Mickey Rooney, as legendary a movie star as there ever was, passed away in California yesterday, of unknown, presumably natural, causes. He was 93 years old.
Mr. Rooney was one of the very last silent film performers (three are still living…and I\’ll name them at the end of this blog). He was in maybe a dozen silents, mostly shorts, from 1926 – 28, when he was 5-7 years old …though, as a 2 year old, he may have been in a 1920 silent as well.
And he never stopped working. He was Andy Hardy in a series of 13 films from 1937 – 1946 (I\’m not counting the unfortunate resurrection of his character for one more of them in 1958), starred in a number of hugely successful pictures with Judy Garland, and continued right through to, believe it or not, this year, where, according to imdb.com, he had three projects planned so far; one filming and two in pre-production.
For years, Mickey Rooney was voted the single most popular star in movies. In addition, he had a tremendously successful Broadway show, “Sugar Babies” in the mid 1970\’s.
He was nominated for an Oscar (The Black Stallion), a Tony (Sugar Babies), and won a lifetime achievement Oscar as well.
On the down side, his personal life always seemed to be a mess. Married 8 times, divorced six (one wife died, and he died while separated, but still married to his last wife), 11 children, and a horrible, very public “elder abuse” situation with one of his stepchildren.
But, that aside, Rooney was a monumental figure in movie and, more generally, entertainment history. He will never be forgotten.
May Mickey Rooney rest in peace.
Oh, before I forget: here are the three silent film performers who are still alive (if there are more, I can\’t find them):
-Jean Darling: The last of the original “Our Gang” crew. Ms. Darling will (I certainly hope) celebrate her 92nd birthday in August;
-Baby Peggy – Peggy-Jean Montgomery, actually – who was in something like 150 silent films with the equally popular Jackie Coogan (who eventually became Uncle Fester in The Addams Family) in the early 1920\’s. If the fates are with her she will be 96 in October;
-And the queen of them all age-wise, Carla Laemmle, who acted in silents during the mid-1920\’s and then, as a talkie actress, was an adult in Bela Lugosi\’s 1931 classic Dracula (she uttered the first line of the movie). In October Ms. Laemmle, who was last in front of a cameral in 2012, will be 105 years of age. Wow.
-(It should also be noted that Luise Rainer, who, though several months younger than Ms. Laemmle is also 104 years of age, may have acted in silent films as a teenager in her native Austria. I\’m not sure, so I\’m not counting her as a surviving silent film star. But, at that age with her accomplishments – she is the oldest living Academy Award winner, and the first ever to win in consecutive years – the possibility has to at least be mentioned).
