Mickey Rooney

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Mickey Rooney (1986)

Mickey Rooney (* 23. September 1920 as Joe Yule Jr. in New York ; † 6. April 2014 in Los Angeles ) was an American actor . His career in front of the camera spanned over 300 films between 1926 and 2014 and, at 88, is one of the longest an actor has ever made in the cinema.

As a child star, he embodied mostly cheeky characters and was at times one of Hollywood's most successful stars. With Judy Garland , he formed a popular screen couple in nine films. Even in adulthood he was able to successfully continue his career as a character actor and he made appearances in films until the end. At the Oscars he received the Juvenile Award in 1939 and the Honorary Oscar in 1983 , as well as two Golden Globes and an Emmy .

Life

Early life

Mickey Rooney was born Joe Yule into a family of vaudeville artists. His father Joe Yule (1892-1950) worked as an actor and came from Glasgow , his mother Nelly came from Kansas City . At the age of 14 months he is said to have crawled onto his parents' stage and so his father introduced him to the audience. From that moment on, Rooney was part of his parents' vaudeville show. When his parents divorced in 1923, his mother moved him to live with her aunt in their native Kansas City. His mother was interested in getting her son into a show career. Among other things, she planned to start her son with the little rascals , but she was only offered five US dollars a day, while other children sometimes received five times as much.

Career as a child star

Mickey Rooney with Judy Garland and MGM studio boss Louis B. Mayer (around 1940)

His mother came to Hollywood with him in 1925. She changed the name Joe Yule to Mickey Rooney, and according to a well-known story even Walt Disney is said to have based his Mickey Mouse's first name on Rooney's stage name.

Soon after, Rooney received the title role in the Mickey McGuire film series , a series of short film comedies that were based on the little rascals and mastered the transition from silent films to talkies. The mother had to dye her son's hair black with cork charcoal, as a black-haired boy was actually wanted for the role of Mickey McGuire. By 1934, 78 films were made for the series. At the same time he voiced the cartoon character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit for the films of the Walter Lantz production. Rooney, meanwhile, attended Hollywood Professional School, where he had classmates like Nanette Fabray , Judy Garland, and Lana Turner . In 1938 he graduated from Hollywood High School.

In the lavish Shakespeare film A Midsummer Night's Dream by Max Reinhardt , Mickey Rooney had a bigger role than Elf Puck in 1935 , where he played alongside stars such as James Cagney , Olivia de Havilland , Dick Powell and Joe E. Brown . Rooney's distinctive, freckled face, red hair, and disrespectful and easy-going demeanor became his trademarks and delighted both audiences and critics. At the side of Freddie Bartholomew , a child star who was still more popular at the time, he played in 1936 in Der kleine Lord as Dick's shoe shiner and a year later in Manuel .

In the late 1930s, Rooney was signed by MGM . The small family film A Family Affair about the Hardy family from 1937 was a surprise success. Rooney played the teenage son of Judge Hardy, played by Lionel Barrymore and later by Lewis Stone . The series was about the romantic-comedic experiences of the Hardy family, with the focus quickly shifted from the character of the judge to the role of Andy Hardy played by Rooney. MGM produced a total of seventeen feature films between 1937 and 1947 (and one-time in 1958) from the Andy Hardy series , which was soon to be called the Andy Hardy series . In the film Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938), which was entered in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2000 , Rooney played for the first time with Judy Garland . This starred in the series Andy's friend Betsey and so Garland and Rooney became a popular screen couple.

He had a more serious role in 1938 in the film Teufelskerle by Norman Taurog about the Boys Town youth welfare service of the Catholic clergyman Edward Flanagan . Rooney plays an arrogant boy who is led back to the right lane by Father Flanagan ( Spencer Tracy ). For his performance he received the Juvenile Award , an Oscar for young actors. In 1939 he was the leading actor in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and from the same year star of various musicals with Garland as a partner, including Babes in Arms , Babes on Broadway , Hot Rhythms in Chicago and Girl Crazy . In Little Girl, Big Heart (1944), he played alongside twelve-year-old Elizabeth Taylor . In March 1940, Rooney was on the cover of Time , with the following text:

“Hollywood's # 1 box office in 1939 wasn't Clark Gable , Errol Flynn, or Tyrone Power , but a red-haired kid with a kazoo- like voice and a weird face who has never appeared in a movie without being mugged or overacting to operate. His name is Mickey Rooney, and for a large group of American moviegoers his name has become synonymous with a rascal. "

In 1991 he was honored with the Young Artist Former Child Star Lifetime Achievement Award at the Young Artist Award for his early film career. The award is now also known as the Mickey Rooney Award .

