A HOLLYWOOD WEEK – AT 9:43 A.M. ET:   The single most frequent request I get from readers is to write more about show business and popular culture.  I promise to do so, and then I break my promise.  But I promise to stop breaking my promise. 

Hollywood saw two milestones within the last week.  First, Doris Day turned 90.  For those of a certain age, Doris Day is an iconic figure.  First, she was one of the most famous singers of the 1940s and 1950s.  In fact, she was one of the best-selling recording artists of all time.  Her sultry rendition of "Sentimental Journey" in 1945, with its reminder of soldiers returning home, made her a star. 

She was a torch singer, meaning there was a sensual sizzle in her delivery.  But her peachy-cream, all-American looks attracted Hollywood, which launched her on a second career to film stardom.  This transition from torch singer to "the girl next door" led Oscar Levant, one of the great wits of the time, to remark, "I knew her before she was a virgin."

Doris Day starred in a number of films during the waning years of Hollywood's golden age, but may best be remember for starring, with James Stewart, in Alfred Hitchcock's "The Man Who Knew Too Much."  That movie also launched what came to be her signature song, "Que Sera, Sera (whatever will be, will be)." 

It is rare for anyone to be a major star in two media for the 20-30 years that Doris Day stayed at the top.  But the audience loved her, and made her.  At 90, she still gets film offers.

She is an animal-kindness advocate who has stayed with her cause for years.  No flash-in-the-pan activist is she.  She also is fiercely independent and a bit eccentric.  She was offered the Kennedy Center Honors, but turned the offer down because she refuses to fly. 

If you aren't that familiar with Doris Day's work, listen to her recordings and see her movies.  Her appeal is instant.

And another milestone:  Mickey Rooney has died at 93.   He was one of the last remaining actors to have achieved stardom in the 1930s.  In fact, I can think of only one other who is still living, and that is Olivia de Havilland, who starred in "Gone With the Wind" in 1939, and is now 97.  Rooney was never a particularly beloved figure, but he stayed famous for more than 70 years.  His fame was built largely on his early "Andy Hardy" films, made with Judy Garland.  A tiny man, he was also noted for marrying eight women, including the radiant Ava Gardner. 

He was an accomplished actor, probably underestimated because he was tagged as a "child star." 

I was able to watch Mickey Rooney in rehearsal, with the great dancer Ann Miller, when they were doing "Sugar Babies" on Broadway, in the 1970s.  He struck me as completely professional, very devoted to the show.  It's hard to think of him as gone.

Doris still lives.

April 7, 2014