Mickey Rooney (1920-2014). Died age 93.

[Shangas]

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/entertainment/2014/04/07/13/15/actor-mickey-rooney-dead-at-93-reports

I didn't see too many of his films, but he was still one of my favourite actors.

Rooney as a young man in the Donald Duck short "The Autograph Hound", from 1939; one of my favourite Disney short cartoons:

[video=youtube;cwlvTXTAC_8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwlvTXTAC_8[/video]

I wonder how many Golden Age film-stars we can recognise in this short?

Mickey Rooney.
Shirley Temple.
Clark Gable.
Sonja Henie.
Groucho Marx.

...?

 

[LizzieMaine]

In the title card, Harpo, Garbo, and Hugh Herbert. That's pretty much the Mount Rushmore of Hollywood cartoon caricatures.

Mr. Rooney looks a bit like Babe Ruth there.

 

[fashion frank]

Was talking with a coworker today and although I already knew that he died at the age of 93 he told me that he was married eight times and died broke , did any of you hear anything of this nature?

All the Best ,Fashion Frank

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Later Years

Mickey Rooney continued to act into his '90s. He appeared in such films as Night at the Museum (2006) with Ben Stiller, and The Muppets (2011). Outside of performing, he used his distinctive voice to speak out about elder abuse. In 2011, he testified to Congress about the issue.

The actor knew firsthand about the victimization of seniors. Rooney filed suit against his stepson Chris Aber, the son of his eighth wife Jan, claiming that Aber and his wife verbally and financially abused him. The actor stated that the couple misled him about his own finances, they used his funds to cover their expenses and denied him needed food and medicine, among other allegations. In 2013, the suit was settled with a $2.8M judgment in Rooney's favor.

Marriages

Offscreen, Mickey Rooney was well-known for his rocky love life and multiple marriages. He tied the knot eight times including a brief union with Hollywood beauty Ava Gardner in 1942. The stars were only married for a year and didn’t have children. In 1944, Rooney was married for a second time to beauty queen Betty Jane Rase and the couple had two sons, Mickey Jr. and Timothy. Rooney and Rase divorced in 1949, and just six hours after their split was finalized, he married his third wife actress Martha Vickers. They had one son Theodore.

On the heels of Rooney’s divorce from Vickers, he headed to Las Vegas to marry actress/model Elaine Mahnken Devry. They were married until 1958 and, just hours after their divorce, Rooney tied the knot again, marrying model/actress Barbara Ann Thomason, whom he had four children with – Kelly, Kerry, Michael and Kimmy. Their marriage ended tragically when Thomason’s lover killed her in a murder-suicide. Soon after the tragic event, Rooney married Thomason’s friend Margaret Lane, but the relationship lasted only 100 days. In 1969, he married Carolyn Hockett and they had two children, Jimmy and Jonelle. They divorced in 1975 and three years later Rooney married his eighth and last wife, singer Jan Chamberlin. The couple separated in 2013.

 

[Tomasso]

"He went through the ladies like a hot knife through fudge."~The ever salty Ava Gardner

 

[Shangas]

As Michael Corleone said: "The ink on your divorce-papers ain't even DRY yet, and you're getting MARRIED!?"

 

[Young fogey]

Not a fan of the man but of the era. What a colorful life. He wasn't Irish: he was really Joe Yule (Ewell) Jr., born to a Scotsman and an American both in vaudeville. Close friend of Judy Garland; married to Ava Gardner. RIP.