Cast & creator
Laraine Day
Best known for The Love Boat, What's My Line?, Murder, She Wrote
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.
Also known as: Laraine Johnson , La Raine Johnson
51
film credits
30
television credits
81
1937–1984 · acting roles
6.5
average across scored titles
Signature credits
Known for
Across film & television
Filmography (81)
Showing 81 of 81 credits
The Love Boat
Vera Simpson
1977
What's My Line?
Self
1950
Murder, She Wrote
Constance Fletcher
1984
Climax!
Ellen Parker
1954
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
Ruth
1962
Airwolf
Amelia Davenport
1984
Hotel
Mrs. Kupchak
1982
The F.B.I.
Helen York
1965
The Name of the Game
Grace Jellicoe
1968
Burke's Law
Lisa Cole
1963
Fantasy Island
Mrs. Cummings
1978
Medical Center
1969
Checkmate
Amnesiac Woman
1960
Your Show of Shows
1950Lux Video Theatre
Sophie
1950Lux Video Theatre
Charlotte Vale
1950Lux Video Theatre
Louise Howell
1950Lux Video Theatre
Lynn
1950Lux Video Theatre
Claire Brandon
1950Lux Video Theatre
Lydia
1950Lux Video Theatre
Phyllis Dietrichson
1950
The New Breed
Vivian Cowley
1961
Screen Director's Playhouse
Laraine Day
1955
The Sixth Sense
1972
Letter to Loretta
Carol Potter
1953Letter to Loretta
Karen McCall
1953Letter to Loretta
Sara Lewis
1953
General Electric Theater
1953
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars
Mrs. Lorenz
1951
The High and the Mighty
Lydia Rice
1954
Foreign Correspondent
Carol Fisher
1940
Tarzan Finds a Son!
Mrs. Richard Lancing
1939Pursuit
Kathy Nelson
1958
Mr. Lucky
Dorothy Bryant
1943
The Locket
Nancy
1946
Murder on Flight 502
Claire Garwood
1975
A New Romance of Celluloid: The Miracle of Sound
Self
1940
Dr. Kildare's Strange Case
Mary Lamont
1940
My Dear Secretary
Stephanie 'Steve' Gaylord
1948
The Story of Dr. Wassell
Madeleine
1944
Those Endearing Young Charms
Helen Brandt
1945
I Take This Woman
Linda Rodgers
1940
The Glass Key
Nurse (uncredited)
1942
Fingers at the Window
Edwina 'Eddie' Brown
1942
Keep Your Powder Dry
Leigh Rand
1945
Twenty Years After
(archive footage)
1944
Think First
Marjorie (Margie) Smith
1939
The Secret of Dr. Kildare
Mary Lamont
1939
Three for Jamie Dawn
Sue Lorenz
1956
And One Was Beautiful
Kate Lattimer
1940
Dr. Kildare's Crisis
Nurse Mary Lamont
1940
My Son, My Son!
Maeve O’Riordan
1940
The Woman on Pier 13
Nan Lowry Collins
1950
Too Old for Dolls
Marge Ramsay
1955
Return to Fantasy Island
Mrs. Grant
1978
The Bad Man
Lucia Pell
1941
The Trial of Mary Dugan
Mary Dugan
1941
The People Vs. Dr. Kildare
Nurse Mary Lamont
1941
Tycoon
Maura Alexander Munroe
1947
Calling Dr. Kildare
Nurse Mary Lamont
1939
A Yank on the Burma Road
Gail Farwood
1942
Dr. Kildare Goes Home
Nurse Mary Lamont
1940
Mr. Gardenia Jones
Joanne
1942
Stella Dallas
Girl at Soda Shop / Train Passenger (uncredited)
1937
Sergeant Madden
Eileen Daly
1939
Prima Donna
Laraine Day
1956
Kathleen
Martha Kent
1941
Dr. Kildare's Wedding Day
Nurse Mary Lamont
1941
The 3rd Voice
Marian Forbes
1960
Arizona Legion
Letty Meade (as Laraine Johnson)
1939
Unholy Partners
Miss 'Croney' Cronin
1941
Scandal Street
Peg Smith (as Laraine Johnson)
1938
Journey for Margaret
Nora Davis
1942
Bride by Mistake
Norah Hunter
1944Swiss Family Robinson
Frannie (Mother)
1958
Toy Tiger
Gwendolyn Taylor
1956
Without Honor
Jane Bandle
1949
Border G-Man
Betty Holden (as Laraine Johnson)
1938
Rendezvous in Black
Florence Strickland
1956
Painted Desert
Carol Banning
1938The Final Tribute
Joyce Carter
1955