The Turbulent Love Life Behind Golden Age Icon Doris Day

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"My image, I can assure you, [is] more make-believe than any film part I ever played," Doris Day once remarked (via The Guardian). Indeed, it's difficult to think of any of the many other Hollywood stars, especially from its Golden Age, with such a disparity between their public perception and their life behind closed doors.

The actor essentially became America's ultimate girl-next-door in the mid-20th century thanks to her winning performances in the likes of "Calamity Jane," "Pillow Talk," and "Move Over, Darling," and hits such as "Sentimental Journey" and "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)." But while she nearly always portrayed herself on camera as the picture of innocence in front of the camera, she was anything but when she stepped away from it. In fact, Day nearly gave serial monogamist Elizabeth Taylor a run for her money, racking up no fewer than four husbands while also getting into bed with numerous co-stars during her glittering career. Here's a look at her unexpectedly turbulent love life.

Although she'd had an on/off dalliance with radio presenter Fred Foster, Doris Day's first serious relationship was with Al Jorden, the trombonist who she performed alongside in Barney Rapp's big band. But it's fair to say it wasn't exactly love at first sight.

"He's a creep and I wouldn't go out with him if they were giving away gold nuggets at the movie!" Day allegedly remarked (via The Standard) after first being asked out to the movie theater by Jorden as a 16-year-old. It's not known exactly what inspired the future Hollywood star to give the musician, seven years her senior, a chance. Even when she started to thaw toward him, willingly sharing a car with him to and from each show, she still found him incredibly dour. And her mother didn't like him all that much, either.

Day's dream of becoming the ideal housewife convinced her to take things to the next level. Not that Jorden was appreciative. During their early days as a couple, he'd continually berate her, particularly when it came to the messy way she ate hamburgers. And he nearly killed them both during a jaunt along the Ohio River when the speedboat he was steering flipped into the water at high speed. Despite pleas from the family and friends who recognized Jorden wasn't marriage material, Day still ended up saying "I do."

Sadly, Doris Day's decision to overlook all of Al Jorden's red flags caused her nothing but more pain, both emotionally and physically. "What had represented to me as love emerged as jealousy — a pathological jealousy that was destined to make a nightmare out of the next few years of my life," the star wrote (via People) about their volatile marriage in her memoir, "Her Own Story."

Indeed, just 24 hours after getting hitched, Jorden violently beat Day after witnessing her thank a musician wedding guest for his gift with an innocent kiss on the cheek. He also reacted in a similar manner to her posing for a magazine cover in a swimsuit, and when he discovered she was pregnant. He even tried to get the baby — who he insisted was not his — aborted. His shocking behavior nearly turned deadly four weeks before Day was due to give birth when he drove them into a lay-by and threatened to shoot her.

The torture looked to have ended in early 1942 when Day packed her bags and moved in with her mother. But Jorden somehow persuaded the star to give him another chance, a decision which only led to more abuse. The trombonist forbade her from comforting their newborn, demanded that her mom take on most of the childcare, and directed his drunken temper toward the child. Finally, Day realized he was never going to change and filed for divorce.

Just three years after divorcing one incredibly volatile musician, Doris Day chose to get hitched to another. Yes, in 1946, the "Calamity Jane" star — and much to their bandleader Les Brown's horror — tied the knot with saxophonist George Weidler.

The lovebirds hadn't exactly been discreet about their romance, often sleeping in the same hotel room in a flouting of both societal and Brown's rules. But despite the latter's determination to separate them, Day and Weidler only grew closer and subsequently got wed at a ceremony sandwiched between their respective stage commitments.

As with her first husband, Al Jorden, Day believed she'd discovered the true love of her life. But it didn't take long for things to turn sour. While trying to launch her career in Hollywood, the actor asked Weidler to source a suitable Los Angeles home for the pair and her son, Terry. Proving that property wasn't the musician's forte, they all ended up moving into a trailer park in an area renowned for its drug crime. And things didn't get much better from there. Here's a look at other sweet celebs who married awful people. 

Unlike Al Jorden, George Weidler was never physically abusive toward Doris Day during their marriage. But he was hardly husband of the year, either. Indeed, the saxophonist was regularly away from home, had little interest in connecting with his new stepchild, and struggled with the fact that Day's career was becoming far more successful than his.

The latter came to a head when Day relocated to New York with her mother and son to fulfil a new contract, causing Weidler to ask for a divorce. Despite realizing that he wasn't the man she thought, the desperate actor raced back home to plead for another chance, by which point she was told that she'd never actually gained his love. "I could not doubt his strong desire for me," Day wrote in her memoir (via Mirror). "But I guess his desire not to be Mr. Doris Day was even stronger."

