| Mickey Rooney  AKA Joseph Yule, Jr.
Born: 23-Sep-1920
Birthplace: Brooklyn, NY
Gender: Male
Religion: Born-Again Christian
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Actor in Andy Hardy comedies, musicals Military service: US Army (PFC, served in "entertainment unit") Mickey Rooney's father, Joe Yule, was a vaudeville comic and actor, and Joe Jr. was part of his parents' stage act starting at about 18 months of age. The act ended, along with his parents' marriage, after Junior walked in on his father with another woman. He made his motion picture debut at the age of five, playing an adult midget in the 1926 silent short Not to Be Trusted. Beginning at age 6, he starred in dozens of silent-era comedy shorts, playing (and billed as) "Mickey McGuire".
At 12 he became "Mickey Rooney", when his agent decided he needed a new name to land any roles beyond the McGuire shorts. "He never bothered to ask me whether I liked it", Rooney wrote in his autobiography. "This is the kind of world I was born in, one in which I had only one reason for existence: pleasing others". As an adolescent, Rooney co-starred with Judy Garland in a series of squeaky-clean MGM musicals, often revolving around the urgent need to put on a show in somebody's barn. Rooney starred in fifteen "Andy Hardy" movies, and made more than 200 other movies and half a dozen TV series. "I was a 14-year-old boy for 30 years", he says.
Among Rooney's more famous movies, he played the young a gangster in Manhattan Melodrama (1934), a goodhearted crewman in Spencer Tracy's Captains Courageous (1937), a juvenile delinquent in Tracy's Boys Town (1939), the cynical jockey and trainer in National Velvet (1944) with 12-year-old Elizabeth Taylor, a racist caricature of a Japanese landlord in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) with Audrey Hepburn, a bitter boxing trainer in Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962) with Anthony Quinn and Jackie Gleason, a panicked man in a pilotless plane in It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963) opposite Buddy Hackett, and another horse trainer in The Black Stallion (1979) with Teri Garr. Rooney is still making movies, although they are usually low-budget direct-to-video atrocities.
He is one of Hollywood's most married men. Barbara Ann Thomason, the fifth of his eight wives and mother of four of his ten children, was murdered in 1966. The following year he married and divorced her good friend, Marge Lane.
When he appears on talk shows, Rooney almost invariably reminds audiences that he was the number one box office star of 1939, 1940 and 1941. "I was the number one star in the world, you hear me? The world!" He then regales the host with tales from his Hollywood history. He also says he came up with the stage name "Marilyn Monroe" for blonde innocent Norma Jean Baker, and lost his virginity in a brothel where the tab was paid by show-biz pal Milton Berle. He says he "discovered" Sammy Davis, Jr., and turned down the Archie Bunker role in All in the Family. He says he became a born-again Christian in the early 1970s, when an angel appeared to him in a diner. And he fondly remembers being called "the best actor America ever produced" by Laurence Olivier. At some point, credulity snaps.
In 2005, Rooney filmed a commercial for a cold remedy, in which Rooney's towel slipped off in a sauna, exposing his 84-year-old buttocks for about two seconds. The ad, scheduled to premiere during the Super Bowl, was rejected by network censors. Rooney angrily described the commercial as "a fun spot", and said "the public deserves to see it".
