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DAY, Laraine
Amerikaans filmactrice (1920- )
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13.10.1920, Roosevelt 
A pretty lead of the 1940s and '50s, usually as a brunette, Day was less vivacious than the typical girl-next-door but generally played sweet personable types. After experience with the Long Beach Players, she made her feature debut in King Vidor's classic "mother love" melodrama, STELLA DALLAS (1937). Briefly working under her birth name Laraine Johnson, Day played several leads in "B" Westerns and actioners before joining MGM in 1939. She found success quickly when she joined the cast of the studio's modestly produced but immensely popular Dr. Kildare films starring Lew Ayres. Indeed, for many filmgoers Day's best-remembered niche in the annals of popular culture came during her three-year tenure as the hero's requisite romantic interest, Nurse Mary Lamont. Despite occasional duds like KATHLEEN (1941), Day's status rose quickly, and she scored well on a poll as one of Hollywood's most promising leads. Always conveying an intelligent and forthright presence, Day was very likable as the leading lady of Hitchcock's splendidly suspenseful FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT (1940). That film, though, would prove to be one of her few important credits; Day rarely got to work with Hollywood's best directors and her pigeonholing as "attractive" and "ordinary" led to largely bland formula fare. Not a top star in terms of popularity or acclaim, Day nevertheless appeared in some big hits during her '40s tenure at RKO, including the Cary Grant vehicle MR. LUCKY (1943), the watchable if modest BRIDE BY MISTAKE (1944) and the nostalgic THOSE ENDEARING YOUNG CHARMS (1945). And some of her minor credits have real merit, especially the unjustly overlooked AND ONE WAS BEAUTIFUL (1940). Day acted opposite a number of major stars: she and Lana Turner played WACs in KEEP YOUR POWDER DRY (1945) and John Wayne partnered her in the expensive disaster TYCOON (1947). Though not typical film noir material, Day was perhaps never more memorable than in an offbeat role which used her reliable, placid quality to deceptive ends—that of the mentally unbalanced heroine of John Brahm's strikingly directed, flashback-packed THE LOCKET (1946). Another noir, I MARRIED A COMMUNIST (1950), though hardly a good film, is nonetheless also memorable as an unfortunate cultural index to the cruel excesses of Cold War paranoia. Day moved
into TV in the '50s, performing well on "The Lux Video Theater," and
"Playhouse 90." She briefly hosted a mix of talk show and dramatic
vignettes with "Daydreaming with Laraine/The Laraine Day Show" (1951)
and was a panelist on "I've Got a Secret." Despite her TV work and
several features, the best of which was the highly enjoyable prototype of
airplane disaster movies, THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY (1954), Day found interests
outside acting. She was active in the Mormon church she had grown up with, and
she also became known as the "First Lady of Baseball" after marrying
her second husband, legendary manager Leo Durocher. (Her book Day with the
Giants is a memoir of these days.) From the '60s through the '90s Day has made
occasional returns to TV, evoking memories of her past with MURDER ON FLIGHT
502 (1975). She also gave assured professional turns on series including
"Hotel" and "Murder She Wrote."
Filmografie
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