The Lady In Pink—Doris Day

In the prettiest pink kitchen in North Hollywood a farm-size breakfast was in.the last stages of preparation. Katie, the cook, was squeezing her customary quota of a dozen fresh oranges. A pot of hot Sanka gurgled and gave off delicious puffs of steam. A pound of bacon sputtered and turned crisp on the griddle. A pan of three-minute eggs sizzled as Doris Day shuffled into the room.

“Good morning, Katie,” she called out cheerfully, slipping onto one of the counter stools in front of the snack bar. “Breakfast ready?”

Katie grinned and passed a loaded plate over the counter.

Almost immediately Doris was followed by Terry Melcher, her robust blockbuster of a 13-yearold son. Terry gave his mother a peck big On the cheek. “Hiya, Mom!”

“Hi, dear; get your homework finished?”

“Yup,” the boy answered, shoveling in a ,mouthful of cereal.

“Do your chores?”

“Uh-huh!”

“Did your team win yesterday’s game?”

“And how,” Terry exploded. “We slaughtered them, ten to six.”

Coming from the general direction of the me garage, Marty Melcher, Doris’ big, likeable husband, joined the family in the kitchen. He was wearing yellow terry-cloth coveralls, and a dry towel around his neck.

The Melchers bought their house in San Fernando Valley from Martha Raye and took their time (four years) about redecorating from Early American to casual French Provincial. The Pink Room, an enclosed porch close to the pool, is their own family creation and the most popular spot in house.

“Morning, kids,” he beamed.

“What are you doing in that outfit?” Doris asked.

“Taking a workout.”

“Marty Melcher,” Doris scolded, “was that you riding a bicycle up and down our street at six-thirty this morning?”

“It wasn’t Bob Hope,” cracked Marty. “Matter of fact,” he added, “Bob did pass me on his way to the studio. He offered me a job lubricating his car.”

“What are you talking about?” Doris asked, confused.

“It’s this way,” Marty explained patiently, “I’m trying to pedal off some of the poundage I’ve gained at those benefit dinners we’ve had to attend lately.”

Doris turned to Terry and spoke in a stage whisper, “The man’s obviously mad, bicycling at the crack of dawn.”

“I know the name of a good headshrinker,” Terry offered.

“Okay, okay,” protested Marty, “so you’re two characters who don’t have to watch your weight. You’d sure be surprised if Hope and I did a double in Las Vegas.”

“On a grease rack?” giggled Doris.

Terry and Marty burst out laughing at he possibilities.

“Say, Mom,” Terry interrupted soberly, we thinking of selling this house?”

“We wouldn’t think of breaking up the Lake Ball Club,” Marty declared.

Pink Room is used for family entertaining. More often Doris and Marty eat dinner there alone by candlelight.

“That’s good,” freckle-faced Terry, “cause a kid at school said he read the papers that we were.”

Doris Day and Marty Melcher exchanged look of understanding. “This is our some until you grow up and move out and gets too large for the two of us,” Doris deserted. “And right now we wouldn’t exchange it for all the castles in England.”

“Just checking,” Terry said happily. “Just checking.” He passed his plate to Katie for a second helping of bacon and eggs.

This early morning scene reflects the pattern, the tempo, the mood of Doris Day’s private life.

Pink breakfast bar dominates pink kitchen and accounts for Melcher appetites and early morning good humor

A sort of goodnatured banter goes on all the time between Terry and his parents. It exists between Doris and Marty. It extends to Katie and includes Mrs. Kappelhof, Doris’ mother. Theirs is a family that enjoys an easy, comfortable companionship.

The early big breakfast is a habit of long standing with Doris. No matter whether it’s a work day or a week end, she wakes at 6 a.m. For that time of morning she’s cheerful and attractive. Nothing short of a doctor’s orders can make her have breakfast in bed. She says she loves to be with her family at the start of the day so she can pick up the various threads of each person’s life. She likes to mull over problems and get matters hashed out in the morning when the three of them are sure to be together.

