Dennis Day Suffers Critical Head Injury in Fall at Home

Dennis Day, 66, the Irish tenor who used his high-pitched, choirboy voice and feigned naivete to seemingly irritate comedian Jack Benny on radio and television for 25 years, was reported in critical condition Friday after hitting his head in a fall at his Brentwood home, hospital officials said.

Day’s fall ruptured several blood vessels in his brain, and he had not regained consciousness since admittance to St. John’s Hospital early Wednesday in Santa Monica, where he was under close observation because “his vital signs are unstable,” a nursing supervisor said.

Last year, doctors said the father of 10 children was suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease. Day, who played a perennial juvenile, feigned humility and sometimes stubbornness to drive Benny to request him to sing, which he did in a smooth, lilting tenor voice.