Sunday, April 06, 2014

Farewell, Mick

Mickey Rooney, a former child star who went on to become a major box-office motion-picture attraction as the irrepressible Andy Hardy and who went on to become one of the last remaining major survivors from Hollywood's Golden Age, passed away on Sunday at age 93.

Mr. Rooney had lived at Westlake Village, California.  His passing was confirmed by his son, Michael Joseph Rooney.

A look at Mickey's career as Andy Hardy:

As Andy Hardy, growing up in the idealized fictional town of Carvel, Mr. Rooney was the most famous teenager in America from 1937 to 1944: everybody’s cheeky son or younger brother, energetic and feverishly in love with girls and cars. The 15 Hardy Family movies, in which all problems could be solved by Andy’s man-to-man talks with his father, Judge Hardy (played by Lewis Stone), earned more than $75 million — a huge sum during the Depression years, when movie tickets rarely cost more than 25 cents.
In 1939, America’s theater owners voted Mr. Rooney the No. 1 box-office star, over Tyrone Power. That same year he sang and danced his way to an Oscar nomination for best actor in “Babes in Arms,” the first of the “Hey kids, let’s put on a show” MGM musicals he made with Judy Garland.

Indeed, Mickey would star in a series of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musicals with Judy.

Between 1936 and 1944, Mickey made more than three dozen films under contract for MGM.

Even though his film career lasted some 90 years, he was also best known for his many marriages (eight, to be precise):

He married in haste — he wed Miss Birmingham of 1944 after knowing her for less than two weeks — and repented in haste. He turned his back on MGM, the studio that had made him a star, for the mirage of running his own production company, and ended up mired in debt and B movies. Suits for alimony, child support and back taxes pursued him like tin cans tied to the bumper of the car he was driving to his next wedding.

After being down and out for so many years, Mickey starred in the Broadway musical Sugar Babies, with fellow former MGM-er Ann Miller.

Thanks for the memories, Mickey.  And Rest In Peace.

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