Mickey Carroll

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Mickey Carroll , actually Michael Finocchiaro , (born July 8, 1919 in St. Louis , † May 7, 2009 in Crestwood ) was an American actor. He was best known for his portrayal of Munchkin in The Wizard of Oz .

Life

Mickey Carroll was born as Michael Finocchiaro. He was the son of Italian immigrants and had a twin sister and four older siblings; his godfather is said to have been Al Capone . He began his dance training at the Fox Theater in St. Louis at the age of seven. There he made the acquaintance of Jack Haley , to whom he owed his first film roles in Hollywood . Whether Carroll, who lost his father as a teenager and had to help support the family, appeared as "Mickey" in several Spanky-and-Our-Gang episodes is controversial. At the age of 17 he worked for the radio show Call for Phillip Morris , at 18 he played alongside Mae West . He completed his training during his time at MGM with Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney .

In the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz , the diminutive Carroll, who was only a little over three feet tall at the time but continued to grow into his fourth decade, eventually reaching about four feet tall, played one of the Munchkins . Carroll could be seen there as a crier, as a Munchkin soldier and as a violinist who accompanied Dorothy Gale on the yellow road to Emerald City. In later years, he returned to his family's headstone business in St. Louis, which he sold in 1996. From this time on he devoted himself mainly to charity. In 2007 he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame together with six other Munchkin actors who were still alive at the time .

Carroll's fortune

After his death, Carroll's heirs accused the family who last cared for the Alzheimer's sufferer of stealing at least $ 500,000 from him. Not only did it rob him of a power of attorney to dispose of his property, but it also got him to take out a $ 100,000 mortgage on the house in Bel-Nor where he had lived for seven decades. Investigations revealed that as of January 2007, money had been withdrawn from Carroll's bank account on a regular basis, totaling more than $ 200,000, that Carroll had later written checks in the five-digit range, and that both the return on his life insurance policy and an additional balance of over $ 100,000 disappeared.

Carroll, who received a pacemaker in February 2009 , had moved to her household in Crestwood in January 2009, according to the carer, as did one of his nephews, who had cerebral palsy and was 54 years old at the time. Carroll was by no means rich; she took him and the nephew in out of pure friendship.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Notice of death on telegraph.co.uk
  2. ↑ a b c d Michael D. Sorkin, Heirs of 'Munchkin' Mickey Carroll allege theft of $ 500,000 , on stltoday.com, July 28, 2011
  3. ↑ Tom Finkel, Fallen Star: Munchkin Mickey Carroll Comes Up Short , on: blogs.riverfronttimes.com from October 10, 2007 ( Memento of the original from July 14, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked . Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. denies Carroll's involvement in the series; on imdb.com e.g. B. it is still asserted. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / blogs.riverfronttimes.com
  4. ↑ Carroll's biography on imdb.com
  5. ↑ Death report
  6. ^ Obituary in the New York Times, May 8, 2009
  7. ↑ Death news on news.bbc.co.uk
personal data
SURNAME Carroll, Mickey
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Finocchiaro, Michael (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-American actor
DATE OF BIRTH July 8, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Louis , Missouri
DATE OF DEATH May 7, 2009
Place of death Crestwood