LOS ANGELES (AP) - Mickey Rooney, the pint-size, precocious actor and
all-around talent whose more than 80-year career spanned silent
comedies, Shakespeare,
musicals, Andy Hardy stardom, television and the Broadway theater, died Sunday at age 93.
Smith said police took a death report but indicated that there was
nothing suspicious and he had no additional details on the circumstances
of his passing. The Los Angeles County Coroner's office said it was not
their case because Rooney died a natural death.
There were no further immediate details on the cause of death, but Rooney did attend an Oscar party last month.
Rooney started his career in his parents' vaudeville act while still a
toddler, and broke into movies before age 10. He was still racking up
film and TV
credits more than 80 years later - a tenure likely unmatched in the history of show business.
"I always say, 'Don't retire - inspire,'" he told The Associated Press in March 2008. "There's a lot to be done."
Among his roles in recent years was a part as a guard in the smash 2006
comedy "A Night at the Museum."
Rooney won two special
Academy Awards
for his film achievements, and reigned from 1939 to 1942 as the No. 1
moneymaking star in movies, his run only broken when he joined the
Army.
At his peak, he was the incarnation of the show biz lifer, a shameless
ham and hoofer whom one could imagine singing, dancing and wisecracking
in his crib, his blond hair, big grin and constant motion a draw for
millions. He later won an Emmy and was nominated for a Tony.
"Mickey Rooney, to me, is the closest thing to a genius I ever worked
with," Clarence Brown, who directed his Oscar-nominated performance in "
The Human Comedy," once said.
Rooney's personal life matched his film roles for color. His first wife was the glamorous - and taller -
Ava Gardner, and he married seven more times, fathering seven sons and four daughters.
Through divorces, money problems and career droughts, he kept returning with customary vigor.
"I've been coming back like a rubber ball for years," he commented in 1979, the year he returned with a character role in "
The Black Stallion," drawing an Oscar nomination as supporting actor, one of four nominations he earned over the years.
That same year he starred with
Ann Miller
in a revue called "Sugar Babies," a hokey mixture of vaudeville and
burlesque. It opened in New York in October 1979, and immediately became
Broadway's hottest ticket. Rooney received a Tony nomination (as did
Miller) and earned millions during his years with the show.
"I loved working with Mickey on 'Sugar Babies.' He was very
professional, his stories were priceless and I love them all ... each
and every one. We laughed all the time,"
Carol Channing said.
To the end, he was a non-stop talker continually proposing enterprises,
some accomplished, some just talk: a chain of barbecue stands; training
schools for talented youngsters; a Broadway show he wrote about himself
and Judy Garland; screenplays, novels, plays.
Rooney was among the last survivors of Hollywood's studio era, which his
career predated. Rooney signed a contract with MGM in 1934 and landed
his first big role as
Clark Gable as a boy in "
Manhattan Melodrama."
A loanout to Warner Bros. brought him praise as an exuberant Puck in
Max Reinhardt's 1935 production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," which
also featured
James Cagney and a young
Olivia de Havilland.
Rooney was soon
earning $300 a week with featured roles in such films as "
Riff Raff," ''
Little Lord Fauntleroy," ''Captains Courageous," ''
The Devil Is a Sissy," and most notably, as a brat humbled by
Spencer Tracy's Father Flanagan in "
Boys Town."
The big break came with the wildly popular Andy Hardy series, beginning with "
A Family Affair."
"I knew 'A Family Affair' was a B picture, but that didn't stop me from
putting my all in it," Rooney wrote. "A funny thing happened to this
little programmer: released in April 1937, it ended up grossing more
than half a million dollars nationwide."
The critics grimaced at the depiction of a kindly small-town judge (
Lionel Barrymore)
with his character-building homilies to his obstreperous son. But MGM
saw the film as a good template for a series and studio head Louis B.
Mayer saw the series as a template for a model American home. With
Barrymore replaced by Lewis Stone in subsequent films and Rooney's part
built up, Andy Hardy became a national hero and the 15 Hardy movies
became a gold mine.
Rooney's peppy, all-American charm was never better matched than when he
appeared opposite his friend and fellow child star Garland in such
films as "
Babes on Broadway"
and "Strike up the Band," musicals built around a plot of "Let's put on
a show!" One of them, the 1939 "Babes in Arms," brought him his first
Oscar nomination. He was also in such dramas as "The Human Comedy,"
1943, which gained Rooney his second Oscar nomination as best actor, and
"
National Velvet," 1944, with
Elizabeth Taylor.
But Rooney became a cautionary tale for early fame. He earned a
reputation for drunken escapades and quickie romances and was unlucky in
both money and love. In 1942 he married for the first time, to Gardner,
the statuesque MGM beauty. He was 21, she was 19.
"I'm 5 feet 3, but I was 6 feet 4 when I married Ava," he said in later
years. The marriage ended in a year, and Rooney joined the Army in 1943,
spending most of his World War II service entertaining troops.
Rooney returned to Hollywood and disillusionment. His savings had been
stolen by a manager and his career was in a nose dive. He made two films
at MGM, then his contract was dropped.
"I began to realize how few friends everyone has," he wrote in his
second autobiography. "All those Hollywood friends I had in 1938, 1939,
1940 and 1941, when I was the toast of the world, weren't friends at
all."
His movie career never regained its prewar eminence. "
The Bold and the Brave," 1956 World War II
drama, brought him an Oscar nomination as best supporting actor. But mostly, he played second leads in such films as "
Off Limits" with Bob Hope, "
The Bridges at Toko-Ri" with William Holden, and "Requiem for a Heavyweight" with
Anthony Quinn. In the early 1960s, he had a wild turn in "
Breakfast at Tiffany's" as
Audrey Hepburn's bucktoothed Japanese neighbor and was among the fortune seekers in the all-star comedy "
It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World."