In World War II

Mickey Rooney as a troop entertainer

In 1944, Rooney joined the American Army during World War II . He was in action for 21 months until shortly after the end of the war. He worked as a troop entertainer in America and Europe and worked for the American Forces Network . Mickey Rooney was honored with the Bronze Star and other awards for his work as a troop entertainer .

Mickey Rooney with his eighth wife Jan Chamberlin (2000)

Later career

After the war and the end of the Andy Hardy series , Rooney, now almost 30, found it difficult to find work. For a while he brokered roles for smaller movie stars and also looked after them as an agent. In later years he often stated in interviews that he had given Norma Jeane Baker her stage name Marilyn Monroe in 1948 (composed of the first name of the film star Marilyn Miller and the last name Monroe, since this was the maiden name of Norma Jeane Baker's mother). Rooney's claim is controversial.

Mickey Rooney on the set of Illusion Infinity (2004), with director Roger Steinmann

After initial difficulties, Rooney was finally able to record success as a character actor from the 1950s. He portrayed the gangster Babyface Nelson in Don Siegel's So End They All (1957) and embodied a boxing trainer in The Fist in the Face (1962). In the classic film Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) he played the short-sighted Japanese neighbor of Holly Golightly ( Audrey Hepburn ), although this role is often criticized as stereotypical and insulting towards Asians to this day. In recognition of his services as a popular comedy actor of the 1930s and 1940s, Rooney also acted as an involuntary break pilot in A total, total crazy world (1963), in which numerous film stars completed cameo appearances . In 1958 there was an attempt to revive Andy Hardy, but it was not a resounding success and so it was a movie.

After the actor had presented a total of 33 episodes of the Mickey Rooney Show on American television in 1954 and 1955 , he turned to this medium more and more from the end of the decade without his cinema career coming to a standstill: in 1977 Disney was remembered Rooney and assigned him the role of the lighthouse keeper Lampie in the movie Elliot, the Smirking Monster . In 1981 he also contributed the voice of Fuchs Cap in the cartoon Cap and Capper . In 1979 he played the reactivated horse racing trainer in The Black Stallion , in 1989 the grandfather of Erik the Viking and in 2006 one of the night watchmen in the museum at night . In addition to his film career, he also appeared on Broadway for several years in the successful musicals Sugar Babies (1979–1982) and The Will Rogers Follies (1991–1993). On television, he won an Emmy Award for his portrayal of a mildly mentally disabled man in the television movie Bill: On His Own (1982) . A few weeks before his death, Rooney was filming the third part of Night at the Museum, Night at the Museum: The Mysterious Tomb (2014).

As early as 1983 he received the honorary Oscar for his life's work, although he made several other cinema and television films until his death. He never got a regular Oscar, although he was nominated four times: 1939 for Music is our world , 1943 for And life goes on , 1956 for A scrap of life and 1979 for The Black Stallion .

Until 1996 Rooney was often dubbed by Gerd Duwner .

Private life

Mickey Rooney's grave

His exuberant lifestyle caused a stir. Throughout his life, Rooney has struggled with alcohol and other drugs, as well as financial problems.

