Hollywood actor Mickey Rooney, whose long career saw him star with — and marry — many of the leading ladies of the 20th century has died aged 93.
Native New Yorker Rooney worked for every decade of his life, becoming one of the last surviving actors from the silent movies before making his name in films including National Velvet with Elizabeth Taylor and Breakfast at Tiffany’s with Audrey Hepburn.
At the height of his career he was one of the world’s top box office attractions and made millions. He was nominated for four Academy Awards, received two special Oscars and was hailed by Laurence Olivier as “the greatest film actor America ever produced”.
Diminutive Rooney, who died yesterday in Los Angeles, was the son of vaudeville artists and began his career as a child, reportedly crawling onstage aged 14 months with a harmonica around his neck and being introduced to the audience by his father, Joe Yule. By his teens, he was a superstar playing Andy Hardy in the MGM hit A Family Affair.
He went on to appear alongside Judy Garland in Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry at the start of what become both a friendship and successful song-and-dance partnership.
During the Second World War he enlisted with the United States Army and served for 21 months as well as entertaining troops in America and Europe. He returned to his acting career, breaking into television in the Fifties with his own eponymous show.
Rooney appeared in many acclaimed films out of a catalogue of hundreds, including It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and The Black Stallion and played character roles on theatre, stage and TV.
More recent appearances included Night at the Museum with Ben Stiller and Dick Van Dyke and he made his British pantomime debut in 2007, playing Baron Hardup in Cinderella at the Sunderland Empire Theatre, a role he reprised in Bristol and Milton Keynes in subsequent years.
His love life was as colourful as his career with eight marriages, starting with future Hollywood star Ava Gardner in 1942. The death of fifth wife Barbara Ann Thomason tipped him into drug and alcohol problems and he was declared bankrupt. He separated from his final wife, Jan, last year. Asked once if he would marry all his wives again, Rooney replied: “Absolutely. I loved every one.”
