Laraine Day
Acting • Born 1920-10-13 – Died 2007-11-10
Biography
Laraine Day, born La Raine Johnson, was a major movie star of the 1940s and '50s. Raised in Utah as part of a prominent Mormon family, she came to Hollywood as a young woman, and made her film debut with an uncredited role in Stella Dallas. Before she was famous she also played the birth-mother of Tarzan and Jane's adopted son "Boy" in Tarzan Finds a Son. Her break came in 1939, with the wildly popular "Dr Kildare" sequels. Day played Kildare's nurse and love interest in the third through ninth Kildare movies, until her character married the doctor in Dr. Kildare's Wedding Day. As Mrs Kildare, she was written out of the next, and last, Kildare feature. In 1942, she starred with Ayres again in the underrated axe murder melodrama Fingers at the Window. Over subsequent decades, her memorable films included the flashback-within-flashback-within-flashback drama The Locket, the gangster comedy Mr Lucky, and the campy paranoia piece I Married A Communist. She was among the all-star passengers in the overwrought airliner-in-peril drama The High and the Mighty, and in Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent it was Day who encouraged Joel McCrea to give his stirring report of the air raid at the film's climax Hitchcock's thinly-veiled plea for America to enter World War II. When television became a viable income source, Day found the small screen more inviting and less time-consuming than making movies, and she became primarily a TV actress. She had a 15-minute series of uplifting vignettes called Daydreaming with Laraine, and another 15-minute daily celebrity chat show called The Laraine Day Show. Married to New York Giants manager Leo Durocher, Day became one of TV's first female sports reporters when she hosted Day with the Giants, an early 1950s baseball talk show with Giants' players that aired on New York City's Channel 11. Her last film was a low-budget thriller, The Third Voice, in 1960, but she continued taking occasional guest roles on TV series Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Murder, She Wrote, etc. through the mid-1980s. Following her retierment she spent the remainder of her life active in the Mormon church, Republican politics, and various charity related work. Upon the death of her third husband Michael Grilikhes in March 2007 she moved back to her native Utah where she died that November at age 87. She is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, CA.
Filmography
80 credits
Foreign Correspondent
Movie • 1940
Carol Fisher
The Woman on Pier 13
Movie • 1950
Nan Lowry Collins
Tarzan Finds a Son!
Movie • 1939
Mrs. Richard Lancing
The Glass Key
Movie • 1942
Nurse (uncredited)
The 3rd Voice
Movie • 1960
Marian Forbes
Without Honor
Movie • 1949
Jane Bandle
Journey for Margaret
Movie • 1942
Nora Davis
The Locket
Movie • 1946
Nancy
Fingers at the Window
Movie • 1942
Edwina 'Eddie' Brown
Mr. Lucky
Movie • 1943
Dorothy Bryant
The High and the Mighty
Movie • 1954
Lydia Rice
My Dear Secretary
Movie • 1948
Stephanie 'Steve' Gaylord
Swiss Family Robinson
Movie • 1958
Mother
Dr. Kildare's Wedding Day
Movie • 1941
Nurse Mary Lamont
The Story of Dr. Wassell
Movie • 1944
Madeleine
Tycoon
Movie • 1947
Maura Alexander Munroe
Dr. Kildare Goes Home
Movie • 1940
Nurse Mary Lamont
Unholy Partners
Movie • 1941
Miss 'Croney' Cronin
A Yank on the Burma Road
Movie • 1942
Gail Farwood
Dr. Kildare's Crisis
Movie • 1940
Nurse Mary Lamont
Murder on Flight 502
Movie • 1975
Claire Garwood
Calling Dr. Kildare
Movie • 1939
Nurse Mary Lamont
The Secret of Dr. Kildare
Movie • 1939
Nurse Mary Lamont
Dr. Kildare's Strange Case
Movie • 1940
Nurse Mary Lamont
The People Vs. Dr. Kildare
Movie • 1941
Nurse Mary Lamont
And One Was Beautiful
Movie • 1940
Kate Lattimer
I Take This Woman
Movie • 1940
Linda Rodgers
Keep Your Powder Dry
Movie • 1945
Leigh Rand
Sergeant Madden
Movie • 1939
Eileen Daly
Bride by Mistake
Movie • 1944
Norah Hunter
Three for Jamie Dawn
Movie • 1956
Sue Lorenz
Toy Tiger
Movie • 1956
Gwendolyn Taylor
My Son, My Son!
Movie • 1940
Maeve O’Riordan
Stella Dallas
Movie • 1937
Girl at Soda Shop / Train Passenger (uncredited)
Return to Fantasy Island
Movie • 1978
Mrs. Grant
Kathleen
Movie • 1941
Martha Kent
Those Endearing Young Charms
Movie • 1945
Helen Brandt
Arizona Legion
Movie • 1939
Letty Meade (as Laraine Johnson)
Painted Desert
Movie • 1938
Carol Banning
Border G-Man
Movie • 1938
Betty Holden (as Laraine Johnson)
The Trial of Mary Dugan
Movie • 1941
Mary Dugan
The Bad Man
Movie • 1941
Lucia Pell
A New Romance of Celluloid: The Miracle of Sound
Movie • 1940
Self
Think First
Movie • 1939
Marjorie (Margie) Smith
Twenty Years After
Movie • 1944
(archive footage)
Scandal Street
Movie • 1938
Peg Smith (as Laraine Johnson)
Mr. Gardenia Jones
Movie • 1942
Joanne
Too Old for Dolls
Movie • 1955
Marge Ramsay
The Final Tribute
Movie • 1955
Joyce Carter
Prima Donna
Movie • 1956
Laraine Day
Rendezvous in Black
Movie • 1956
Florence Strickland
Murder, She Wrote
TV • 1984
Constance Fletcher
Burke's Law
TV • 1963
Lisa Cole
The F.B.I.
TV • 1965
Helen York
Airwolf
TV • 1984
Amelia Davenport
Hotel
TV • 1982
Mrs. Kupchak
Medical Center
TV • 1969
General Electric Theater
TV • 1953
Lux Video Theatre
TV • 1950
Sophie
Your Show of Shows
TV • 1950
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars
TV • 1951
Mrs. Lorenz
Climax!
TV • 1954
Ellen Parker
The Sixth Sense
TV • 1972
The New Breed
TV • 1961
Vivian Cowley
Letter to Loretta
TV • 1953
Carol Potter
Letter to Loretta
TV • 1953
Karen McCall
Lux Video Theatre
TV • 1950
Charlotte Vale
Lux Video Theatre
TV • 1950
Louise Howell
Letter to Loretta
TV • 1953
Sara Lewis
Lux Video Theatre
TV • 1950
Lynn
Lux Video Theatre
TV • 1950
Claire Brandon
Lux Video Theatre
TV • 1950
Lydia
Lux Video Theatre
TV • 1950
Phyllis Dietrichson
Pursuit
TV • 1958
Kathy Nelson
Checkmate
TV • 1960
Amnesiac Woman
The Name of the Game
TV • 1968
Grace Jellicoe
The Love Boat
TV • 1977
Vera Simpson
What's My Line?
TV • 1950
Self
Screen Director's Playhouse
TV • 1955
Laraine Day
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
TV • 1962
Ruth