Doris Kappelhoff was born in 1922. She was both a leading movie star and singer from the 1940s through the early 1960s, when many movies were musicals. In her youth, Doris was hoping to be a dancer, until she broke her leg. She was a passenger in a car that collided with a freight train. Instead, she became a singer. She sang in the hospital out of boredom. After hearing her daughter’s enchanting voice, her mother enrolled her in voice lessons.
In the late thirties, she began her career as a big band singer, recording more than six hundred songs. Early in her career, she adopted the stage name of Doris Day, inspired by the song Day After Day, as her real name was too long to fit on marquees. She made her film debut in 1948, starring in dozens of romantic comedies alongside the leading men of Hollywood, including Rock Hudson, Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable, Ronald Reagan, Cary Grant, David Niven, and many others.
Her public persona was the virtuous girl next door, so she declined the leading role in The Graduate. In that movie, the role of the randy mother-in-law went to Anne Bancroft, who seduced her future son-in-law, Dustin Hoffman. Doris Day was not willing to transition to the Free Love climate of the Sixties, which quickly ended her movie and recording careers.[1]
There was never a sequel to The Graduate, so we never got an answer to this question: What were the family holiday dinners like after he married the daughter of the cougar seductress? How awkward would that be?
Doris Day’s signature song was Que Será, Será, which in English is: What Will Be, Will Be. She won the Academy Award for the Best Original Song: this song was tied into a key plot point in the Alfred Hitchcock 1956 movie, The Man Who Knew Too Much. In that movie, Doris Day and James Stewart are vacationing in Morrocco with their young son when they are trapped in a web of international intrigue. In the movie, Doris Day first joyfully sings the song to her young son as she is making their beds in the hotel room in a fit of joy. Later, their son was kidnapped, and Doris Day loudly sings the song in the reception room at the embassy where her son is being held, so he could respond and be rescued by Jimmy Stuart.[2]
In Que Será, Será, Doris Day sang about hope, the hope felt by a little girl, the hope felt by was a newlywed, and the hope felt by a young mother, as her children asked her these same hopeful questions. Her chorus reminds us that our future will bring us a certain randomness, uncertainty, and often unfairness, that we can only do our best, that we cannot control the future, that we can only accept what comes.
LYRICS TO: Que Será, Será
When I was just a little girl
I asked my mother, “What will I be?”
“Will I be pretty? Will I be rich?”
Here’s what she said to me:
“Que será, será
Whatever will be, will be,
The future’s not ours to see,
Que será, será
What will be, will be.”
When I grew up and fell in love
I asked my sweetheart, “What lies ahead?
Will we have rainbows day after day?”
Here’s what my sweetheart said:
“Que será, será
Whatever will be, will be,
The future’s not ours to see,
Que será, será
What will be, will be.”
Now I have children of my own
They ask their mother, “What will I be?
Will I be handsome? Will I be rich?”
I tell them tenderly:
“Que será, será
Whatever will be, will be,
The future’s not ours to see,
Que será, será
What will be, will be.”[3]
After her third husband of two decades passed away, Doris Day discovered that he and his manager had embezzled millions of her dollars and left her over four hundred thousand dollars in debt. Fortunately, her husband, without consulting her, obligated her to a television series, the Doris Day Show, which ran for five years, greatly improving her finances. After she sued her husband’s business manager and won in court, he declared bankruptcy, but fortunately she was still able to collect a quarter of the damages awarded by the court.[4]
Less well known are three ending verses composed much later that reflect on how old age often looks back, regretting the past, remembering youthful hopes dashed, hopefully realizing that those close to us have their own pasts, and that we all must bear the consequences of past history, both good and bad:
Now that my hair is thinning grey
I asked my shrink, “Where did my years go?”
“Why am I wrinkled? Why am I poor?”
Here’s what she said to me:
“Que sepa, sepa
Whatever is past, is past,
I don’t know who stole your years,
Que sepa, sepa
What is past, is gone.”
For years I have been living alone
I asked my ex-wife, “Why did you steal my youth?”
“Can I have my years back? Where did they go?”
Here’s what she said to me:
“Que sepa, sepa
Whatever is past, is past,
I don’t know who stole your youth,
Que sepa, sepa
What is past, is gone.”
Everyone is busy, too busy
I asked my children, “Why are you resentful?”
“Why don’t you call me? Why ignore me?”
Here’s what they said to me:
“Que sepa, sepa
Whatever is past, is past,
We all know who stole our youth,
Que sepa, sepa
What is past, is gone.”
These are Stoic themes, they would agree with Homer’s declaration in the Iliad:
“There are two great jars that stand on the floor of Zeus’s halls,
and hold his gifts, our miseries one, now good times in turn.
