Doris Day won’t be having a funeral. The legendary actress died on Monday, May 13 at age 97, but since she had “difficulty accepting death,” there will be “no funeral, no memorial and no [grave] marker” for her.
“She didn’t like death, and she couldn’t be with her animals if they had to be put down,” her longtime manager Bob Bashara told People, adding that she “didn’t like to talk about” any post-death plans.
“I’d say we need to provide for her dogs [after she died], and she’d say, ‘I don’t want to think about it’ and Doris said, ‘Well, you just take care of them,’” he recalled. “She had several when her will was written, and she wanted to be sure they were taken care of. She didn’t like to talk about the dogs dying.”
“I think it was because she was a very shy person,” Bob added of the singer and activist.
“She never let her celebrity affect her and who she was, and she was always the little girl from Cincinnati who was extraordinarily talented and went out in the world and did what she loved to do despite herself,” he noted. “She was guileless, and I had discussions with her about how popular she was, and she would say, ‘I don’t understand it’ about why she was so loved.”
So instead of services for friends and family to say their goodbyes, Doris plans to donate her estate to the Doris Day Animal Foundation, which began in 1978. “The ultimate thing for it is to keep the foundation going,” Bob shared. Rest in peace…
