CINEFILER

Laraine Day

Born
October 13, 1920
Died
November 10, 2007
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.​
Known For
Foreign Correspondent
(1940)
Carol Fisher
The High and the Mighty
(1954)
Lydia Rice
Stella Dallas
(1937)
Girl at Soda Shop / Train Passenger (uncredited)
The Glass Key
(1942)
Nurse (uncredited)
Tycoon
(1947)
Maura Alexander Munroe
Mr. Lucky
(1943)
Dorothy Bryant
Full Filmography
Acting
Stella Dallas
(1937)
Girl at Soda Shop / Train Passenger (uncredited)
Painted Desert
(1938)
Carol Banning
Border G-Man
(1938)
Betty Holden (as Laraine Johnson)
Scandal Street
(1938)
Peg Smith (as Laraine Johnson)
Tarzan Finds a Son!
(1939)
Mrs. Richard Lancing
Calling Dr. Kildare
(1939)
Nurse Mary Lamont
The Secret of Dr. Kildare
(1939)
Nurse Mary Lamont
Sergeant Madden
(1939)
Eileen Daly
Arizona Legion
(1939)
Letty Meade (as Laraine Johnson)
Think First
(1939)
Marjorie (Margie) Smith
Foreign Correspondent
(1940)
Carol Fisher
Dr. Kildare Goes Home
(1940)
Nurse Mary Lamont
Dr. Kildare's Crisis
(1940)
Nurse Mary Lamont
Dr. Kildare's Strange Case
(1940)
Nurse Mary Lamont
And One Was Beautiful
(1940)
Kate Lattimer
I Take This Woman
(1940)
Linda Rodgers
My Son, My Son!
(1940)
Maeve O’Riordan
A New Romance of Celluloid: The Miracle of Sound
(1940)
Self
Dr. Kildare's Wedding Day
(1941)
Nurse Mary Lamont
Unholy Partners
(1941)
Miss 'Croney' Cronin
The People Vs. Dr. Kildare
(1941)
Nurse Mary Lamont
Kathleen
(1941)
Martha Kent
The Trial of Mary Dugan
(1941)
Mary Dugan
The Bad Man
(1941)
Lucia Pell
Journey for Margaret
(1942)
Nora Davis
Fingers at the Window
(1942)
Edwina 'Eddie' Brown
A Yank on the Burma Road
(1942)
Mrs. Gail Farwood
Mr. Gardenia Jones
(1942)
Joanne
The Glass Key
(1942)
Nurse (uncredited)
Mr. Lucky
(1943)
Dorothy Bryant
The Story of Dr. Wassell
(1944)
Madeleine
Bride by Mistake
(1944)
Norah Hunter
Twenty Years After
(1944)
(archive footage)
Keep Your Powder Dry
(1945)
Leigh Rand
Those Endearing Young Charms
(1945)
Helen Brandt
The Locket
(1946)
Nancy Monks Blair Patton
Tycoon
(1947)
Maura Alexander Munroe
My Dear Secretary
(1948)
Stephanie 'Steve' Gaylord
Without Honor
(1949)
Jane Bandle
The Woman on Pier 13
(1950)
Nan Lowry Collins
The High and the Mighty
(1954)
Lydia Rice
Three for Jamie Dawn
(1956)
Sue Lorenz
Toy Tiger
(1956)
Gwendolyn Taylor
Swiss Family Robinson
(1958)
Mother
The 3rd Voice
(1960)
Marian Forbes
Murder on Flight 502
(1975)
Claire Garwood
Return to Fantasy Island
(1978)
Mrs. Grant
Data provided by TMDB