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I will always remember my middle son’s devotion to Doris Day movies when he was very young. This otherwise very rough-and-tumble kid would look at me on a rainy Saturday afternoon and ask quietly, “Got any more Doris?” This always amused me. I couldn’t help thinking that Doris Day seemed so far removed from the 21st century, belonging exclusively to that bygone era of clean movies, saccharine songs, and prescribed gender roles.

Up to now, I’ve always hesitated to do a piece on this enduring icon and casualty of Hollywood, simply because so much has already been written on her tragic life and tumultuous career — reportedly well over 500 books. Finally, I resolved to focus on the details of her early life which shaped the fragile, tortured person she’d become.

Tyrone Power: If ever a name sounded like the product of a studio publicity department, this was it. Yet this dark, impossibly handsome star (known to friends as “Ty”) used his own name, the same one carried by his actor father and his great-grandfather, also a famed actor in nineteenth-century Ireland.

As so often happens in Hollywood, the most famous and beloved dance team in the history of movies was the result of a happy accident. The year was 1933, the studio was the financially strapped RKO, the film a Dolores Del Rio vehicle called “Flying Down to Rio.”

The first time I remember seeing Anthony Quinn onscreen was in 1961’s “The Guns of Navarone.” This World War 2 adventure film remains a personal favorite, and though it features solid performances from Gregory Peck and David Niven, it was Quinn who stood out for me.

One quality about Dean Martin you had to love: he never played second banana to anyone. Not to Frank Sinatra, not to Jerry Lewis — both complicated men with big egos. What made him so cool was the fact that he sought and required no one’s approval. Even better, he knew how to use his abundant charm to make you love him for it.

In this relatively enlightened age, it’s horrifying to consider how gay people were treated by society just half a century ago. Back then, being closeted was not an option but a necessity. As the 1960s dawned, homosexuality was still deemed an illness and a crime across the globe. Those caught and convicted often went to prison, and then were ostracized, their lives ruined.

Though movies have often fueled our country’s propaganda machine in times of war, for me personally those films that expose war’s folly are more interesting simply because they feel more authentic and honest.

For those who only think of Drew when they hear the name Barrymore, here’s some news: a glimpse back into history will reveal that it was not she but her ancestors who first made the name famous.