Remarkably, this wasn't the end of their love story. The pair often jumped back into bed together after Weidler expressed remorse for his behavior, even persuading Day to convert to the Christian Science religion that he swore had made him a changed man. But Day's seemingly insatiable appetite for men ensured that their relationship eventually came to a definite end.

After years of performing with various bandleaders, Doris Day got the chance to showcase another talent when, much to her surprise, she was cast in "Romance on the High Seas," a musical romcom directed by Michael Curtiz. "Her freckles made her look like the All-American Girl," the latter explained (via Vox) about the decision to cast someone with no prior acting experience. And she ended up coming away with more than she bargained for.

Indeed, Day, who plays singer Georgia Garrett in the two-time Oscar-nominated hit, went on to have an affair with its leading man while she was still technically wed to her second husband, George Weidler. Jack Carson, who portrayed private detective Peter Virgil, was also coming to the end of his second marriage to Kay St. Germain Wells at the time. And although the pair's romance didn't last long, she remained forever grateful for the impact he had on her career.

"He helped me enormously with my technical indoctrination into movie acting," Day wrote about Carson in her memoir (via TCM), with whom she co-starred in "My Dream Is Yours" and "It's A Great Feeling." "Since we were also going together, we'd often discuss some of these things in the evening, and there's no doubt that my relationship with Jack helped me considerably in my early going." Here's a look at other married actors who cheated while making a movie. 

Jack Carson may have been the first co-star Doris Day had a relationship with, but he wasn't the last. She also had an affair with the man she shared the screen with in both "Storm Warning" and "The Winning Team," and the future President of the United States, Ronald Reagan.

In her memoir, Day explained (via Express) that mutual pals introduced her to Carson. "Ronnie is really the only man I've ever known who loved dancing. He danced well and he had a pleasant personality, so I invariably enjoyed going out with Ronnie."

Day also revealed how there were already signs that Reagan, who'd just split from his first wife Jane Wyman at the time, was destined for a career beyond Hollywood. "He wasn't actually in politics, of course, but he had what I would call a political personality — engaging, strong, and very voluble." Although the future White House resident told friends he wanted Day to be his wife, both parties soon ended up marrying other people, in his case, another actor, Nancy Davis. Here's a look at the celebs that would make awful presidents. 

You have to hand it to Doris Day. At the same time she was establishing herself as Hollywood's new golden girl in films like "Lullaby of Broadway," "On Moonlight Bay," and "I'll See You in My Dreams," the busy actor also somehow found the time, and indeed the energy, to pursue romantic relations with no fewer than seven different men.

Indeed, while having affairs with co-stars Ronald Reagan and Jack Carson, Day also jumped back into bed with the man she'd only just divorced, her second husband, George Weidler. She also started seeing Steve Cochran, who, like the future President of the United States, she shared the screen with in "Storm Warning." To make things even juicier, the latter was also the boyfriend of one of her arch rivals, Joan Crawford.

If that wasn't enough, she also started sleeping with two members of the LGBTQ community — her allegedly bisexual agent, Al Levy, and an openly queer cast member of "The West Point Story." It's not known exactly what each man knew about the other. But according to reports, Levy turned stalker when he realized he'd fallen way down the pecking order and tried to sexually assault Day. She decided against pressing charges after Century Artists agreed to relocate him from Los Angeles to New York. The plot thickened further when she started stepping out with another industry hotshot, Martin Melcher.

"I seemed to have found the solid, serene life I had been seeking," Doris Day wrote in her memoir (via People) about her early days with Martin Melcher, who in 1951 joined Al Jorden and George Weidler on the Hollywood star's list of husbands.

Melcher was still married to Patty Andrews, who he also managed as a member of vocal troupe The Andrews Sisters, when he first met the "Pillow Talk" star. But instantly smitten, he continually brought up the idea of walking down the aisle together. And once the papers exposed their affair, causing Andrews to hit the divorce courts, they were both free to get hitched.

Initially, the man who also took over from Al Levy as Day's agent looked to be a compatible other half. He got invested in the same Christian Science religion that she'd converted to, shared a passion for Los Angeles' major baseball and basketball teams, and even adopted Terry Jorden, the son from her first turbulent marriage. Unfortunately, Melcher wasn't the ideal father figure. And he soon proved to be just as problematic when it came to her business dealings.

