Mickey Rooney: Hollywood Legend

A young Mickey Rooney with Judy Garland.

Mickey Rooney died Sunday April 6, 2014 at the ripe old age of 93.  For years he had been one of the last surviving links to the Golden Age of Hollywood.  He kept on working right till the end, making his last public appearance at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party just a month before his death.  Here is an article we originally wrote in 2007 paying tribute to his legendary and unparalleled career. 

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Mickey Rooney plays a night watchman at the Museum of Natural History in the Ben Stiller comedy Night at the Museum. Although it stars Stiller, the veteran, Rooney, whose screen time is barely a few minutes, steals every brief scene he is in.

Mickey Rooney, who is 86 years old, made his movie debut playing a midget in the 1926 silent movie Not to Be Trusted. He went on to become one of the biggest box office stars of the 1930s, ranking right up their with Clark Gable and Shirley Temple. The movie going public literally watched him grow up as he starred in comedies, dramas and musicals.

Many movies in the 1930s were movie series. They featured the same characters but they were not exactly sequels. There was the Johnny Weismuller, Tarzan movie series, the Peter Lorre, Mr Motto movie series and the Blondie, based on the comic strip, movie series to name a few. In the early 1930s, Mickey Rooney starred in a series of Mickey Maguire movies shorts. In 1937, Rooney created his most famous role, that of Andy Hardy in A Family Affair. It became one of the most popular movies series of it's time.

Like all child stars, growing up dealt real challenges for Rooney's career. After National Velvet, in 1944, Rooney, then 24, saw his child/teen roles disappear. He continued to make a few more Andy Hardy movies, like Love Laughs at Andy Hardy in 1946 and the final installment, Andy Hardy Comes Home (1958).

Although he was no longer a child sensation, Mickey Rooney kept working in the entertainment industry that he was literally born into. Both his parents were vaudeville actors. He appeared on lots of television shows and in plenty of forgettable movies. He and fellow has-been, Buster Keaton, even had small roles in How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965), starring Annette Funicello. I guess the bills had to get paid. He was married 8 times.

Hollywood legend, Mickey Rooney.

He did however, occasionally pop up in supporting roles in good movies like The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1955), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963), Pete's Dragon (1977), The Black Stallion (1979), in which he received an Academy Award nomination, and The Fox and the Hound (1981). He even earned a Tony nomination for Sugar Babies in 1980.

One role in particular kept coming his way. He did the voice of Santa Claus in the perennial holiday favorite, Santa Claus is Comin' to Town in 1970.He reprised the role 4 years later in A Year Without a Santa Claus. He did the Santa voice again in 1979s Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July. He even played Santa Claus in an episode of The Love boat in 1981. In 2005 he voiced Santa Claus, yet again, in The Happy Elf.

With Night at the Museum, we are fairly certain that he is the last actor making movies to have started in the silent era.Lillian Gish previously held the record for the longest movie career, 75 years, from 1912 to 1987. Mickey Rooney's big screen career will now be 80 years long and counting. He is a true movie legend!