Inside Late Actor Mickey Rooney’s Career and Private Life: ‘Life Threw Him Many Curveballs’

In a life filled with exceptional highs and devastating lows, 1979 was a very good year for Mickey Rooney. The performer made his Broadway debut in Sugar Babies that fall, becoming the Great White Way’s hottest “new” star at age 59.

“There’s no feeling like facing a Broadway audience,” gushed Mickey. “I’m sorry I took so long to get here, but we all come to the place where we’re supposed to be at the [right] time.”

Mickey, a child of vaudeville, made his film debut at age 6 and starred in more than 200 movies during his long career. In his teens, he appeared in 15 extremely popular Andy Hardy movies making him Hollywood’s most bankable star. But those heady days didn’t last — Mickey found himself struggling to find work after he aged out of youth films.

No one expected him to bounce back, but he did more than once. Along the way, Mickey also earned four Academy Award nominations. The 5-foot-2 performer could do it all: act, sing, dance, even play piano and drums.

“Mickey was plastic; he could inhabit any role,” says William J. Birnes, coauthor of The Life and Times of Mickey Rooney. “He worked until the very, very, end.”

In fact, Mickey enjoyed one of his greatest career triumphs, playing a developmentally challenged man in the television film Bill, in 1981. “Mickey absorbed who Bill was and won an Emmy for that performance,” says Birnes. “It was unbelievable.”

Mickey’s private life was also a rollercoaster ride. In his early years, he spent money as fast as he earned it. The actor became addicted to gambling and habitually blew thousands of dollars at the racetrack.

“When he was 17, MGM’s Louis Mayer had an extra phone line installed in Mickey’s dressing room so he could talk to his bookie,” says Birnes.

Mickey had a weakness for women, too. He fell in love often and couldn’t remain faithful for long. By the end of his life, he’d been married eight times, fathered 10 children and spent a fortune in alimony and child support payments. It’s little surprise that he had to declare bankruptcy. In 1962, Mickey confessed that he had $500 in the bank and nearly $500,000 in debts. “He also had a problem with back taxes, so the government took everything,” says Birnes.

Sadly, Mickey never developed long lasting ties with his children, wives or family. The star, who successfully sued a stepson for elder abuse in 2013, enjoyed his most enduring relationship with a woman he saw infrequently.

“They never married but had an affair that lasted 60 years,” confides Birnes. “She was married the whole time, and her husband was one of Mickey’s friends.

”Life threw him many curveballs, but Mickey never lost faith in himself or his abilities. “There have been crevices, fissures, pits, and I’ve fallen into a lot of them,” he said. “But the crux of it is that you can’t give up on life. You’ve got to keep going.”