--- name: "Laraine Day" canonical: "https://film.one/person/laraine-day" roles: ["Actor"] born: "13 October 1920" died: "10 November 2007" reviewed_on_fi1m: 1 average_as: "actor" average_over: 1 updated: "2026-09-20T00:17:09.136798+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Laraine Day Actor. Born 13 October 1920 in Roosevelt, Utah, USA. Died 10 November 2007. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 13 October 1920, Roosevelt, Utah, USA - **Died:** 10 November 2007 - **Also known as:** Laraine Johnson , La Raine Johnson - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laraine_Day, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q466063, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0206478/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/41245 ## Streaming the US now - **Hulu:** [*Foreign Correspondent*](https://film.one/film/foreign-correspondent.md) (76) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Laraine Day > Laraine Day was the actor Hollywood reached for when its first choice was busy, and she was steadily better than that suggests. Hitchcock’s writers gave her almost nothing in *Foreign Correspondent*; MGM did much the same for six years. In *Foreign Correspondent* (1940), Jones proposes to Laraine Day’s Carol Fisher on a day’s acquaintance, and the film expects her to take it seriously. She does, which is the job. Day spent most of her career doing that job: standing beside a man the studio cared about more, making his behaviour look reasonable, and getting on with it. She was good at it, and it is a pity that was so often all anyone asked. She began in RKO westerns in the late 1930s under the name Laraine Johnson, signed with MGM in 1939, and the studio found her a uniform. As Nurse Mary Lamont she played the dedicated fiancée through seven Dr Kildare pictures opposite Lew Ayres between 1939 and 1941, and audiences liked her in them, which was rather the problem; a studio that has found a use for you rarely goes looking for another. Hitchcock borrowed her for *Foreign Correspondent*, and the daughter of a pacifist leader ought to have been a part with an argument in it. Charles Bennett, Joan Harrison and Richard Maibaum wrote her a romance instead, and she is given nothing to do but be charmed, then hurt. We felt for her in the London stretch, where the plot marks time in hotel corridors and Day is left carrying a courtship the script has not bothered to build. She carries it. She plays hurt plainly, without fluttering or speeches, and the film hurries past her to get back to Holland. It is the kind of thing that sends you looking for the pictures where somebody let her do more. There are a few. She left MGM in the mid-1940s and went freelance, and the parts improved: Dorothy Bryant opposite Cary Grant in *Mr Lucky* (1943), then Nancy in *The Locket* (1946), a kleptomaniac whose story is told in flashbacks within flashbacks, the one role people who remember Day at all tend to remember. Later there was Lydia Rice opposite John Wayne in *The High and the Mighty* (1954), and television guest parts into the 1980s. She was never a star, and the studios kept her in what were politely called programme pictures. She said as much herself, late in life: "Metro never really wanted me for anything. I was always the one who happened to be free when their first choice was not." It is a hard thing to say about your own career and, on the evidence, a fair one. Start with *Foreign Correspondent*, for the chases rather than for her; then find *The Locket*, the rare occasion a studio handed her a woman with something the matter with her. It is not difficult to guess which she preferred. ## Biography Laraine Day was an American actress. Born La Raine Johnson on 13 October 1920 in Roosevelt, Utah, she was one of eight children in a Mormon family. She moved to California as a child, trained with the Long Beach Players, and made her film debut in 1937. Day gained prominence in the late 1930s and 1940s, notably as Nurse Mary Lamont opposite Lew Ayres in several Dr Kildare films for MGM. She played Carol Fisher in Alfred Hitchcock's *Foreign Correspondent* (1940), appeared in *Mr Lucky* (1943) and *The Locket* (1946), and featured in *The High and the Mighty* (1954). She also worked in television, with guest roles in series including *Murder, She Wrote* and *Airwolf*. Through her marriage to baseball manager Leo Durocher, Day became known as the "First Lady of Baseball". She was later married to producer Michel Grilikhes and died on 10 November 2007 in Ivins, Utah. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, nytimes.com, theguardian.com, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (1) - *Foreign Correspondent* (1940), Fi1m 76, as Carol Fisher — [page](https://film.one/film/foreign-correspondent.md) ## Complete filmography (70) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Murder, She Wrote* (1984), series, as Constance Fletcher - *Airwolf* (1984), series, as Amelia Davenport - *Hotel* (1982), series, as Mrs. Kupchak - *Return to Fantasy Island* (1978), as Mrs. Grant - *The Love Boat* (1977), series, as Vera Simpson - *Murder on Flight 502* (1975), as Claire Garwood - *The Sixth Sense* (1972), series, Actor - *Medical Center* (1969), series, Actor - *The Name of the Game* (1968), series, as Grace Jellicoe - *The F.B.I.