

September 1, 2011