Mickey Rooney

Data di nascita
23 settembre 1920 · Brooklyn, New York, New York, Stati Uniti
Data di morte
6 aprile 2014 · North Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, Stati Uniti (cause naturali)
Nome alla nascita
Joseph Yule Jr.
Soprannomi
- The Mick
- The Mickster
Altezza
1,57 m

Best known in his youth for playing Andy Hardy with Judy Garland as the female lead or supporting character in three Hardy Family films, as well as pairing up with Garland in a series of cheerfully naive musicals that usually ended with the characters putting on an impromptu musical show. In his senior years, he often played a cheerful old mentor with a youthful spirit.
Short stature
Raspy voice

Liza Minnelli wanted Rooney to do the eulogy at the funeral for her mother, Judy Garland in June of 1969, but decided against it because she felt that Rooney might not be able to get through it, given his and Garland's long and close friendship.
In "The Guinness Book of World Records" he holds the record for longest movie career--86 years (1925-2011).
May have been the only actor in history to appear in at least one film in ten consecutive decades.
During World War II he served 22 months in the U.S. Army, five of them with the Third Army of Gen. George S. Patton. He attained the rank of sergeant and won a Bronze Star, among other decorations.
In 1938, Rooney was severely reprimanded by MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer for having a torrid affair with Norma Shearer. The affair was causing quite a commotion on the set of her film Maria Antonietta (1938), where the two would hole up in her trailer. Mickey was 18 at the time. Shearer was 36 and her husband, MGM studio exec Irving Thalberg, had recently died. Mayer managed to keep the story from going public and it was not revealed until many years later, when Rooney gave the explicit details in his autobiography.

[at 58 years old] I'm in pretty good shape for the shape I'm in.
[asked if he would marry all of his eight wives again] Absolutely. I loved every one of them.
My partners weren't what we call in horse racing parlance "routers". They were sprinters; they went out of the gate, but then they stopped. They couldn't go the distance.
People say, "How can you be married eight times?" But I played the hand dealt me the way I was supposed to. I was friendly with most of my ex-wives. My God, there's a Mickey Rooney's Former Wives Marching Band!
[on his marriages] When I say "I do", the Justice of the Peace replies, "I know, I know". I'm the only man in the world whose marriage license reads, "To Whom it May Concern". But to have been married eight times is not normal. That's only halfway intelligent.