* (1965), series, as Helen York - *Burke's Law* (1963), series, as Lisa Cole - *The Alfred Hitchcock Hour* (1962), series, as Ruth - *The New Breed* (1961), series, as Vivian Cowley - *Checkmate* (1960), series, as Amnesiac Woman - *The 3rd Voice* (1960), as Marian Forbes - *Pursuit* (1958), series, as Kathy Nelson - *Swiss Family Robinson* (1958), as Frannie (Mother) - *Rendezvous in Black* (1956), as Florence Strickland - *Three for Jamie Dawn* (1956), as Sue Lorenz - *Toy Tiger* (1956), as Gwendolyn Taylor - *Prima Donna* (1956), as Laraine Day - *The Final Tribute* (1955), as Joyce Carter - *Screen Director's Playhouse* (1955), series, as Laraine Day - *Too Old for Dolls* (1955), as Marge Ramsay - *Climax!* (1954), series, as Ellen Parker - *The High and the Mighty* (1954), as Lydia Rice - *Letter to Loretta* (1953), series, as Carol Potter, Karen McCall, Sara Lewis - *General Electric Theater* (1953), series, Actor - *Schlitz Playhouse of Stars* (1951), series, as Mrs. Lorenz - *Lux Video Theatre* (1950), series, as Sophie, Charlotte Vale, Louise Howell, Lynn, Claire Brandon, Lydia, Phyllis Dietrichson - *The Woman on Pier 13* (1950), as Nan Lowry Collins - *Your Show of Shows* (1950), series, Actor - *Without Honor* (1949), as Jane Bandle - *My Dear Secretary* (1948), as Stephanie 'Steve' Gaylord - *Tycoon* (1947), as Maura Alexander Munroe - *The Locket* (1946), as Nancy - *Those Endearing Young Charms* (1945), as Helen Brandt - *Keep Your Powder Dry* (1945), as Leigh Rand - *Bride by Mistake* (1944), as Norah Hunter - *The Story of Dr. Wassell* (1944), as Madeleine - *Twenty Years After* (1944), as (archive footage) - *Mr. Lucky* (1943), as Dorothy Bryant - *Journey for Margaret* (1942), as Nora Davis - *The Glass Key* (1942), as Nurse (uncredited) - *Mr. Gardenia Jones* (1942), as Joanne - *Fingers at the Window* (1942), as Edwina 'Eddie' Brown - *A Yank on the Burma Road* (1942), as Gail Farwood - *Kathleen* (1941), as Martha Kent - *Unholy Partners* (1941), as Miss 'Croney' Cronin - *Dr. Kildare's Wedding Day* (1941), as Nurse Mary Lamont - *The People Vs. Dr. Kildare* (1941), as Nurse Mary Lamont - *The Bad Man* (1941), as Lucia Pell - *The Trial of Mary Dugan* (1941), as Mary Dugan - *Dr. Kildare's Crisis* (1940), as Nurse Mary Lamont - *Dr. Kildare Goes Home* (1940), as Nurse Mary Lamont - *Foreign Correspondent* (1940), as Carol Fisher — Fi1m 76, [page](https://film.one/film/foreign-correspondent.md) - *Dr. Kildare's Strange Case* (1940), as Mary Lamont - *And One Was Beautiful* (1940), as Kate Lattimer - *My Son, My Son!* (1940), as Maeve O’Riordan - *I Take This Woman* (1940), as Linda Rodgers - *The Secret of Dr. Kildare* (1939), as Mary Lamont - *Think First* (1939), as Marjorie (Margie) Smith - *Tarzan Finds a Son!* (1939), as Mrs. Richard Lancing - *Calling Dr. Kildare* (1939), as Nurse Mary Lamont - *Sergeant Madden* (1939), as Eileen Daly - *Arizona Legion* (1939), as Letty Meade (as Laraine Johnson) - *Painted Desert* (1938), as Carol Banning - *Border G-Man* (1938), as Betty Holden (as Laraine Johnson) - *Scandal Street* (1938), as Peg Smith (as Laraine Johnson) - *Stella Dallas* (1937), as Girl at Soda Shop / Train Passenger (uncredited) ## Gallery - ![Publicity photo of Laraine Day](https://film.one/media/person/1231456/gallery-4a5728562f64.jpg) Publicity photo of Laraine Day — Studio Publicity, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/LARAINE_DAY.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Laraine Day](https://film.one/media/person/1231456/gallery-2f8bc827e566.jpg) Laraine Day — Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/40/Foreign_Correspondent_trailer_14.jpg/1280px-Foreign_Correspondent_trailer_14.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Publicity photo of Laraine Day. (1943)](https://film.one/media/person/1231456/gallery-001be6956c1b.jpg) Publicity photo of Laraine Day. (1943) — RKO-Everett, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/LaraineDay.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Gary Cooper & Laraine Day in The Story of Dr. Wassell - trailer (cropped screenshot) (1944)](https://film.one/media/person/1231456/gallery-bc48ea436da0.jpg) Gary Cooper & Laraine Day in The Story of Dr. Wassell - trailer (cropped screenshot) (1944) — trailer screenshot (Paramount Pictures), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Gary_Cooper-Laraine_Day_in_The_Story_of_Dr._Wassel_trailer.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Laraine Day](https://film.one/media/person/1231456/gallery-b4889d78bce4.jpg) Laraine Day — Image via TMDB - ![Laraine Day](https://film.one/media/person/1231456/gallery-cae34b5ac022.jpg) Laraine Day — Image via TMDB ## Awards ### Other awards — 1 won - star on Hollywood Walk of Fame 1960: star on Hollywood Walk of Fame (won) *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/laraine-day