Mickey Rooney (born Joseph Yule Jr.; September 23, 1920) is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has received multiple awards, including a Juvenile Academy Award, an Honorary Academy Award, two Golden Globes and an Emmy Award. Working as a performer since he was a child, he was a superstar as a teenager for the films in which he played Andy Hardy, and he has had one of the longest careers of any actor, to date spanning 90 years actively making films in ten decades, from 1920s to 2010s. He is the last surviving male star from 1930s Hollywood. For a younger generation of fans, he gained international fame for his leading role as Henry Dailey in The Family Channel’s The Adventures of the Black Stallion, as well as the film itself.
Rooney was born Joseph Yule Jr. in Brooklyn, New York. His father, Joseph Yule, was from Scotland, and his mother, Nellie W. (née Carter), was from Kansas City, Missouri… read more
Mickey Rooney (born Joseph Yule Jr.; September 23, 1920) is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has received multiple awards, including a Juvenile Academy Award, an Honorary Academy Award, two Golden Globes and an Emmy Award. Working as a performer since he was a child, he was a superstar as a teenager for the films in which he played Andy Hardy, and he has had one of the longest careers of any actor, to date spanning 90 years actively making films in ten decades, from 1920s to 2010s. He is the last surviving male star from 1930s Hollywood. For a younger generation of fans, he gained international fame for his leading role as Henry Dailey in The Family Channel’s The Adventures of the Black Stallion, as well as the film itself.
Rooney was born Joseph Yule Jr. in Brooklyn, New York. His father, Joseph Yule, was from Scotland, and his mother, Nellie W. (née Carter), was from Kansas City, Missouri. Both of his parents were in vaudeville, appearing in a Brooklyn production of A Gaiety Girl when Joseph, Jr. was born. He began performing at the age of 17 months as part of his parents’ routine, wearing a specially tailored tuxedo.
His father was a womanizer and heavy drinker, leaving the family when Joe Jr. was only three. While Joe Sr. was traveling, Joe Jr. and his mother moved from Brooklyn, New York to Kansas City, Missouri to live with his aunt. While his mother was reading the entertainment newspaper, Nellie was interested in getting Hal Roach to approach the young star to participate in the Our Gang series in Hollywood. Roach offered $5 a day to Joe Jr. while the other young stars were paid five times more.
As he was getting bit parts in films, he was working with other established film stars such as Joel McCrea, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Jean Harlow. While selling newspapers around the corner, he also entered into Hollywood Professional School, where he went to school with dozens of unfamiliar students such as: Nanette Fabray, Judy Garland, Lana Turner, among many others, and later Hollywood High School, where he graduated in 1938.
The Yules separated in 1924 during a slump in vaudeville, and in 1925, Nell Yule moved with her son to Hollywood, California, where she managed a tourist home. Fontaine Fox had placed a newspaper ad for a dark-haired child to play the role of “Mickey McGuire” in a series of short films. Lacking the money to have her son’s hair dyed, Mrs. Yule took her son to the audition after applying burnt cork to his scalp. Joe got the role and became “Mickey” for 78 of the comedies, running from 1927 to 1936, starting with Mickey’s Circus, released September 4, 1927. These had been adapted from the Toonerville Trolley comic strip, which contained a character named Mickey McGuire. Joe Yule briefly became Mickey McGuire legally in order to trump an attempted copyright lawsuit (if it was his legal name, the film producer Larry Darmour did not owe the comic strip writers royalties). His mother also changed her surname to McGuire in an attempt to bolster the argument, but the film producers lost. The litigation settlement awarded damages to the owners of the cartoon character, as well as compelled the twelve-year-old actor to refrain from calling himself by the name Mickey McGuire on and off screen.
Rooney later claimed that, during his Mickey McGuire days, he met cartoonist Walt Disney at the Warner Brothers studio, and that Disney was inspired to name Mickey Mouse after him, although Disney always said that he had changed the name from “Mortimer Mouse” to “Mickey Mouse” on the suggestion of his wife.
During an interruption in the series in 1932, Mrs. Yule made plans to take her son on a ten-week vaudeville tour as McGuire, and Fox sued successfully to stop him from using the name. Mrs. Yule suggested the stage name of Mickey Looney for her comedian son, which he altered slightly to Rooney, a less frivolous version. Rooney did other films in his adolescence, including several more of the McGuire films, and signed with MGM in 1934. MGM cast Rooney as the teenage son of a judge in 1937’s A Family Affair, setting Rooney on the way to another successful film series.
In 1937, Rooney was selected to portray Andy Hardy in A Family Affair (1937), which MGM had planned as a B-movie. Rooney provided comic relief as the son of Judge James K. Hardy, portrayed by Lionel Barrymore (although Lewis Stone would play the role of Judge Hardy in later films). The film was an unexpected success, and led to 13 more Andy Hardy films between 1937 and 1946, and a final film in 1958. Rooney also received top billing as “Shockey Carter” in Hoosier Schoolboy (1937).
Also in 1937, Mickey made his first film alongside Judy Garland with Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry. Garland and Rooney became close friends and a successful song and dance team. Besides three of the Andy Hardy films, where she portrayed Betsy Booth, a younger girl with a crush on Andy, they appeared together in a string of successful musicals, including the Oscar-nominated Babes in Arms (1939).
Rooney’s breakthrough role as a dramatic actor came in 1938’s Boys Town opposite Spencer Tracy as Whitey Marsh, which opened shortly before his 18th birthday. Rooney was awarded a special Juvenile Academy Award in 1939 and was named the biggest box-office draw in 1939, 1940 and 1941. Unquestionably a well-known entertainer by the early 1940s, Rooney, with Garland, was one of many celebrities caricatured in Tex Avery’s 1941 Warner Bros. cartoon Hollywood Steps Out. As of 2012, Rooney is the only surviving entertainer depicted in the cartoon. In 1991, Rooney was honored by the Young Artist Foundation with its Former Child Star “Lifetime Achievement” Award recognizing his achievements within the film industry as a child actor. After presenting the award to Rooney, the foundation subsequently renamed the accolade “The Mickey Rooney Award” in his honor. —wikipedia
