COSTA MESA : Cocktail a Day Keeps Age at Bay

Anna May Dunbar says her secret for living a long life is simple: a martini cocktail every evening before dinner.

Stirred not shaken. And hold the ice.

The Costa Mesa resident may be on to something. After all, this Wednesday, the spry senior will celebrate her 102nd birthday.

Photographs on display throughout her house, some black and white, others in color, show a woman who always looked younger than her years. Martinis aside, a youthful attitude could also help explain the longevity.

“When I think of the number--102--it just seems so terrible. But living it, I really feel like I’m 60. So I don’t think about it too much. I just go on living,” she said.

“I feel great. I don’t have any aches or pains. No arthritis. Nothing. I don’t take any medication,” she said proudly.

In fact, nature seems to have failed her only in her left ear, a problem remedied by a hearing aid. She credits years of badminton with keeping her legs strong.

More than a century of living--often in high style and company, hobnobbing with celebrities along with her late first husband, a well-known theater owner--has produced some fond memories.

“I’ve been all over the world, and I’ve met many wonderful people in my life,” she said.

Dining with Winston Churchill was exciting, but her favorite moment was meeting Thomas Edison and his wife, who were guests at the opening of the Paramount Theater in New York during the Roaring ‘20s.

“Mr. Edison was so taken with the lights,” she reminisced. A handwritten thank-you note to her husband from the inventor is among her cherished memoirs.

The Paramount Theater was among the ventures of her first husband, Harold B. Franklin, who orchestrated sound to go with films, helped introduce chain movie houses and worked on other cinematic projects.

While an amateur actress in her hometown of Dalton, Mass., Anna May met Franklin when his theater stock company came to town. He later went on to become the president of Fox West Coast Theaters.

The Franklins moved to Beverly Hills “back when it was a little community.” George Burns lived a few homes up the street. She counted screen actress Norma Shearer among her friends, as well as Sid Grauman--before his Chinese Theater along Hollywood Boulevard became famous.

“The house was a country club for the starlets,” said her son, Al, recalling Lana Turner among the “glamour gals” who would visit to swim or sun themselves. His father’s industry friends Louis B. Mayer and Hal Roach--who recently celebrated his own centennial birthday--frequently dropped by as well.

“We lived pretty nice,” said Al Franklin, a retired sound engineer who moved in with his mother in Costa Mesa five years ago after his wife died.

Dunbar moved to Costa Mesa in 1967 when at age 55 she married her second husband, Adm. Frank R. Dunbar. He died 12 years ago.

What does she think of today’s youth culture?

“The only thing I don’t care for is the music. All you hear is the beat of the drums. There’s no melody,” she said. “It’s not like the Dean Martin-Frank Sinatra days.”

For her 100th birthday, her son threw a gala affair that drew family and friends from as far as Oregon and Hawaii.

But no hoopla is planned for this birthday. She and her son Al will dine out at one of her favorite local restaurants. After cocktails, of course.