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re: Happy 90th Birthday to Doris Day!

Posted by: MikeR 11:44 am EDT 04/03/14
In reply to: re: Happy 90th Birthday to Doris Day! - hitbycab 10:35 am EDT 04/03/14

It's not just the Kennedy Center. No awards show (and that includes the Oscars) wants to give an award to someone they know won't be there to receive it. It's bad TV - and these things are primarily TV shows.


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re: Happy 90th Birthday to Doris Day!

Posted by: BrianJ 01:08 pm EDT 04/03/14
In reply to: re: Happy 90th Birthday to Doris Day! - MikeR 11:44 am EDT 04/03/14

I think it made fine TV when the Oscars allowed people to accept them via video feed or satellite hookup or whatever, like Mary Pickford, Satyajit Ray, Myrna Loy, etc. Since I of course have no inside knowledge, I have no idea whether they ever felt Day out about this but she was not interested in appearing on camera even from Carmel, or if at some point around the time Day got old enough to be a likely honoree the Academy had made a decision to discontinue allowing these remote acceptances for the elderly honorary award winners, or what. I guess since the institution of the separate evening for Governors' Awards, they now no longer care whether people appear at all at the Oscars to wave on camera for three seconds (judging from Angela Lansbury's non-attendance this year), as long as they'll attend the separate non-televised ceremony in the fall. Oh, well. I bow to no one in the fervency of my desire for Doris Day to be an Honorary Oscar winner, but if Doris never cared enough to hop on a plane or (if she's afraid to fly) into whatever cushily-appointed limo the Academy would have sent her to make the five-hour drive down to pick up the award, it clearly doesn't matter much to her, so I guess I should let it go!

The Kennedy Center policy makes complete sense to me, though. It's already (often) dull enough to watch the legendary honoree's material performed by (usually) lesser talents; if you didn't even at least have the legend's reaction shots to intersperse, it would be completely useless.


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re: Happy 90th Birthday to Doris Day!

Posted by: Billhaven 04:04 pm EDT 04/03/14
In reply to: re: Happy 90th Birthday to Doris Day! - BrianJ 01:08 pm EDT 04/03/14

As much as I think she deserves any and every honor bestowed on her, she is a wise woman to avoid a pressured public appearance. Perhaps she watched the public humiliation given to Kim Novak this year or when Kate Smith was paraded in front of the cameras for a "special Emmy" when she was old, wheelchair bound and a husk of her vigorous self.
You mentioned Mary Pickford. That was a hideous travesty that her loving husband never should allowed. She looked to be a deluded old woman with a "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" fixation. Not the bold, funny and shrewd pioneer of film, she had been.
Resist the temptation, Doris! Audiences are cruel and the internet lethal to anyone who looks their age or, in Novak's case tries to maintain the illusion of youth. Let us remember you as the great, ageless, kind and talented woman you were in
your prime.


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re: Happy 90th Birthday to Doris Day!

Posted by: PlayWiz 05:57 pm EDT 04/03/14
In reply to: re: Happy 90th Birthday to Doris Day! - Billhaven 04:04 pm EDT 04/03/14

Doris still maintains a presence by radio interviews and has done a voice-over for an upcoming day of her old tv shows on MeTV. Perhaps she will be at the birthday celebration/fundraiser for animals this weekend in Carmel, but I would imagine she's ok with local townies seeing her as she's part of the community. But, yeah, something very high profile like an awards ceremony would only open the floodgates of comparison to how she looked when she was younger and in her prime.

Certainly Marlene Dietrich when she was interviewed for Maximilian Schell's film about her did not allow him to film her. I'm sure she didn't want her fans to see her when she was older.

Doris has acknowledged her fans on her radio interviews when they've called in in recent years, plus she does have an active website.

Again, all the best to Doris, and I'm sure millions of fans around the world wish her well, too!


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