by Nancy Linenkugel
Contributor
The last two celebrities from Hollywood's "Golden Age" turn 100 years old this year in 2016: Olivia de Havilland and Kirk Douglas. Both were born in 1916, both starred in many films, and both can point to a lifetime of service inside and to the motion picture industry.
Ms. de Havilland is actually the oldest living Academy Award winner, having received the award for best actress in 1946 for "To Each His Own" and in 1949 for "The Heiress." She is also the last living actor of "Gone With the Wind." Mr. Douglas is the oldest celebrity blogger in the world.
Hollywood's "Golden Age" spanned from the 1920s through the 1960s when lots of films were made, the large motion picture companies owned theaters across the country and employed thousands, and Disney's animation was coming into its own. These movies were regimented with a clear beginning, middle and end, and usually they combined romance with something else, like solving crimes.
In Psalm 90 we pray: "Seventy is the sum of our years or eighty if we are strong." That psalm is silent about making it all the way to age 100 but goes on to say, "Most of them [years] are toil and sorrow; they pass quickly, and we are gone."
Movies tend to glamourize the lives of actors and actresses; we are mesmerized by what it would be like to be a celebrity with everyone knowing who you are and clamoring at your feet. Ms. de Havilland and Mr. Douglas no doubt felt that same way and had their share of notoriety. As centenarians this year the two have much more to share about being successful life-livers.
[Nancy Linenkugel is a Sylvania Franciscan sister and chair of the department of Health Services Administration at Xavier University, Cincinnati Ohio.]