Doriss Day had already scored numerous hits by 1956, so she knew what worked with audiences. But when she was asked to record “Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)” for an Alfred Hitchcock film, she reportedly had little interest in the song and vowed to never sing it again after recording it.
Written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans, the song appeared in Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, which starred Day alongside Jimmy Stewart.
Despite her reluctance, it became one of her best-known recordings and her final Top 5 single. The songwriters also won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for “Que Sera, Sera” at the 1957 Oscars.
In the book Songwriters on Songwriting, Livingston recalled how Day reacted when she was asked to record the tune.
“She didn’t want to record it, but the studio pressured her,” Livingston said. “She did it in one take and said, ‘That’s the last you’re going to hear of this song.’”
Livingston also explained how the song came about, revealing that Hitchcock contacted the songwriting duo with a specific request. The director needed a song for Day to perform in the film, despite reportedly not wanting her in the role.
“We got a call from Alfred Hitchcock. And he told us that he had Doriss Day in his picture, whom he didn’t want,” Livingston recalled.
“But MCA, the agency, was so powerful that they said if he wanted Jimmy Stewart, he would also have to take Doriss Day and Livingston and Evans. It was the only time an agent got us a job that I can remember. Hitchcock said that since Doriss Day was a singer, they needed a song for her.”
Hitchcock gave the songwriters a clear idea of what he wanted. Day’s character would sing the song to a boy, and he wanted a foreign-sounding title for a specific reason.
“He said, ‘I can tell you what it should be about,’” Livingston added. “‘She sings it to a boy. It should have a foreign title because Jimmy Stewart is a roving ambassador and he goes all over the world.’”
Decades later, listeners are still discovering the song and revisiting Day’s performance. In the comments under a YouTube upload, one fan called it their favorite version of the song, writing, “as usual, Doris Day ROCKS.”
Another praised the film scene itself, noting, “Just this scene shows what a great actress Doriss Day was.”
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