20 Facts About Dennis Day

Dennis Day graduated from the Cathedral Preparatory School and Seminary and attended Manhattan College in the Bronx, where he sang in the glee club.

In 1939, Gene McNulty, as Dennis Day was then known, sang on network radio with bandleader Larry Clinton.

Dennis Day appeared for the first time on Jack Benny's radio show on October 8,1939, taking the place of another tenor, Kenny Baker.

Dennis Day remained associated with Benny's radio and television programs until Benny's death in 1974.

Dennis Day took a recording of Day's singing to Benny, who then went to New York to audition Day.

When Dennis Day got his own radio sitcom, he continued to play essentially the same character that he originated on Benny's program.

Dennis Day stayed at a boarding house run by Clara Anderson, usually played by Bea Benaderet.

Dennis Day was engaged to their daughter Mildred, played by Barbara Eiler.

Dennis Day's character worked at Willoughby's Drug Store, where his boss was Mr Willoughby.

Dennis Day has appeared as a regular cast member when The Jack Benny Program became a TV series, staying with the show until it ended in 1965.

On this show, Dennis Day played a less-fictionalized version of himself, using his natural voice and behaving as an adult who was considerably more mature than his Benny character.

Between 1952 and 1978, Dennis Day made numerous TV appearances as a singer and actor and voice for animation.

In 1957, Dennis Day played himself in episode seven, season two of the briefly aired situation comedy called Date with the Angels in which, on the way to a recording studio, Dennis Day's car breaks down in front of Vicki Angel's home.

Dennis Day's last televised work with Benny was in 1970, when they appeared in a public-service announcement together to promote savings and loans.

Dennis Day starred as railroad employee Jason Barnes in the 1962 Death Valley Days TV episode "Way Station".

In 1976, Dennis Day was the voice of Parson Brown in the Rankin-Bass production Frosty's Winter Wonderland and again worked with them in 1978, when he voiced Fred in The Stingiest Man in Town, which was their animated version of Charles Dickens' novel A Christmas Carol.

Dennis Day provided the voices of Johnny Appleseed, Johnny's Angel, and the Old Settler in the "Johnny Appleseed" segment in Walt Disney's Melody Time.

In 1948, Dennis Day married Peggy Almquist; the marriage lasted until his death in 1988.

Dennis Day died on June 22,1988, of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, in Los Angeles, California.

Dennis Day is interred in Culver City's Holy Cross Cemetery.