Laraine Day

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.​

Known For

Carol Fisher

Foreign Correspondent

Nan Lowry Collins

The Woman on Pier 13

Mrs. Richard Lancing

Tarzan Finds a Son!

Nurse (uncredited)

The Glass Key

Marian Forbes

The 3rd Voice

Jane Bandle

Without Honor

Nora Davis

Journey for Margaret

Nancy

The Locket

Edwina 'Eddie' Brown

Fingers at the Window

Dorothy Bryant

Mr. Lucky

Lydia Rice

The High and the Mighty

Stephanie 'Steve' Gaylord

My Dear Secretary

Mother

Swiss Family Robinson

Nurse Mary Lamont

Dr. Kildare's Wedding Day

Madeleine

The Story of Dr. Wassell

Maura Alexander Munroe

Tycoon

Nurse Mary Lamont

Dr. Kildare Goes Home

Miss 'Croney' Cronin

Unholy Partners

Mrs. Gail Farwood

A Yank on the Burma Road

Nurse Mary Lamont

Dr. Kildare's Crisis

Claire Garwood

Murder on Flight 502

Nurse Mary Lamont

Dr. Kildare's Strange Case

Nurse Mary Lamont

Calling Dr. Kildare

Nurse Mary Lamont

The Secret of Dr. Kildare

Nurse Mary Lamont

The People Vs. Dr. Kildare

Kate Lattimer

And One Was Beautiful

Linda Rodgers

I Take This Woman

Leigh Rand

Keep Your Powder Dry

Eileen Daly

Sergeant Madden

Norah Hunter

Bride by Mistake

Sue Lorenz

Three for Jamie Dawn

Gwendolyn Taylor

Toy Tiger

Maeve O’Riordan

My Son, My Son!

Girl at Soda Shop / Train Passenger (uncredited)

Stella Dallas

Mrs. Grant

Return to Fantasy Island

Martha Kent

Kathleen

Helen Brandt

Those Endearing Young Charms

Letty Meade (as Laraine Johnson)

Arizona Legion

Carol Banning

Painted Desert

Betty Holden (as Laraine Johnson)

Border G-Man

Mary Dugan

The Trial of Mary Dugan

Lucia Pell

The Bad Man

Self

A New Romance of Celluloid: The Miracle of Sound

Marjorie (Margie) Smith

Think First

(archive footage)

Twenty Years After

Peg Smith (as Laraine Johnson)

Scandal Street

Joanne

Mr. Gardenia Jones

Marge Ramsay

Too Old for Dolls

Joyce Carter

The Final Tribute

Laraine Day

Prima Donna

Florence Strickland

Rendezvous in Black

Personal Info

Known For

Acting

Known Credits

51

Gender

Female

Birthday

1920-10-13

Place of Birth

Roosevelt, Utah, USA

Also Known As

Laraine Johnson