Cheers to your anniversary!—Martin Melcher & Doris Day.
was Doris Day’s third husband. Terry was Day’s son from her first marriage to trombonist Al Jorden, whom he adopted after they were married. Growing up, Terry Melcher became a highly successful record producer. Upon his death in 1968, after a 17-year marriage, Day learned that, due to his power of attorney, he had signed her up for a CBS TV series without her knowledge and that the millions she had made in her twenty-year film career had all been lost on bad investments. Following years of legal battle, Day successfully sued Melcher’s partner Jerome B. Rosenthal and received a record $22.8 million payment from him. Day had kept his word about the CBS pledge.
He was the one who “turned down” the part of Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, not Doris Day. He was supposedly so outraged by the novel that the film’s producer never even showed it to his wife, which denied her the part that could have given her a second chance at a successful film career. Had been an agent with Century Artists Agency before departing to oversee Doris Day’s career full-time.
