Laraine Day

Nov 15 2007 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

IN HER first death, the young nurse and sweetheart of the world’s most famous doctor was responsible for wetting the handkerchiefs of millions by issuing words so unlikely and sentimental that you could even imagine the syrup retreating into the tin.

Having just been hit by a truck, she opened eyes over her neatly-sculpted cheekbones and, to the accompaniment of angels’ strings, said to her fiancé, “This is going to be much easier for me than you – poor sweet Jimmy”.

Jimmy was Dr James Kildare (Lew Ayers) and MGM had decided to end their relationship, which had endured seven movies in the late 1930s and early ’40s.

Although weepy and corny by today’s standards, the series, set in the Blair Memorial Hospital, was a huge success on both sides of the Atlantic, setting the way for the equally popular TV series starring Richard Chamberlain in the 1960s.

Laraine Day played Mary Lamont, a pretty rather than beautiful girl.

Laraine Johnson was one of eight children born to a devout Mormon couple in Roosevelt, Utah. Her father was a grain dealer and government agent for the Ute Indians.

The family moved to California, where her interest in acting developed at school in Long Beach.

Her first film role was in Stella Dallas (1937) as a girl at a soda fountain, perhaps an improvement on her part as Boy, Jane’s adopted son in a Tarzan film. But she was soon starring opposite George O’Brien in westerns. MGM changed her name and then Dr Kildare made her a star.

But, breaking out of her nurse’s uniform, she was cast as a jilted sweetheart in My Son, My Son, a successful adaptation of the Howard Spring World War One drama.

By then, Laraine Day was on the brink of a major Hollywood career. She was the female lead in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic spy thriller Foreign Correspondent (1940).

Despite top billing, her parts were often rather inconsequential, though The Locket (1946), also starring Robert Mitchum and Brian Aherne, was good.

Before that, she had toured with Gregory Peck in the stage-play, Angel Street.

A change of direction in 1951 had her hosting the Laraine Day Show, an early example of TV chat.

Married three times with four children, this devout Mormon retired from the movies after The Third Voice in 1960.

Laraine Day, actress; born October 13, 1917, died November 10, 2007.