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Personal Info
Known For
Acting
Birthday
October 13, 1920
Died
November 10, 2007
Place of Birth
Roosevelt, Utah, USA
Also Known As
- Laraine Johnson
- La Raine Johnson
Laraine Day
0.6 Popularity
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
7.5
Constance Fletcher
Murder, She Wrote
1984
7.6
Amelia Davenport
Airwolf
1984
6.8
Mrs. Kupchak
Hotel
1982
4.7
Mrs. Grant
Return to Fantasy Island
1978
6.3
Vera Simpson
The Love Boat
1977
5.7
Claire Garwood
Murder on Flight 502
1975
5.9
The Sixth Sense
1972
6.1
Medical Center
1969
6.8
Grace Jellicoe
The Name of the Game
1968
5.4
Helen York
The F.B.I.
1965
Credits
Murder, She Wrote
as Constance Fletcher
1984
7.5
Airwolf
as Amelia Davenport
1984
7.6
Hotel
as Mrs. Kupchak
1982
6.8
Return to Fantasy Island
as Mrs. Grant
1978
4.7
The Love Boat
as Vera Simpson
1977
6.3
Murder on Flight 502
as Claire Garwood
1975
5.7
The Sixth Sense
1972
5.9
Medical Center
1969
6.1
The Name of the Game
as Grace Jellicoe
1968
6.8
The F.B.I.
as Helen York
1965
5.4
Burke's Law
as Lisa Cole
1963
6.0
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
as Ruth
1962
7.8
The New Breed
as Vivian Cowley
1961
7.0
Checkmate
as Amnesiac Woman
1960
4.1
The 3rd Voice
as Marian Forbes
1960
5.8
🎬
Pursuit
as Kathy Nelson
1958
0.0
🎬
Swiss Family Robinson
as Mother
1958
0.0
Rendezvous in Black
as Florence Strickland
1956
0.0
Three for Jamie Dawn
as Sue Lorenz
1956
5.0
Toy Tiger
as Gwendolyn Taylor
1956
6.2
Prima Donna
as Laraine Day
1956
0.0
🎬
The Final Tribute
as Joyce Carter
1955
0.0
Screen Director's Playhouse
as Laraine Day
1955
6.5
Too Old for Dolls
as Marge Ramsay
1955
0.0
Climax!
as Ellen Parker
1954
3.3
The High and the Mighty
as Lydia Rice
1954
5.9
Letter to Loretta
as Carol Potter
1953
6.5
Letter to Loretta
as Karen McCall
1953
6.5
Letter to Loretta
as Sara Lewis
1953
6.5
General Electric Theater
1953
6.4
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars
as Mrs. Lorenz
1951
7.2
🎬
Lux Video Theatre
as Sophie
1950
6.3
🎬
Lux Video Theatre
as Charlotte Vale
1950
6.3
🎬
Lux Video Theatre
as Louise Howell
1950
6.3
🎬
Lux Video Theatre
as Lynn
1950
6.3
🎬
Lux Video Theatre
as Claire Brandon
1950
6.3
🎬
Lux Video Theatre
as Lydia
1950
6.3
🎬
Lux Video Theatre
as Phyllis Dietrichson
1950
6.3
The Woman on Pier 13
as Nan Lowry Collins
1950
5.3
Your Show of Shows
1950
6.3
What's My Line?
as Self
1950
6.9
Without Honor
as Jane Bandle
1949
4.5
My Dear Secretary
as Stephanie 'Steve' Gaylord
1948
5.9
Tycoon
as Maura Alexander Munroe
1947
5.3
The Locket
as Nancy
1946
6.3
Those Endearing Young Charms
as Helen Brandt
1945
0.0
Keep Your Powder Dry
as Leigh Rand
1945
5.9
Bride by Mistake
as Norah Hunter
1944
6.1
The Story of Dr. Wassell
as Madeleine
1944
6.3
Twenty Years After
as (archive footage)
1944
6.0
Mr. Lucky
as Dorothy Bryant
1943
7.0
Journey for Margaret
as Nora Davis
1942
6.3
The Glass Key
as Nurse (uncredited)
1942
6.6
Mr. Gardenia Jones
as Joanne
1942
4.7
Fingers at the Window
as Edwina 'Eddie' Brown
1942
5.5
A Yank on the Burma Road
as Gail Farwood
1942
4.0
Kathleen
as Martha Kent
1941
5.0
Unholy Partners
as Miss 'Croney' Cronin
1941
7.0
Dr. Kildare's Wedding Day
as Nurse Mary Lamont
1941
6.6
The People Vs. Dr. Kildare
as Nurse Mary Lamont
1941
6.8
The Bad Man
as Lucia Pell
1941
5.4
The Trial of Mary Dugan
as Mary Dugan
1941
5.0
Dr. Kildare's Crisis
as Nurse Mary Lamont
1940
6.0
A New Romance of Celluloid: The Miracle of Sound
as Self
1940
6.7
Dr. Kildare Goes Home
as Nurse Mary Lamont
1940
6.8
Foreign Correspondent
as Carol Fisher
1940
7.0
Dr. Kildare's Strange Case
as Nurse Mary Lamont
1940
4.6
And One Was Beautiful
as Kate Lattimer
1940
6.2
My Son, My Son!
as Maeve O’Riordan
1940
4.0
I Take This Woman
as Linda Rodgers
1940
5.6
The Secret of Dr. Kildare
as Nurse Mary Lamont
1939
5.6
Think First
as Marjorie (Margie) Smith
1939
7.0
Tarzan Finds a Son!
as Mrs. Richard Lancing
1939
6.1
Calling Dr. Kildare
as Nurse Mary Lamont
1939
6.1
Sergeant Madden
as Eileen Daly
1939
6.0
Arizona Legion
as Letty Meade (as Laraine Johnson)
1939
5.0
Painted Desert
as Carol Banning
1938
5.8
Border G-Man
as Betty Holden (as Laraine Johnson)
1938
5.0
Scandal Street
as Peg Smith (as Laraine Johnson)
1938
0.0
Stella Dallas
as Girl at Soda Shop / Train Passenger (uncredited)
1937
6.9