Doris Day - Secret Love

Doris Day - 'Secret Love'

23rd April, 1954 (1 Week)

7th May, 1954 (8 Weeks)

Doris Day - the highest ranking female box office star of all time - managed to interrupt (alas, only briefly) The Stargazers' hateful second Number 1 with the Academy Award winning Secret Love from the film 'Calamity Jane', based on the real life prostitute of the same name. Alas, it didn't stop it entirely.

Here is Doris herself, singing Secret Love after she realises it was Wild Bill Hickok that she loved all along. Reputedly, this scene was recorded in just one take.

Personally, I don't see why this song won an Oscar. It's ok. It's certainly not as awful as the last Number 1. It's a bit of an exercise in blandness though. I can understand it reaching Number 1 on the success of Calamity Jane and the stratospheric popularity of Doris Day. Then again, Phil Collins, whose music is the definition of bland, has won an Oscar for his work on film soundtracks, so that whole award can be struck off from having anything approaching taste.