There is an interesting snippet of information in The Times today which caught my eye. It has been revealed that while Doris Day was playing with her dog in her penthouse apartment, using a ball which she bounced on the floor, her dog enthusiastically leapt out of the window and fell 21 floors to their death. Doris Day tearfully told what had happened to her dog to a flamboyant, tabloid journalist, Paul Callan, who had two days earlier played with her dog using a rubber ball during a photo session and an interview.
Doris Day tried the same game with tragic results as described. Having been told the story by Day, Callan took her out for a drink to sympathise and they ended up in a bar singing Que Sera Sera as a duet. The translation is “what will be will be”. Clearly Doris Day had got over it. She was a passionate animal advocate being the founder of the Doris Day Animal Foundation.
The story came to light because there was a recent memorial service held at St Bride’s in Fleet Street for Paul Callan. He was obviously a celebrated and loved Fleet Street journalist. He was described as “the very best of exuberant rascals”. There was a story going around that Callan had killed Day’s dog. That myth was scotched by Jeremy Deedes. It was just another tall tail (typo is deliberate).
Postscript: I have made the presumption that Doris Day’s dog at this time was female because I don’t like referring to dogs as “it”.
SOME MORE ON DOGS:
