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Mickey Rooney

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File:MickeyRooney publ.jpg
Mickey Rooney, 1940s.
Actor Mickey Rooney speaks at the Pentagon in 2000 during a ceremony honoring the USO.

Mickey Rooney (born Joseph Yule, Jr., September 23 1920), is an American film actor. Acting most of his life, he has become a genuine legend, remembered as the most successful box office star of 1939, the greatest year in the Golden Age of Hollywood. Since 2005, Rooney has been described as the longest-working major actor in the history of motion pictures.

Biography

Early life

Rooney was born in Brooklyn, New York to a vaudeville family. His father, Joseph Ninian Yule, was from Scotland, and his mother, Nellie W. Carter, was from Kansas City, Missouri. Rooney began performing at the age of 17 months in 1922.

Career

Entering the movie business in 1927, he literally made his name as the title character in the Mickey McGuire shorts. These were a series of more than 40 silent, two-reel comedies adapted from the Toonerville Trolley comic strip, in which he starred through 1936. For a time he billed himself as Mickey McGuire, but legally changed his name to Mickey Rooney in 1932. Also during this period he met Walt Disney, and later he would claim Disney had named Mickey Mouse after him. It is difficult to verify, and others have made similar claims, but Rooney takes credit for giving rising starlet Norma Jean Baker the stage name Marilyn Monroe.

In 1934 he signed to MGM and was educated at the studio's School for Professional Children.

Rooney's successful role as Andy Hardy in A Family Affair (1937) led to fourteen further films featuring that character from 1938 to 1958. His first role as the top-billed star in a feature film was as Shockey Carter in Hoosier Schoolboy (1937) with Edward Pawley playing his father. His breakthrough serious role came in 1938's Boys Town opposite Spencer Tracy as Whitey Marsh, which opened shortly before his 18th birthday. His fame peaked in World War II with a string of successful musicals with Judy Garland, including the Oscar nominated Babes in Arms (1939) as well as more serious roles in films such as The Human Comedy (1943) and National Velvet (1944).

In 1944, Rooney entered military service for 21 months during World War II, during which time he was a radio personality on the American Forces Network; after his return his career slumped. He appeared in a number of films, including Words and Music in 1948, which paired him for the last time with Garland on film (he appeared with her on one episode as a guest on her CBS variety series in the early 60s), and one final Andy Hardy film in the late 1950s. The Mickey Rooney Show, also known as Hey Mulligan, appeared on NBC for 39 episodes during 1954 and 1955. In 1960, he directed and starred in The Private Lives of Adam and Eve, an ambitious comedy known for its multiple flashbacks and many cameos. In the 1960s Rooney returned to theatrical entertainment. He still accepted film roles in undistinguished movies, but occasionally he would appear in better works such as Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962) and The Black Stallion (1979). On December 31, 1961, he appeared on television's "What's My Line" and mentioned that he had already started enrolling students in the MRSE (Mickey Rooney School of Entertainment).

He was awarded an Academy Juvenile Award in 1938, and in 1983 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted him their Academy Honorary Award for his lifetime of achievement. Laurence Olivier called Rooney "the single best film actor America ever produced", a sentiment equalled by actor James Mason. Judy Garland stated that Rooney was "the world's greatest talent."

Rooney did the voices for three Christmas TV animated/stop action specials: Santa Claus is Coming to Town (1970), The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974), and Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July—always playing Santa Claus.

He continued to be busy in stage and television work through the 1980s and 1990s, appearing in the acclaimed stage play Sugar Babies with Ann Miller beginning in 1979; starring in a long-running TV series based on The Black Stallion; touring Canada in a dinner theatre production of The Mind with the Naughty Man in the mid-1990s; and playing The Wizard in a stage production of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz with Eartha Kitt at Madison Square Garden. Kitt was later replaced by JoAnne Worley. He also appeared in the documentary That's Entertainment! III.

He also voiced Mr. Cherrywood in 1985's The Care Bears Movie, and starred as the Movie Mason in yet another family film, 2000's Phantom of the Megaplex (a Disney Channel Original Movie). He plays himself in the Simpson episode "Radioactive Man" of 1995.

In January 2005, Rooney made headlines again, starring in a commercial that was barred as "indecent" from its scheduled slot during Super Bowl XXXIX. The ad included a comic turn (literally) that saw Rooney's backside briefly exposed. The pulling of the ad is considered more fallout from Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" a year earlier. He has also began appearing in television commercials for Garden State Life Insurance Company in 1999 and continues to appear in commercials for the company with his wife Jan.

Personal life

As of 2024, Rooney continues to work in film, and tours with his wife, Jan Chamberlin, in a multi-media live stage production called "Let's Put On a Show!" Few actors have enjoyed their careers more. Rooney has said in many interviews that from his earliest stage work to his current projects, "I've loved it. I've loved every minute of it!"

Currently, he and his wife live in the Conejo Valley in Southern California.

Selected filmography

Selected other works

Marriages

He has been married eight times. For years, Rooney's marital history was a staple of gossip columns and comedians' routines, and he often joked about it himself. But his current marriage has been a long and happy one:

  1. Ava Gardner (1942-1943)
  2. Betty Jane Rase (1944-1949), two children
  3. Martha Vickers(1949-1951), one child
  4. Elaine Devry (1952-1958)
  5. Carolyn Mitchell (born Barbara Ann Thomasen) (1958-1966), four children
  6. Marge Lane (1966-1967)
  7. Carolyn Hockert (1969-1974), two children
  8. Jan Chamberlin (1978-present)

Five sons:

  1. Tim Rooney, actor (January 41947-September 232006)
  2. Teddy Rooney, actor
  3. Mickey Rooney Jr., actor and musician
  4. Kyle Rooney
  5. Jimmy Rooney

Four daughters:

  1. Kimmy Rooney,hair stylist
  2. Kelly Rooney,salon owner,hair stylist
  3. Kerry Rooney
  4. Jonelle Rooney

Two Stepsons:

  1. Chris Aber
  2. Mark Aber Rooney, musician, music production

Three Grandchildren:

  1. Lacey Rooney
  2. Shannon Rooney
  3. Dominique Rooney

Two Great-Grandchildren:

  1. Kaitlyn Rooney
  2. Hunter Rooney

Trivia

  • In the Animaniacs song "Yakko's Universe", Yakko makes a comment that Mickey is small.
  • On Family Guy Mickey Rooney was made out to be a madman who rips off people's scabs and yells at mice with his shirt off.

Other Uses

"Mickey Rooney" is also used as an adjective meaning inferior or of extremely high quality. eg. The Mickey Rooney chair re assembled itself every time I sit in it.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mickey Rooney.
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