Father: Joseph Ewell ("Joe Yule", vaudeville comic and actor)
Mother: Nell Carter (chorus girl, vaudeville comic)
Father: Fred D. Pankey (stepfather; restauranteur)
Girlfriend: Lana Turner (actress, dated 1938-39)
Wife: Ava Gardner (actress, m. 10-Jan-1942, div. 21-May-1943)
Wife: Betty Jane Rase (Miss Alabama 1944; m. 30-Sep-1944, div. 3-Jun-1949, two children)
Wife: Martha Vickers (actress, b. 1925, m. 3-Jun-1949, div. 25-Sep-1951, one child)
Wife: Elaine Devry (actress, b. 1932, m. 1952, div. May-1959)
Wife: Barbara Ann Thomason (actress, b. 1937, m. 1-Dec-1958, d. 31-Jan-1966, four children)
Wife: Marge Lane (m. 1967, div. 1967)
Wife: Carolyn Hockett (m. 1969, div. 1974)
Wife: Jan Chamberlin (country singer, m. 18-Jul-1978)
Son: Tim Rooney, Teddy Rooney, Mickey Rooney Jr., Kyle Rooney, Jimmy Rooney
Daughter: Kimmy Rooney, Kelly Rooney, Kerry Rooney, Jonelle Rooney
High School: Fairfax High School, Los Angeles, CA (1938)
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Golden Globe 1964 for Best Male TV Star
Emmy 1982 for Bill
Golden Globe 1982 for Bill
Hollywood Walk of Fame 1718 Vine Street. (motion picture)
Hollywood Walk of Fame 6541 Hollywood Blvd. (television)
Draft Deferment: World War II
Bankruptcy $1.75 million IRS debt, 1996
Wedding: David Gest and Liza Minnelli (2002)
TELEVISION
The Mickey Rooney Show Mickey Mulligan (1954-55)
FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Night at the Museum (21-Dec-2006)
A Christmas Too Many (28-Nov-2005)
Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure (18-Feb-2001) [VOICE]
Phantom of the Megaplex (10-Nov-2000)
The First of May (20-Mar-1999)
Babe: Pig in the City (25-Nov-1998)
Animals (1997)
Boys Will Be Boys (1997)
That's Entertainment! III (16-Jun-1994) Himself
Revenge of the Red Baron (1994)
Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker (3-Jan-1992)
The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw (3-Nov-1991)
My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys (1-Mar-1991)
Erik the Viking (01-Sep-1989)
Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland (15-Jul-1989) [VOICE]
The Care Bears Movie (23-Mar-1985) [VOICE]
It Came Upon the Midnight Clear (15-Dec-1984)
Bill: On His Own (9-Nov-1983)
Bill (22-Dec-1981)
The Fox and the Hound (10-Jul-1981) [VOICE]
The Black Stallion (17-Oct-1979)
Arabian Adventure (5-Jul-1979)
Pete's Dragon (03-Nov-1977)
The Domino Principle (25-Jul-1977)
The Year Without a Santa Claus (10-Dec-1974) [VOICE]
Journey Back to Oz (5-Dec-1974) [VOICE]
That's Entertainment! (23-May-1974) Himself
Evil Roy Slade (18-Feb-1972)
Pulp (1972)
Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town (14-Dec-1970) [VOICE]
Cockeyed Cowboys of Calico County (1-May-1970)
The Comic (19-Nov-1969)
The Extraordinary Seaman (1969)
80 Steps to Jonah (1969)
Skidoo (2-Dec-1968)
Ambush Bay (13-Jun-1966)
How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (14-Jul-1965)
The Secret Invasion (16-Sep-1964)
It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (7-Nov-1963)
Requiem for a Heavyweight (16-Oct-1962)
Breakfast at Tiffany's (5-Oct-1961)
Platinum High School (13-May-1960)
Operation Mad Ball (17-Aug-1957)
Francis in the Haunted House (20-Jul-1956)
The Bold and the Brave (Apr-1956)
The Bridges at Toko-Ri (20-Jan-1955)
A Slight Case of Larceny (5-Jun-1953)
Quicksand (24-Mar-1950)
Words and Music (9-Dec-1948)
Summer Holiday (23-Feb-1948)
Love Laughs at Andy Hardy (25-Dec-1946)
National Velvet (14-Dec-1944)
Girl Crazy (26-Nov-1943)
Thousands Cheer (13-Sep-1943) Himself
The Human Comedy (1943)
Babes on Broadway (31-Dec-1941)
Men of Boys Town (10-Apr-1941)
Andy Hardy's Private Secretary (21-Feb-1941)
Strike Up the Band (27-Sep-1940)
Andy Hardy Meets Debutante (5-Jul-1940)
Young Tom Edison (10-Feb-1940)
Babes in Arms (13-Oct-1939)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (10-Feb-1939)
Boys Town (8-Sep-1938)
Love Finds Andy Hardy (22-Jul-1938)
Lord Jeff (17-Jun-1938)
Thoroughbreds Don't Cry (25-Nov-1937)
Captains Courageous (11-May-1937)
The Devil Is A Sissy (18-Sep-1936)
Little Lord Fauntleroy (2-Apr-1936)
Riffraff (3-Jan-1936)
Ah, Wilderness! (6-Dec-1935)
A Midsummer Night's Dream (9-Oct-1935)
Hide-Out (18-Aug-1934)
Manhattan Melodrama (2-May-1934)
Official Website:
http://www.mickeyrooney.com/
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