Obituary: Doris Day, America’s archetypal girl next door

By this time she had met, married and quickly divorced her first husband, the musician Al Jorden, who sadly proved physically abusive. The couple had one child, her son Terry.

Her second marriage, to actor George Weidler in 1946, lasted just eight months after he failed to come to terms with the success of her career.

By the time she left Les Brown in 1946 she had become one of the highest-paid female vocalists in the world with a string of chart hits.

After singing at a party given by songwriter Sammy Cahn, Doris Day was given a Warner Brothers contract and the lead in the 1948 film, Romance on the High Seas.

Over the next few years, she played in a series of musicals, including Tea for Two, On Moonlight Bay, By the Light of the Silvery Moon and I’ll See You in My Dreams.

Her roles were undemanding, but as Miss American Pie, the tomboy girl-next-door who morphed into the beautiful blonde, audiences found Doris Day irresistible and US soldiers serving in the Korean War voted her their favourite star.