In her very first stage appearance Doris Day wet herself. It was in her hometown of Cincinnati in 1927. She was five years old and not yet Doris Day. She was still Doris Kappelhoff and the red satin pants that her mother, Alma, had sewn for the kindergarten pageant were quick to betray her. It's tempting to see this as a primal scene for Doris Day, the moment from which her longheld stage fright sprang.

LRB 11 September 2008 | PDF Download