She always eats a full-scale meal, too. When they were first married, it amazed Marty that his wife, with her mere twenty-three-inch waist, could put away more food than he. But it figures. Doris expends a tremendous amount of energy. Her buoyancy and bounce has to come from somewhere and one of her trade secrets is that she eats a towering breakfast of protein-rich foods. A meal of fruit, cereal, bacon and eggs is nothing. If she’s working on an extremely tough schedule, she has steak to start with and continues from there. She manages to keep her size twelve measurements because she burns up the food she consumes, making records and pictures and taking care of her house.

Not too large, not too small

The positive assurance that the Melchers will continue living in their San Fernando Valley home for quite some time was definitely established last summer. Before Doris and Marty left for Europe, where she made The Man Who Knew Too Much with Jimmy Stewart, they considered selling this house. No specific reason for moving. Nothing they really disliked about the place. It wasn’t too small or too large. It had a wonderful location in Burbank. In fact, it suited them just fine, but so many of their close friends had built new, modern hilltop homes that they felt mildly discontented with their ordinary looking house-on-a street. While they were away, columnists carried the story that Doris Day and Marty Melcher had put their Valley home on the market, that they would move into a sumptuous Beverly Hills mansion upon their return.

Europe changed all that.

“We had to travel ten thousand miles to find out how lucky we are,” Doris says with a smile. “Every dark and rainy city we worked in, I kept asking myself, ‘What am I doing here? I could be making a picture not ten minutes away from my own sunny garden!’

“When we stayed in grim and drafty hotels, I thought longingly of all the pretty, sparkling rooms in our own house.

“Of course, there were many things I loved about Europe—the people mostly. Then we bought some fine antiques in England and I got clothes in Paris, naturally. Marty picked up a trunk load of souvenirs in Marakesh and places. But what the sages say is true. You have to go away from home to appreciate it. Distance lends perspective to your life.”

Even after they got back to California, Marty and Doris found themselves counting their blessings. Friends like the Edgar Bergens. who’d moved to the hilltop, began saying how inconvenient such places are for kids. There’s so little play space. The youngsters have to be driven everywhere. There’s no room for neighbors.

None of this is true of the Valley. The Melchers live in an ideal family neighborhood. Their street comes to a dead-end so that Terry and his friends can play ball on the front lawns without danger from traffic. Terry rides his bike to school, and he and his gang fish in Toluca Lake. They also roam the hills hunting jack rabbits.

“Their latest craze is bop dancing,” Doris points out. “And when I see a half-dozen husky kids cutting loose in Terry’s upstairs study, I’m thankful that we’ve got a well-constructed house.”

Worth waiting for

Doris and Marty bought their house four years ago from Martha Raye. They had to buy it furnished or she wouldn’t sell. This gave the Melchers pause, but they liked so many things about the place: Its location was perfect for Doris who was working at Warner Bros.; the floor plan was good, there were two outdoor sleeping porches which they liked, and there was a Nice size back yard. So they took it complete with early American antiques, excessive chintz and mirrors everywhere.

“It’s taken almost four years to fix up the rooms to suit our taste,” Doris says, “but I think it was worth waiting for.”

The first thing Doris and Marty did was auction off all Martha’s furniture. Then they began to re-paint and to redecorate one room at a time. They started with the, kitchen. Doris had an art director from Warners draw sketches for a much larger kitchen where they could eat informal meals. The set designer eliminated a narrow butler’s pantry and knocked out windows facing the garden to make the room more spacious. He drew sketches of a compact work area and a diagonal snack bar. Doris selected the white cabinets with pink formica counters and had the pine boards covered with pale pink enamel.

“Having someone draw up pictures for you is the easiest way in the world to remodel,” she admits. “You know exactly what you’re doing all the time.”

After the kitchen, Doris turned her attention to the living and dining rooms.

Pastels are her favorite colors and she likes textured modern fabrics with graceful French Provincial furniture. She had in her mind exactly what she wanted the rooms to look like, but furnishing a house is a full-time job. “You can’t do it and work, too, so I called in a professional decorator, Catherine Armstrong, and told her what I wanted.”

