Hollywood legend Mickey Rooney dies aged 93
BlizzardUK
Posts: 4,965 Forum Member
✭✭✭
Not a bad age in life, and a long lived life too, crazy to think we can see him as a little kid in films.
0
BlizzardUK
Posts: 4,965 BlizzardUK
Posts: 4,965
Comments
RIP
There seem to be a lot of duplicate threads about him suddenly popping up.
Vetern of over 120 films and one of hollywoods longestvserving actors has passed away.One of the few left from the golden era of Hollywood
RIP
I love the old movies he did with Judy Garland.
He was a born entertainer. :cool:
yes, I think the least we can do is put on a show........
RIP Mickey
Peace at Last?
Part 1:
Mickey Rooney(1920-2014) was an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He died yesterday.
He received multiple awards, including a Juvenile Academy Award, an Honorary Academy Award, two Golden Globes and an Emmy Award. Working as a performer since he was a child, he was a superstar as a teenager for the films in which he played Andy Hardy, and he has had one of the longest careers of any actor, spanning 92 years actively making films in ten decades, from the 1920s to the 2010s. For a younger generation of fans, he gained international fame for his leading role as Henry Dailey in The Family Channel's The Adventures of the Black Stallion.
He was married 8 times, had 9 kids, and appears to have never found peace maritally; on his death he was separated from with his last marital partner of 46 years. Rooney had 19 grandchildren, and several great-grandchildren. You can read the details of his life-narrative at Wikipedia.
Part 2:
The year 1937 was a big one for Rooney. That year he was selected to portray Andy Hardy in A Family Affair.Rooney's role was to provide comic relief. The film was an unexpected success, and led to 13 more Andy Hardy films between 1937 and 1946. Rooney also received top billing, that same year, as "Shockey Carter" in Hoosier Schoolboy. Rooney made his first film alongside Judy Garland in 1937 with Thoroughbreds Don't Cry. It was here that Rooney came into the life of my family. The year 1937 was a big one in the history of a Cause I have been associated with now for more than 60 years.(1)
I won't give you chapter and verse of Rooney's life and the many ways in which a certain synchronicity played itself out between his life, my life, and the lives of my parents. In 1944, the year I was born, Rooney enlisted in the United States Army. His first television series, The Mickey Rooney Show: Hey, Mulligan, appeared on NBC television for 32 episodes between August 28, 1954 and June 4, 1955. My mother, thinking TV would have a bad effect on my studies, sold our television shortly after this series, but I remember Rooney even though I was only eleven in 1955. He is even more in my memory-bank since I was not to have a TV in my home again until 1977 during my second marriage when I was in my 30s.
Part 3:
What a roller-coaster ride
your life was, Mickey!!. I
only saw you occasionally
after those TV episodes in
the 1950s; you popped-up
in all sorts of movies & TV
programs before and after I
retired. Now you are gone!!(2)
I wish you well in that Land
of Light which I'm told is a
better place than this one in
which one suffers the slings
and arrows of an outrageous
fortune and, sometimes, takes
arms against a sea of troubles.
To die, to sleep, as the Bard
put it, to end the heartache &
the 1000 natural shocks that
flesh is heir to. Mickey, 'tis a
consummation to be wished.(3)
1 In 1937 the North American Baha'i community launched a series of teaching and consolidation, service and social activism plans which I have been associated with now for more than 60 years.
2 I retired in 1999 after a 50 year student and employment life: 1949 to 1999, and slowly reinvented myself as a writer and author, poet and publisher, online blogger and journalist. Rooney died 15 years into my retirement. I was age 70; he was 93.
3 Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Scene I, in the famous "To be or not to be" soliloquy.
Ron Price
7 April 2014.
On another note, getzis, I'll add the following. Rooney said back in 1995: "Hollywood has unfortunately become a memory. It's nothing but a sign on the side of a hill. But what glorious memories they were." Rooney was one of the stars who gave the young Hollywood its shine. Short in stature (5' 3") but never short on confidence, Rooney states, "I think I'm the only one that's really survived. And I'm the one that's keeping it going." I'm not so sure about that as I write this in 2014 on Rooney's passing.
Back in the mid-1990s, Rooney was an unabashed Christian. In 1995 he said: "I've given my life to God, and I try and do the right thing, but inevitably, and unfortunately, I do the wrong thing." Says the comedian, "I suffer from being human." The man of many marriages has now found two everlasting relationships: God and his eighth wife, singer and songwriter Jan Chamberlin. That year, 1995, Rooney and Chamberlain celebrated their twenty-first wedding anniversary. She's smart and she sings-"the greatest in the world," boasts Rooney.
"She has a lot of charities that she gives to for animals. One's called ARF (Animal's Rights Foundation). Arf, arf, arf," Rooney barks with glee, sending himself into laughter. He is also an animal lover, and the two currently share a home with six birds and three dogs, the latter named Theda Bara, Gloria Swanson, and Angel. A dog they used to have was called Judy Garland. "The fact is," Rooney chuckles, "our pets allow us to live in the house."
Next to God, his wife, and animals, what Rooney loves most is an audience. "I'm very, very proud to have been given the opportunity to perform" he said nearly 20 years ago, "and I hope I'll be allowed a few more years-many years-to continue my work. It is tremendous fun. Not everybody's going to love Mickey Rooney," he laughs. "That's an impossibility. But I know this: I've done my best and I will continue to do so."
Plus he started acting in 1926, that's almost a 90 year career...can't really think of any people who can make that claim.
And the guy never really stopped working...started acting as a baby, was a child star and managed to keep acting into adulthood consistently.
Kind of seemed like he would be around forever.
R.I.P.