Old Hollywood in Balboa Park The incomparable Mickey Rooney, a perennial performer with 350 film credits spanning eight decades, will appear at the San Diego Air and Space Museum’s “Hollywood Studs and Starlets” fund-raiser on May 7. Proceeds from the event will benefit the museum’s youth educational programs. Rooney’s career dates back to the silent-film era, but his most memorable roles were with Elizabeth Taylor and Judy Garland and as the title character in the wildly successful Andy Hardy series. Rooney played a fighter pilot in the 1954 Korean War movie “The Bridges of Toko-Ri.” The evening will include special dance performances and live entertainment from the Jazz Project Big Band with guest local television weathercaster/personalisty, Dave Scott as well as red carpet glamour and paparazzi, celebrity impersonators, and both silent and live auctions. Fixing history a frame at a time Fifty years after Yuri Gagarin’s historic flight into space, the Air and Space Museum is playing a pivotal role in reuniting two pieces of unique footage of the Russian astronaut by using its new hi-definition film digitizer. The 16mm film footage shows Gagarin arriving at Ringway Airport in Manchester, England on July 12, 1961, and being greeted by the president of the foundry workers’ union. Gagarin was himself a former foundry man. It was Gagarin’s first visit outside of the Soviet bloc. The air we breath Is climate change a public health issue for San Diego? That’s the topic being discussed May 24 in the Reuben H. Fleet’s Culture Center by Paula Murray of the county’s Division of Public Health Services. Discussions will center around Earth’s climate change over the next 40 years. The fear is that human mortality and morbidity likely will be impacted by temperature, air pollution, vector and waterborne diseases, wildfires and other ecological changes. Murray is also a faculty member at San Diego State University’s Graduate School of Public Health. She will examine where we are now, what may be ahead and how we can best prepare for the future. Andrea Cook, Ph.D. program manager for the California Center for Sustainable Energy, will moderate the discussion, which will start at 5:30 p.m. There is no admission charge. Museum news The San Diego County Fair’s theme this year deals with the automobile and the Auto Museum is furnishing some of its collection for an expanded display. Pick up a Balboa Park guide at the visitors center (in the Prado area) for what’s new at the museums and plan your day. The center is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. with extended summer hours.