Doris Day's marital woes continued when she got hitched to third husband Martin Melcher, a man who not only tried to control her personal life — he routinely tried to keep her apart from her son Terry — but also her professional. And he had his fair share of celebrity haters, too.

Indeed, Les Brown, the bandleader who helped to launch Day's musical career, described (via Vanity Fair) Melcher as an "awful man, pushy, grating on the nerves, crass, money-hungry." James Garner also gave him a character assassination, labeling him a "shallow, insecure hustler." Frank Sinatra, meanwhile, refused to allow him entrance to the studio lot while he was co-starring alongside Day on 1954 musical romance "Young at Heart."

Day herself acknowledged Melcher's shortcomings in her memoir, also mentioning that he was laser-focused on getting as rich as possible. But in his biography, "Doris Day: The Untold Story of the Girl Next Door," David Kaufman theorized that she also benefited from such behavior, particularly for how he shielded her from the more unpleasant aspects of the industry.

While her first two marriages both ended after three years, Doris Day stayed married to Martin Melcher until he fatally succumbed to an enlarged heart in 1968. But the man ended up causing just as many problems in death as he did in life.

Indeed, while managing Day's career, Melcher had put all his faith in Jerome Rosenthal, a lawyer from Beverly Hills, to look after her earnings. Instead, the latter ended up squandering roughly $20 million on various failed investments and dodgy dealings. To add insult to injury, he also tried to get his hands on half the money Day still had left when Melcher died.

"My husband thought Rosenthal was a genius," Day remarked in her memoir (via Forbes). "I was working away, knowing nothing and trusting." The Hollywood legend only managed to get back a fraction of the fortune she'd lost. And Melcher's poor business sense continued to haunt her from beyond the grave when she learned that he'd lent her name to an eponymous sitcom without consulting her first.

In 1968, Doris Day starred in her penultimate film, "Where Were You When the Lights Went Out," playing Margaret Garrison, a Broadway actor whose life unfolds during a New York blackout. Her architect husband, Peter, was portrayed by Patrick O'Neal, and rumor has it that the pair may have replicated their on-screen romance in real life.

Indeed, in her memoir, Day speaks of having an affair with a married man, and feeling absolutely no remorse about it, either. And according to David Kaufman's "Doris Day: The Untold Story of the Girl Next Door," the adulterer in question was O'Neal, who'd been wed to Cynthia Baxter since 1965.

In fact, according to reports, Day once told pals that O'Neal, who also made three guest appearances on her eponymous sitcom, was the love of her life, a bold declaration considering her extensive romantic history. But the actor wasn't the last man to sweep her off her feet.

Following three failed marriages — and numerous other failed relationships — with men all within the entertainment industry, Doris Day found love in a very different place for husband number four. Indeed, the "Move Over, Darling" star met Barry Comden while he was working as a maître d at one of her most-loved places to eat, the Beverly Hills Old World Restaurant.

Comden earned his way into Day's heart by offering her takeout every time she left the establishment. Not for her to consume, though, but her beloved dogs. Despite the 12-year age gap, the couple ended up forging a relationship both professionally and personally. As well as walking down the aisle in 1976, they also went into business together. And unsurprisingly, their enterprise was canine-related.

It was Comden who conceived developing a range of pet food emblazoned with Day's famous name, an idea which the actor — looking to raise funds for her animal non-profit — immediately warmed to. Sadly, things soon went awry. Firstly, it was discovered that one of the partners they'd aligned with had been responsible for a pyramid scheme. Then, they were forced to file a civil suit following a contract dispute, which started when Day expressed concerns about the standard of food being made.

While Doris Day's fourth husband, Barry Comden, initially appeared to be just as canine-mad, he soon started resenting her furry friends. In fact, following their divorce in 1981, the businessman claimed that he'd been forced to play second fiddle throughout their marriage.

"She had 14 dogs, and the final straw was when I was kicked out of bed to make way for Tiger, a poodle," he admitted to the London Sunday Mail (via Los Angeles Times) 15 years later. A longtime pal, Allen Hackel, claimed that Comden never recovered from the split, adding, "He was very sad about that at all times."

Comden, who died in 2009, is presumed to have been Day's final romantic partner. In her later years, "The Man Who Knew Too Much" star joined the list of celebs who treat their pets like human children, opening up a seaside hotel which catered to them. "I've never met an animal I didn't like, and I can't say the same thing about people," said (via indy100) the Hollywood icon who died at the age of 97 in 2019. Here's a look at several other heartbreaking deaths of old Hollywood stars.