Laraine Day
50 movies · 21 TV shows
- Known for
- Acting
- Born
- Oct 13, 1920
- Died
- Nov 10, 2007 (age 87)
- Place of birth
- Roosevelt, Utah, USA
- Also known as
- Laraine Johnson · La Raine Johnson
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.
Profiles IMDb
Known for
Laraine Day: movies and TV shows
Acting (71)
- 1984
- 1984
- 1982
- 1978
- 1978 Return to Fantasy Island
as Mrs. Grant
- 1977
- 1975 Murder on Flight 502
as Claire Garwood
- 1972
- 1969
- 1968
- 1965
- 1963
- 1962
- 1961
- 1960
- 1960 The 3rd Voice
as Marian Forbes
- 1958
- 1958 Swiss Family Robinson
as Frannie (Mother)
- 1956 Rendezvous in Black
as Florence Strickland
- 1956 Three for Jamie Dawn
as Sue Lorenz
- 1956 Toy Tiger
as Gwendolyn Taylor
- 1956 Prima Donna
as Laraine Day
- 1955 The Final Tribute
as Joyce Carter
- 1955
- 1955 Too Old for Dolls
as Marge Ramsay
- 1954
- 1954 The High and the Mighty
as Lydia Rice
- 1953
- 1953
- 1951
- 1950 Lux Video Theatre · TV
as Sophie / Charlotte Vale / Louise Howell / Lynn / Claire Brandon / Lydia / Phyllis Dietrichson · 7 episodes
- 1950 The Woman on Pier 13
as Nan Lowry Collins
- 1950
- 1949 Without Honor
as Jane Bandle
- 1948 My Dear Secretary
as Stephanie 'Steve' Gaylord
- 1947 Tycoon
as Maura Alexander Munroe
- 1946 The Locket
as Nancy
- 1945 Those Endearing Young Charms
as Helen Brandt
- 1945 Keep Your Powder Dry
as Leigh Rand
- 1944 Bride by Mistake
as Norah Hunter
- 1944 The Story of Dr. Wassell
as Madeleine
- 1944 Twenty Years After
as (archive footage)
- 1943 Mr. Lucky
as Dorothy Bryant
- 1942 Journey for Margaret
as Nora Davis
- 1942 The Glass Key
as Nurse (uncredited)
- 1942 Mr. Gardenia Jones
as Joanne
- 1942 Fingers at the Window
as Edwina 'Eddie' Brown
- 1942 A Yank on the Burma Road
as Gail Farwood
- 1941 Kathleen
as Martha Kent
- 1941 Unholy Partners
as Miss 'Croney' Cronin
- 1941 Dr. Kildare's Wedding Day
as Nurse Mary Lamont
- 1941 The People Vs. Dr. Kildare
as Nurse Mary Lamont
- 1941 The Bad Man
as Lucia Pell
- 1941 The Trial of Mary Dugan
as Mary Dugan
- 1940 Dr. Kildare's Crisis
as Nurse Mary Lamont
- 1940 Dr. Kildare Goes Home
as Nurse Mary Lamont
- 1940 Foreign Correspondent
as Carol Fisher
- 1940 Dr. Kildare's Strange Case
as Mary Lamont
- 1940 And One Was Beautiful
as Kate Lattimer
- 1940 My Son, My Son!
as Maeve O’Riordan
- 1940 I Take This Woman
as Linda Rodgers
- 1939 The Secret of Dr. Kildare
as Mary Lamont
- 1939 Think First
as Marjorie (Margie) Smith
- 1939 Tarzan Finds a Son!
as Mrs. Richard Lancing
- 1939 Calling Dr. Kildare
as Nurse Mary Lamont
- 1939 Sergeant Madden
as Eileen Daly
- 1939 Arizona Legion
as Letty Meade (as Laraine Johnson)
- 1938 Painted Desert
as Carol Banning
- 1938 Border G-Man
as Betty Holden (as Laraine Johnson)
- 1938 Scandal Street
as Peg Smith (as Laraine Johnson)
- 1937 Stella Dallas
as Girl at Soda Shop / Train Passenger (uncredited)
Talk shows and appearances (2)
- 1950 What's My Line?
4 episodes
- 1940