95: Tamar Jeffers McDonald

<div>It was a huge pleasure for this week’s Nostalgia Interview to meet up via Zoom with Tamar Jeffers McDonald, an expert on Doris Day.<br> <br> </div> <div>Tamar is Reader in Film and Head of the School of Arts at the University of Kent. We learn that she dropped a copy of her book <em>Doris Day Confidential: Hollywood, Sex, and Stardom</em> to Carmel, California, for Doris Day to read and Tamar talks about how a few years ago she bought a broach that Day wore to the 1960 Golden Globes.<br> <br> </div> <div>Tamar discusses how she always imagined that she would have been an academic but in a different discipline and we discover that she used to work for the Victorian Society. We find out that Tamar’s and Doris Day’s families came from the same places in America and we learn how Tamar built up her academic credentials.<br> <br> </div> <div>We talk in detail about <em>Pillow Talk</em> and the question of Doris Day’s character’s alleged virginity, and we move the discussion to the theme of gaslighting. We also discuss the parallel careers – and Manichean opposites – of Day and Marlon Brando, who were born on the same day. Tamar, we learn, is interested in one day doing a project that looks at the two icons and where they might overlap.<br> <br> </div> <div>We find out about <em>Storm Warning </em>in which Doris Day is married to a member of the KKK, and this leads to a discussion of Day’s own political views. She was a Republican supporter and we talk about how ideological differences can make the person more interesting to study.<br> <br> </div> <div>Tamar has studied movie magazines and she talks about how and why they need to lie, and how they turned on Day towards the end of her career.<br> <br> </div> <div>We find out whether there are any stars today who give Tamar the same joy and we learn that she enjoys early sound films. We find out what she thinks about audience responses to films she knows and loves and she reveals why she walked out of <em>Life is Beautiful </em>at the cinema. She also recalls h