He had eight marriages and had nine children. His first wife was the future film star Ava Gardner from 1942 to 1943 . Only a year later he got his second marriage to the singer BJ Baker (1927-2002), which lasted until 1948. From this marriage came two sons. He was married to the actress Martha Vickers from 1949 to 1951, they had a son. This marriage also ended in divorce. He was married to actress Elaine Devry from 1952 until they divorced in 1958. Her fifth marriage to Barbara Ann Thomason has four children. The marriage was entered into in 1958 and lasted until 1966, when his wife and Miloš Milošević, a Serbian stuntman and former bodyguard of Alain Delon , died of a violent death under circumstances that were not entirely clear (see also the Marković affair ). His shortest marriage was with Marge Lane from 1966 to 1967. From his seventh marriage to Carolyn Hockett from 1969 there was a daughter, and Rooney adopted a son from Carolyn's previous marriage. This marriage ended in 1975. Since 1978 he was married to the singer Jan Chamberlin (* 1939). Rooney once said of his many marriages:

“Always get married early in the morning! If it doesn't work, at least you haven't messed up all day. "

In 2011, Rooney gave a speech in the US Senate against abuse and violence against the elderly. According to Rooney, his stepson temporarily deprived him of food and medication in order to get financial support from him; a claim corroborated by extensive research by the Hollywood Reporter in October 2015. Accordingly, Rooney was even regularly beaten, in which his wife Jan is said to have been involved. As of 2012, Rooney lived separately from his wife Jan and the stepson, instead living with another of his children. He died at his North Hollywood home on April 6, 2014, aged 93 . He was buried in Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood , California .

Rooney has four stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame .

Filmography (selection)

Awards

  • 1939: Juvenile Award with Deanna Durbin for her significant contribution to bring the spirit and personification of youth to the screen and to set a high standard of talent and perfection as a young actor
  • 1940: Oscar nomination for best actor in music is our world
  • 1944: Oscar nomination for Best Actor for And Life Goes On
  • 1960: Three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (film, television, radio)
  • 1957: Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for A Shredded Life
  • 1964: Golden Globe Award for Best TV Actor for Mickey
  • 1980: Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for The Black Stallion
  • 1982: Emmy Award for Best Actor for Bill
  • 1983: Honorary Oscar for his life's work
  • 1991: Young Artist Award as Young Artist Former Child Star Lifetime Achievement Award

Web links

Commons : Mickey Rooney  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Manuel Brug: He was Hollywood's most famous street dog. In: Die Welt from April 7, 2014 (accessed April 7, 2014).
  2. ↑ Life Is Too Short. Autobiography (1991). ISBN 978-0-679-40195-7
  3. ↑ Kira Albin: Mickey Rooney: Hollywood, Religion and His Latest Show. Interview report from 1995 on grandtimes.com (accessed April 7, 2014).
  4. ↑ a b America's everlasting child star. In: Spiegel Online from April 7, 2014 (accessed April 7, 2014).
  5. ↑ Cinema: Success Story. In: Time of March 18, 1940 (accessed April 7, 2014).
  6. ↑ RIGID REPORT . In: New York Post . August 7, 2003 ( nypost.com [accessed April 6, 2018]).
  7. ^ Rooney Didn't Find Marilyn Monroe . ( nytimes.com [accessed April 6, 2018]).
  8. ^ Mickey Rooney at the Internet Broadway Database
  9. ↑ AP: Bill Sackter, a Retarded Man Portrayed in TV Movie, Dies . ( nytimes.com [accessed April 6, 2018]).
  10. ↑ Tolle Kerle , March 10, 1969, issue 11/1969, Der Spiegel
  11. ↑ Hollywood mourns acting legend Mickey Rooney. ( Memento from April 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) In: Süddeutsche Zeitung from April 7, 2014 (accessed on April 7, 2014).
  12. ↑ Tom Cohen: Mickey Rooney tells Senate panel he was a victim of elder abuse. In: CNN of March 3, 2011 (accessed March 7, 2014).
  13. ↑ Thomas Klingenmeier: Kesser boy with problems. In: Stuttgarter Zeitung of April 7, 2014 (accessed April 7, 2014).
  14. ↑ Article in Hollywood Reporter
  15. ↑ Hollywood star Mickey Rooney is dead. In: Spiegel Online from April 7, 2014 (accessed April 7, 2014).
  16. ↑ The grave of Mickey Rooney
  17. ↑ Mickey Rooney at Find a Grave
personal data
SURNAME Rooney, Mickey
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Yule, Joe junior (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-American actor
DATE OF BIRTH September 23, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH April 6, 2014
Place of death North Hollywood , Los Angeles