Mrs. Armstrong tracked down wallpaper samples and fabric swatches for Doris to decide upon. She recommended Eric Bolin, the crack cabinet man, to make all the wooden tables and chests to exact measurements. And she brought dozens of lovely lamps and other accessories to try out in the house. Together, she and Doris created rooms that give the people who live in them continual pleasure.

Men in the house

Marty Melcher takes credit for the music room. He decided early in the remodeling job that the house should help Doris in her career—that it should work for her and not the other way around. He had the small den equipped with a piano, a microphone and a tape recorder. Now, instead of going into Hollywood to rehearse her songs at a studio, Doris rehearses new material at home.

Upstairs in the Melcher house the bedrooms are completely individual. Terry’s room is red and royal blue. He has twin day beds covered like studio couches. His walls are finished with dark blue grass cloth so he can tack things up without hurting any wallpaper. Next door to his bedroom he has a den that is completely devoid of furniture. At one point his mother offered to fix it up like a private living room where he could entertain his friends, but Terry declined. He wants it empty so that there is more room for the gang to bop.

Doris’ and Marty’s room is also sparsely furnished. It has a double bed, a chest of drawers and a gigantic television set. A good deal of floor space has been converted into wall-long closets to hold Doris’ necessarily large wardrobe.

“I don’t have much use for most of these elegant bedrooms with vanity tables, writing desks, chaise longues and such,” Doris contends. “About all Marty and I do upstairs is sleep and hang our clothes. Of course, we do have a special kind of TV in our room, but that’s all. The set has a remote control so you can change the channels and do the fine tuning without getting out of bed. It also has a set of earphones so Marty can listen with a headset when I have to go to sleep early.

“But for the most part, we’re people who get up when we wake. Once downstairs, we practically live in The Pink Room.”

The Pink Room was a sensational idea that everyone in the Melcher family takes credit for. Actually, it grew by itself.

Doris had the first idea of roofing and screening the porch they found too hot to use. Marty went further. He suggested that they enclose it like a room. One thing led to another and they ended up with something truly original. It’s a combination party room, dining room and garden room. Doris, of course, chose the paint color.

When they’re home alone, Doris and Marty like to have their meals in The Pink Room by candlelight. After dinner they’ll sit for hours listening to records. In the day time Doris studies scripts in the room and when she’s not there, Marty uses it for business conferences.

“It was so easy”

When it comes to entertaining, Doris has a firm point of view, in which The Pink Room figures prominently. Doris has noticed that when you have three or four couples for dinner, there are always one or two who are on a restricted diet or dislike certain foods. If you try to offer the guests who can’t eat the prepared dinner a substitute, the whole matter gets to be a problem.

So the other evening, for example the Melchers invited Gordon and Sheila MacRae, Dick Powell and June Allyson, Betty Hutton and her husband Alan Livingstone for dinner. They served cocktails and hors d’oeuvres in The Pink Room. After a few drinks, they took their friends out to their favorite Valley restaurant—The King’s Arms. And sure enough, everybody ordered a different entrée—cooked to their special taste. When the meal was over, they drove back to the Melchers’ house and sat around The Pink Room and talked and listened to music.

“Honestly, it was so easy, and our place looked so pretty that nobody wanted to go home,” commented Doris happily.

Marty’s observation the next day was that he’d had such a great evening he never intended to travel again. Instead he’s decided to form a Valley Club. The by-laws will include never leaving the San Fernando Valley. “No more going to New York, Paris or Rome. No more driving through the Pass to Hollywood and Beverly Hills. Members will work in the Valley, play golf and tennis in the Valley, go to Valley restaurants—live and die in the Valley.”

When Doris heard of the idea, she said flatly, “I’ll be a charter member.”

Next day, however, she signed to make Quality Of Mercy, her first independent picture at MGM, which happens to be in Culver City.

THE END

—BY MARVA PETERSON

 

It is a quote. MODERN SCREEN MAGAZINE JANUARY 1956