Still on That Show Biz Road : Stage: Dorothy Lamour, now 76, opens tonight in ‘Side by Side by Sondheim’ at the Grand Dinner Theatre. ‘I think everybody, especially senior citizens, should try to keep themselves busy,’ she says.

As she settled into the coffee shop booth, Dorothy Lamour gave the distinct impression that she would rather be putting her old sarong back on than facing the interview at hand.

First, the 76-year-old actress-singer--who shot to Hollywood stardom in the 1930s with a series of jungle films and who opens tonight in “Side by Side by Sondheim” at the Grand Dinner Theatre in a hotel near Disneyland--wanted to know just what questions she would be asked.

Then, when the food arrived, she held off biting into her ham-and-swiss croissant. “Let’s do this first,” she said, as if she couldn’t really eat in peace till the pesky questions were over with.

Although she was not exactly effusive, Lamour was often cordial, down-to-earth, disarmingly frank and wryly funny.

Asked whether she had ever studied acting, she replied with a chortle: “No! Can’t you tell?”

Had she ever studied singing? “No. Can’t you tell?” laughing again.

Does she work with a vocal or acting coach now? “No!” Her large, sparkling eyes widened at the preposterous thought.

On a more serious note, though, Lamour said she has “not one” regret about where her career has taken her. Nor, she said, is she the least bit bitter at having missed out on the sort of fame that went to Bob Hope, her co-star in several “Road” films.

She has stuck mostly to touring productions and guest television spots since her heyday. She isn’t interested in major motion pictures anymore. She doesn’t really like today’s movies.

“I’m not a prude, I assure you,” said Lamour, who was clad in a bright red sweat shirt and wore her soft dark hair swept off her forehead. But today’s movies “are too full of violence and sex. Sex can be a very beautiful thing, but it can also be an ugly thing. I think the young people should be shown the beautiful side of life. I don’t approve of sex that’s flaunted.”

As for Broadway, she said she’s had offers but that she’s “never had a desire to play Broadway . . . I don’t really know why.” Instead of performing in the spotlights of New York or Los Angeles, Lamour, a longtime North Hollywood resident, said she prefers doing regional dinner theater in outlying cities such as Anaheim.

Stage fright, she said, is something that “never goes away,” and in Los Angeles, “there would be too many people I’d know in the audience, and that scares me to death. I don’t know why. I know they’re on my side, but it just makes me nervous.”

Lamour said she feels fortunate to be active in her craft and to have her good health and vigor. She will appear in “Side by Side” on six nights and two afternoons a week, singing two songs (“Broadway Baby” from “Follies” and “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” from “Gypsy”) and narrating the two-hour tribute to composer Stephen Sondheim.

“I think everybody, especially senior citizens, should try to keep themselves busy,” she said. “I’m lucky: I’ve got show business. But nowadays there are so many charities you can work on. Even if you can’t get around, you can do it by phone, and you’re doing something good for somebody else, but at the same time you’re doing something good for yourself.”

Hard work brought Lamour out of a long period of semi-retirement and out of the deep depression she suffered when her husband of 35 years, William Ross Howard III, an Air Force lieutenant and businessman, died in 1978 after a long bout with emphysema.

“After he died, I sat around and moped and wouldn’t talk to anybody,” recalled Lamour, who has two sons and a stepson, all grown. “I didn’t want to see any of my friends. I was almost a recluse. One day a friend of mine said, ‘How would you like to do a show?’ ”

Lamour said yes. In 1979, she did “Barefoot in the Park” at a dinner theater in San Clemente. Since then, she has toured with that and other productions, one of which is a one-woman show. She also has done TV and written an autobiography. She decided to do “Side by Side” at the suggestion of her musical director of eight years, William Lockwood.

“I don’t think we’ve ever done her (one-woman) nightclub act anyplace in world where she didn’t get a standing ovation,” Lockwood said. “Audiences simply adore her. She has that wonderful little-girl quality that makes people just want to hug her.”

Lamour, who was born Dec. 10, 1914, in Louisiana, began winning over audiences at 16, when she was named Miss New Orleans. After pounding the pavement as an aspiring singer for a while, she was discovered by bandleader Herbie Kay, who became her first husband. She worked as a band vocalist and radio performer until she signed a contract with Paramount Pictures.

After she bared her midriff in her first movie, “The Jungle Princess” (1936), she became known as the sultry “Sarong Girl.” She went on to play opposite Hope and Bing Crosby in seven “Road” pictures, from “Road to Singapore” in 1940 to “Road to Hong Kong” in 1962. She is a little reluctant to reveal her age (“Do you have to use that?”), but she says that aging in front of her fans has never bothered her. “I’m not one bit afraid of getting older,” she insisted. “The clock’s got to go around. I’m very proud of the fact that I’m healthy and that I can do it and the people still want me to do it. I’m extremely grateful (for) that.”

She had two words about retirement: “Never. Never.

“As long as I’ve got that audience out there and they’re still with me . . . it’s fine with me.”

“Side by Side by Sondheim” opens tonight and will run indefinitely at the Grand Dinner Theatre in the Grand Hotel, 7 Freedman Way, Anaheim. Seating times: Tuesdays through Thursdays at 6 p.m.; Fridays at 6:30 p.m.; Saturdays at 11:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m.; Sundays at 11:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. Admission: $18 (for children under 12 most nights) to $39. Information: (714) 772-7710.