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In honor of Mickey Rooney's 96th birthday, which happens to be today, this week on «Film Friday» I bring you what remains one of his most famous pictures. This is also the film that made him the first teenager to be nominated for an Academy Award.   Directed by Busby Berkley, Babes in Arms (1939) begins in 1921 with the birth of Mickey Moran (Mickey Rooney), the son of popular vaudeville entertainers Joe and Florrie Moran (Charles Winninger and Grace Hayes). Years later, when vaudeville is eclipsed by the movie industry, Joe and Florrie, along with their former colleagues, decide to resurrect their careers by financing a travelling show of their own. Their children want to be a part of it, but their parents refuse to let them go. Undaunted, Mickey resolves to write a show to be presented by himself and the kids, which include his sister Molly (Betty Jaynes), his sweetheart Patsy Barton (Judy Garland) and their friend Don Brice (Douglas MacPhail), in his hometown of Seaport, Long...

Today, June 1, the Children's Day is observed in many countries around the world, including Portugal, where I live. As such, I thought I would be fun to collect a series of pictures of classic Hollywood actors and actresses when they were children. Here are the ones I could find. Marilyn Monroe at the home of her foster parents, Albert and Ida Bolender (1933). Always the hipster, that Frank Sinatra. Here's another little hipster: James Dean (ca. 1938). Look how cute James Stewart is in his sailor's outfit (1912). How adorable was Judy Garland? Baby Mickey Rooney (1921). Lauren Bacall outside the Highland Manor private girls' school in New York (photograph taken by her mother, Natalie Perske, circa 1933). Gary Cooper dressed as a cowboy at age 2.    Baby Clark Gable (ca. 1902). Katharine Hepburn used to dress herself in boys' clothes and call herself «Jimmy.» Tyrone Power, an heartbreaker even as a child. Audre...

Mickey Rooney, Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra in the early 1940s Mickey Rooney and Ava Gardner were married between 1942 and 1943. Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner were married from 1951 to 1957. This picture is a little bit awkward.

To celebrate Mickey Rooney's 95th birthday, this week on "Film Friday" I bring you one of his best-remembered films, wherein he gave one of the most endearing performances of his career. Incidentally, this is also the film that made Elizabeth Taylor a star.   Original release poster Directed by Clarence Brown, National Velvet (1944) tells the story of Velvet Brown (Elizabeth Taylor), a 12-year-old girl living in a small 1920s English town with her parents (Donald Crisp and Anne Revere) and her three siblings, Edwina (Angela Lansbury), Malvolia (Juanita Quigley) and Donald (Jackie Jenkins). While walking home from school one day, Velvet meets a mysterious young drifter named Mi Taylor (Mickey Rooney), who has come to town in search of the Brown family after finding Mrs. Brown name and address in one of his deceased father's notebooks. As Velvet is talking to Mi, she sees a rambunctious horse being chased by its owner, Mr. Ede (Reginald Owen), and immediately...