When Zeus who loves the lighting mixes gifts for a man,
now he meets with misfortune, now good times in turn.
When Zeus dispenses gifts from the jar of sorrow only,
he makes a man an outcast – brutal, ravenous hunger
drives him down the face of the shining earth,
stalking far and wide, cursed by gods and men.”[5]
Iliad, Blog 1, Why Should a Christian Read the Iliad?
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/iliad_blog01/
The Iliad, the Basis of Greek Culture and the Western Philosophical Tradition
https://youtu.be/DpmuhZJUJn0
Iliad Blog 2, Captured Concubines in the Iliad and the Torah
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/iliad_blog02/
The Iliad, blog 4, Briseis, Chryseis, Aren’t all Concubines the Same?
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/the-iliad-blog-4-briseis-chryseis-arent-all-concubines-the-same/
Concubines in the Iliad, Old Testament and Christian Tradition
https://youtu.be/bGHHD7XTvr0
Iliad, Blog 3, Visiting the Enemy Camp, Greeks vs Indians
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/iliad-blog-3-visiting-the-enemy-camp-greeks-vs-indians/
The Warrior Cultures of the Iliad and the American Indian, Bravely Visiting the Enemy Camp
https://youtu.be/ynIx-AVI2f8
The Iliad Blog 5, the Tide of Battle Turns Against the Greeks
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/the-iliad-blog-5-the-tide-of-battle-turns-against-the-greeks/
The Iliad Blog 6, Embassy to Achilles, Oration, Failed Meeting
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/the-iliad-blog-6-embassy-to-achilles-oration-failed-meeting/
The Iliad Blog 7, the deaths of Patroclus and Hector
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/the-iliad-blog-7-the-deaths-of-patroclus-and-hector/
The Iliad of Homer: Glory, Honor, Madness and Futility of War
https://youtu.be/7lI2ZQ50wRc
Summary of Homer’s Iliad: Warrior Culture of Ancient Greece
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/summary-of-homers-iliad-warrior-culture-of-ancient-greece/
https://youtu.be/6C5znDxvpQ8
Odyssey, Blog 1, Waiting Those Very Long Years For Odysseus
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/odyssey-blog-1-waiting-those-very-long-years-for-odysseus/
Odyssey, Blog 2, Odysseus Sings His Adventures
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/odyssey-blog-2-odysseus-sings-his-adventures/
Odyssey, Blog 3, Odysseus Returns Home to Ithica
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/odyssey-blog-3-odysseus-returns-home-to-ithica/
Odyssey, Blog 4, The Slaughter of the Suitors
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/odyssey-blog-4-the-slaughter-of-the-suitors/
Odyssey of Homer: Xenia, the Need for Hospitality
https://youtu.be/bUW4ZT9zpt8
How can such a Stoic narrative be comforting? When, in spite of our best efforts and hard work, life does not go well, and calamities occur, certainly we can use this as a learning experience, seeking to improve. But our ultimate fortune is also influenced by seemingly random events, including whether the people we meet mean us well or ill.
This is one of a series of reflections on aging and retirement, including reflections by the Stoic philosophers, and by modern psychologists and thinkers, including Jimmy Carter, who wrote a book on the Virtues of Aging when he was ninety.
Classical Christian Psychologist Paul Tournier on Old Age, Death, and Faith
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/classical-christian-psychologist-paul-tournier-on-old-age-death-and-faith/
https://youtu.be/gRaY2hTaEGk
Classical Christian Psychologist Paul Tournier on Old Age, Death, and Faith
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/classical-christian-psychologist-paul-tournier-on-old-age-death-and-faith/
https://youtu.be/gRaY2hTaEGk
Roman Stoic Philosopher and Politician Cicero on Aging and Death
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/roman-stoic-philosophers-cicero-on-aging-and-death/
https://youtu.be/ne9T2N2mvZY
Roman Stoic Philosopher Seneca on Old Age and Retirement
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/roman-stoic-philosopher-seneca-on-old-age-retirement/
https://youtu.be/hmJoI9-s1q8
Roman Stoic Philosopher Seneca on Aging, Death, and Suicide
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/roman-stoic-philosopher-seneca-on-aging-death-and-suicide/
https://youtu.be/c9JXjqRKgBE
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_Day
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Knew_Too_Much_(1956_film)
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Que_Sera,_Sera_(Whatever_Will_Be,_Will_Be). This clip is from early in the movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZbKHDPPrrc and later when her boy is rescued from his captors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_91hU6LDjoA
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_Day and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doris_Day_Show
[5] Homer, “The Iliad,” translated by Robert Fagles (New York: Penguin Books, 1990), Book 24, p. 605.
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