Rooney's starring roles came in low-budget films such as "
Drive a Crooked Road," ''
The Atomic Kid," ''
Platinum High School," ''
The Twinkle in God's Eye" and "
How to Stuff a Wild Bikini."
But his later career proved his resilience: The Oscar nomination for "
Black Stallion." The "Sugar Babies" hit that captivated New York, London, Las Vegas and major U.S. cities. Voicing animated features like "
The Fox and the Hound," ''The
Care Bears Movie"
and "Little Nemo." An Emmy for his portrayal of a disturbed man in the
1981 TV movie "Bill." Teaming with his eighth wife, Jan, off-Broadway in
2004 for a musical look back at his career called, fittingly, "Let's
Put On a Show."
"He was undoubtedly the most talented actor that ever lived. There was
nothing he couldn't do. Singing, dancing, performing ... all with great
expertise," actress
Margaret O'Brien
said. "I was currently doing a film with him, "The Strange Case of Dr.
Jeckyll and Mr Hyde" - I simply can't believe it. He seemed fine through
the filming and was as great as ever."
Over the years, Rooney also made hundreds of appearances on TV talk and
game shows, dramas and variety programs. He starred in three series:
"The Mickey Rooney Show" (1954), "Mickey" (1964) and "One of the Boys"
(1982). All lasted one season and a co-star from "One of the Boys," Dana
Carvey, later parodied Rooney on "Saturday Night Live," mocking him as a
hopeless egomaniac who couldn't stop boasting he once was "the number
one star ... IN THE WOOORLD!"
In 1983, the Motion Picture Academy presented Rooney with an honorary
Oscar for his "60 years of versatility in a variety of memorable film
performances." That matched the 1938 special award he shared with Deanna
Durbin for "bringing to the screen the spirit and personification of
youth."
A lifelong storyteller, Rooney wrote two memoirs: "i.e., an
Autobiography" published in 1965; "Life Is Too Short," 1991. He also
produced a novel about a child movie star, "The Search for Sonny Skies,"
in 1994.
In the autobiographies, Rooney gave two versions of his debut in show
business. First he told of being 1½ and climbing into the orchestra pit
of the burlesque theater where his parents were appearing. He sat on a
kettle drum and pretended to be playing his whistle, vastly amusing the
audience. The theater owner kept him in the show.
The second autobiography told a different story: He was hiding under the
scenery when he sneezed. Dragged out by an actor, the toddler was
ordered to play his harmonica. He did, and the crowd loved it.
Whatever the introduction, Joe Yule Jr., born in 1920, was the star of his parents' act by the age of 2, singing "
Sweet Rosie O'Grady"
in a tiny tuxedo. His father was a baggy-pants comic, Joe Yule, his
mother a dancer, Nell Carter. Yule was a boozing Scotsman with a
wandering eye, and the couple soon parted.
While his mother danced in the chorus, young Joe was wowing audiences
with his heartfelt rendition of "Pal o' My Cradle Days." During a tour
to California, the boy made his film debut as a midget in a 1926 Fox
short, "Not to Be Trusted."
Young Joe Yule played another midget in a Warner Bros. feature, "Orchids
and Ermine," starring Colleen Moore. Then he tried out for the lead in a
series of Mickey McGuire comedies, meant to rival Hal Roach's "Our
Gang."
"I was ready to be Mickey McGuire," Rooney wrote in his memoirs, "except for one thing: his hair was black, mine was blonde."
His mother dyed his hair black the night before the audition, and her
son won the role. He also acquired a new name: Mickey McGuire. He
starred in 21 of the silent comedies, 42 with sound.
The boy was also playing kid parts in features, and his name seemed
inappropriate. His mother suggested Rooney, after the vaudeville dancer,
Pat Rooney.
After splitting with Gardner, Rooney married Betty Jane Rase, Miss
Birmingham of 1944, whom he had met during military training in Alabama.
They had two sons and divorced after four years. (Their son Timothy
died in September 2006 at age 59 after a battle with a muscle disease
called dermatomyositis.)
His third and fourth marriages were to actress
Martha Vickers (one son) and model Elaine Mahnken.
The fifth Mrs. Rooney, model Barbara Thomason, gave birth to four
children. While the couple were estranged in 1966, she was found shot to
death in her Brentwood home; beside her was the body of her alleged
lover, a Yugoslavian actor. It was an apparent murder and suicide.
A year later, Rooney began a three-month marriage to Margaret Lane. She
was followed by a secretary, Caroline Hockett - another divorce after
five years and one daughter.
In 1978, Rooney, 57, married for the eighth - and apparently last -
time. His bride was singer Janice Darlene Chamberlain, 39. Their
marriage lasted longer than the first seven combined.
After a lifetime of carrying on, he became a devoted Christian and
member of the Church of Religious Science. He settled in suburban
Thousand Oaks, about 40 miles west of Los Angeles.
In 2011, Rooney was in the news again when he testified before Congress
about abuse of the elderly, alleging that he was left powerless by a
family member who took and misused his money.
"I felt trapped, scared, used and frustrated," Rooney told a special
Senate committee considering legislation to curb abuses of senior
citizens. "But above all, when a man feels helpless, it's terrible."
That year Rooney sued his stepson Christopher Aber and others on
allegations that they tricked him into thinking he was on the brink of
poverty while defrauding him out of millions and bullying him into
continuing to work. Aber declined comment on the suit except to say,
"this lawsuit is not from Mickey Rooney - it's from his conservators who
are stealing from him." Both Rooney and his conservator were named as
plaintiffs.
___
Biographical material in this story was written by late AP reporter Bob
Thomas. National Writer Hillel Italie in New York contributed to this
report.
Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
