Doris Day was an American actress, singer, and animal welfare activist. She began her career as a big band singer in 1939, achieving commercial success in 1945 with two No. 1 recordings, "Sentimental Journey" and "My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time" with Les Brown & His Band of Renown. She left Brown to embark on a solo career and recorded more than 650 songs from 1947 to 1967.
Harold Clifford Keel, known professionally as Howard Keel, was an American actor and singer, known for his rich bass-baritone singing voice. He starred in a number of MGM musicals in the 1950s and in the CBS television series Dallas from 1981 to 1991.
This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1953.
James Butler Hickok, better known as "Wild Bill" Hickok, was a folk hero of the American Old West known for his life on the frontier as a soldier, scout, lawman, gambler, showman, and actor, and for his involvement in many famous gunfights. He earned a great deal of notoriety in his own time, much of it bolstered by the many outlandish and often fabricated tales he told about himself. Some contemporaneous reports of his exploits are known to be fictitious, but they remain the basis of much of his fame and reputation.
Calamity Jane is a 1953 American Technicolor Western musical film directed by David Butler and starring Doris Day and Howard Keel. The musical numbers were staged and directed by Jack Donohue, who a year later would direct the Day musical, Lucky Me (1954). The film is loosely based on the life of Wild West heroine Calamity Jane and explores an alleged romance between her and Wild Bill Hickok. It was devised by Warner Bros. in response to the success of Annie Get Your Gun and won an oscar for Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Secret Love", and was also Oscar-nominated for Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture and Best Sound, Recording. The songs and screenplay would form the basis of a 1961 stage musical of the same name that has had a number of productions.
"Secret Love" is a song composed by Sammy Fain (music) and Paul Francis Webster (lyrics) for Calamity Jane, a 1953 musical film in which it was introduced by Doris Day in the title role. Ranked as a number 1 hit for Day on both the Billboard and Cash Box, the song also afforded Day a number 1 hit in the UK. "Secret Love" has subsequently been recorded by a wide range of artists, becoming a C&W hit firstly for Slim Whitman and later for Freddy Fender, with the song also becoming an R&B hit for Billy Stewart, whose version also reached the Top 40 as did Freddy Fender's. In the U.K., "Secret Love" would become the career record of Kathy Kirby via her 1963 remake of the song. The melody bears a slight resemblance to the opening theme of Schubert's A-major piano sonata, D.664.
"Anything You Can Do " is a show tune composed by Irving Berlin for the 1946 Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun. The song is a duet, with one male singer and one female singer attempting to outdo each other in increasingly complex tasks.
The Plainsman is a 1936 American Western film directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starring Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur. The film presents a highly fictionalized account of the adventures and relationships between Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Buffalo Bill Cody, and General George Custer, with a gun-runner named Lattimer as the main villain. The film is notorious for mixing timelines and even has an opening scene with Abraham Lincoln setting the stage for Hickok's adventures. Anthony Quinn has an early acting role as an Indian. A remake using the same title was released in 1966.
Tea for Two is a 1950 American musical film directed by David Butler. The screenplay by Harry Clork and William Jacobs was inspired by the 1925 stage musical No, No, Nanette, although the plot was changed considerably from the original book by Otto Harbach and Frank Mandel; and the score by Harbach, Irving Caesar, and Vincent Youmans was augmented with songs by other composers.
Calamity Jane was the name of a 10" LP album, released by Columbia Records on November 9, 1953, of songs sung by Doris Day and Howard Keel from the movie of the same name. In the UK, the album was also released as a 10" minigroove album by Philips Records, catalogue number BBR8104.
"The Black Hills of Dakota" is a song, written for the musical film, Calamity Jane, about the singer's love for, and desire to return to, the Black Hills of South Dakota.
The following is a complete discography for American singer and actress Doris Day. Day's entertainment career spanned almost 50 years. She started her career as a big band singer in 1939 and gained popularity with her first hit recording, "Sentimental Journey" in 1945. In her solo career she recorded more than 650 recordings on the Columbia Records label from 1947 to 1967. She was one of the most popular and acclaimed singers of the 20th century.
Sally Payne was an American actress. She featured in several B-Westerns in the 1940s.
Wild Bill is a 1995 Western film about the last days of legendary lawman Wild Bill Hickok. It stars Jeff Bridges, Ellen Barkin, John Hurt and Diane Lane. The film was distributed by United Artists. It was written and directed by Walter Hill, with writing credits also going to Pete Dexter, author of the book Deadwood, and Thomas Babe, author of the play Fathers and Sons. The film has been described as a "psychedelic Western".
Martha Jane Cannary, better known as Calamity Jane, was a well-known American frontierswoman, sharpshooter, and raconteur. In addition to many exploits she was known for being an acquaintance of Wild Bill Hickok. Late in her life, she appeared in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show and at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition. She is said to have exhibited compassion to others, especially to the sick and needy. This facet of her character contrasted with her daredevil ways and helped to make her a noted frontier figure. She was also known for her habit of wearing men's attire.
"The Deadwood Stage (Whip-Crack-Away!)" is a song in the 1953 film Calamity Jane, written by Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster, and performed by Doris Day. It was also used in the London stage show Calamity Jane in 2003 and the musical based on Doris Day's greatest hits, A Sentimental Journey.
Calamity Jane is a stage musical based on the historical figure of frontierswoman Calamity Jane. The non-historical, somewhat farcical plot involves the authentic Calamity Jane's professional associate Wild Bill Hickok, and presents the two as having a contentious relationship that ultimately proves to be a facade for mutually amorous feelings. The Calamity Jane stage musical was an adaption of a 1953 Warner Bros. musical film of the same name that starred Doris Day. First produced in 1961, the stage musical Calamity Jane features six songs not heard in the film. According to Jodie Prenger, star of the Calamity Jane 2014–15 UK tour, the songs added for the stage musical had been written for but not included in the Calamity Jane film.
Calamity Jane (1852–1903), was an American frontierswoman.
Calamity Jane and Sam Bass is a 1949 American Western film directed by George Sherman and starring Yvonne de Carlo, Howard Duff and Dorothy Hart.
