Mickey Rooney

The actor who never was a child

Mickey Rooney stood five foot seven and was Hollywood's most profitable actor for three years in a row. He didn't need to be a square-jawed leading man for Great Depression audiences to spend their last dime at the box office to see him.

He was born Joe Yule Jr. in 1920, and before turning two he was already on a vaudeville stage. His parents were traveling performers (a harsh environment that toughened his character), and the boy learned early that the show was his only way to survive.

In 1937, he played Andy Hardy for the first time in A Family Affair. What was meant to be a minor film became a fifteen-installment franchise that defined American morals of the era.

But massive success turned out to be a trap for a teenager.

Rooney worked nonstop, churning out musicals with Judy Garland such as Babes in Arms in 1939. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer exploited him like a gold mine, and he responded with an electric energy that no one could match on screen.

The Decline of a Broken Toy

World War II abruptly cut short his run. He enlisted in 1944 to entertain the troops, and when he returned to Hollywood in 1946, the world had changed too much for his eternal teenager persona. He was no longer the boy next door but a short man with gray hair.

He tried to set up his own production company, but the business went under. He didn't know how to manage money, and his personal life was a mess of eight marriages and costly divorces that left his finances shaky.

Nobody expected him to last so long.

He survived thanks to television and supporting roles where his small frame fit better. In 1979 he earned an Oscar nomination for The Black Stallion, proving his talent was still there, even though the industry only called him out of sheer nostalgia.

Survival as a working method

In 2006, he took part in Night at the Museum, and young audiences discovered that grumpy old man running through the halls. He kept working almost until his last breath, because debts don't spare even the legends of silent film.

His last big-screen appearance was a cameo in Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, filmed shortly before his death. But his health had already deteriorated badly due to legal battles against his own relatives.

He died in Los Angeles in April 2014, with a net worth of just 18,000 dollars after decades of poor money management and alleged financial abuse by those closest to him.