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.
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
Known For
Acting
Known Credits
51
Gender
Female
Birthday
1920-10-13
Place of Birth
Roosevelt, Utah, USA
Also Known As
Laraine Johnson