stylistic:style_transfer, structural:reformatting, stylistic:tone
Bankruptcy and television career

After her third husband Martin Melcher died on April 20, 1968, Day was shocked to discover that Melcher and his business partner and advisor Jerome Bernard Rosenthal had squandered her earnings, leaving her deeply in debt. Rosenthal had been her attorney since 1949 when he had represented her in her uncontested divorce action against her second husband, saxophonist George W. Weidler. Day filed suit against Rosenthal in February 1969 and won a successful decision in 1974, but she did not receive compensation until a settlement was reached in 1979.

Day also learned to her displeasure that Melcher had committed her to a television series that became The Doris Day Show.

It was awful. I was really, really not very well when Marty passed away, and the thought of going into TV was overpowering. But he'd signed me up for a series. And then my son Terry took me walking in Beverly Hills and explained that it wasn't nearly the end of it. I had also been signed up for a bunch of TV specials, all without anyone ever asking me.

Day hated the idea of performing on television but felt obligated to forge ahead with the series. The first episode of The Doris Day Show aired on September 24, 1968, and featured a rerecorded version of "Que Sera, Sera" as its theme song. Day persevered with the show, needing to work to repay her debts, but only after CBS ceded creative control to her and her son. The show enjoyed a successful five-year run, although it may be best remembered for its abrupt season-to-season changes in casting and premise.

After the end of the television show's run in 1973, Day largely retired from acting but completed two television specials, The Doris Mary Anne Kappelhoff Special (1971) and Doris Day Today (1975), and she was a guest on various shows in the 1970s.

In the 1985–86 season, Day hosted her own television talk show, Doris Day's Best Friends, on the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). The network canceled the show after 26 episodes despite the worldwide publicity that it had received. One episode featured Rock Hudson, who was showing the first public symptoms of AIDS, including severe weight loss and fatigue. He died from the disease later that year. Day later said, "He was very sick. But I just brushed that off and I came out and put my arms around him and said, 'Am I glad to see you'."