Sad to see this news:
Mickey Rooney was a 5-foot-3 dynamo. Whether he was acting, singing or dancing, he poured an uncanny energy into his performances. It’s an energy that sustained a lifelong career alongside some of the biggest names in show business, including Judy Garland and Elizabeth Taylor.
He died Sunday at his North Hollywood home, at age 93. He was still working — on a new film version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
From 1938 to 1941, he ranked as Hollywood’s top-grossing star. His inimitable onscreen persona earned him major parts in a variety of films, from the lighthearted Babes in Arms to more dramatic fare like Boys Town….
In the Andy Hardy series, Rooney played the title role: a teen growing up in an all-American family. The series showcased his youthful, wholesome appeal and catapulted him into stardom. He starred in 16 Andy Hardy pictures altogether.
During that same period, MGM dreamed up another teen franchise starring Rooney and the young Judy Garland as a plucky song-and-dance act….
Yep, Andy Hardy was silly, and corny, and trite. And repetitive. It seems contradictory that someone making such fluff was the top box-office draw at a time when the world was ripping itself apart in the most horrific, all-encompassing war in history. And yet it makes sense, too. Andy Hardy was an expression of the light-hearted things and the shared values that Americans had in common — back when they saw themselves as having things in common (even if it was nothing more than a common love of a well-executed song-and-dance routine).
I read a book review this morning (the book was The Twilight of the American Enlightenment, about the roots of our Culture Wars today) that noted how our sense of commonality largely lasted through the 1950s. We find it hard now to agree on the simplest things.
And now Mickey Rooney’s dead.
I feel like we ought to do something to address this state of affairs. If only it could all be solved by putting on a show…
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I’m just in a down sort of mood today. Don’t know why. It’s not the weather; I normally like this kind of weather.
Anyway, Mickey Rooney dying didn’t help.
It was a better world when he just might turn up anywhere. Remember when he cropped up in “Night at the Museum,” together with Dick Van Dyke and Bill Cobbs? That was such a great surprise. Of course, my first reaction was, “Mickey Rooney’s still ALIVE?” And it was great to know he was…
FYI, Mickey Rooney was in Operation Mad Ball (1957) with Jack Lemmon who was in JFK (1991) with Kevin Bacon. So, his degree of Bacon is 2.
I have no memory of Jack Lemmon being in JFK. But I just checked, and you’re right. But learning he played “Jack Martin” still doesn’t bring it to mind.
I DO remember, however, living in New Orleans during the Jim Garrison investigations.
You know, Oliver Stone could probably weave a good paranoid conspiracy around my life:
— I was in Washington during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
— Shortly thereafter, I moved to Latin America, not to be seen in this country for two-and-a-half years.
— That means I was conveniently out of the country when Kennedy was killed.
— There was a military coup while I was in Ecuador. It was planned (in part at least) in the very same house in which I lived, while I was there.
— My guitar teacher in Ecuador was an agent of U.S. Naval Intelligence.
— The pastor of the nondenominational church we attended was an agent of the CIA.
— Within months of returning to this country, I moved to New Orleans, where Jim Garrison was about to get rolling with his allegations.
— In 1970, I had a run-in with Admiral John McCain, then Commander-In-Chief, Pacific Command — and the father of the John McCain who was at the time a prisoner of the North Vietnamese.
— In 1978, I met George H.W. Bush, former head of the CIA who at the time was a director of the Council on Foreign Relations.
— I was in Iowa two years later just before Bush beat Ronald Reagan in the caucuses there.
— Several weeks later, I was present during the Arkansas caucuses when delegates of Reagan and Howard Baker conspired to squeeze Bush out, thereby bumping him out of contention. I had been traveling with Baker in Iowa. I had a brief face-to-face contact with Bush that day.
— During the 80s, I had numerous face-to-face meetings with Al Gore.
— In subsequent years, I would have closed-door meetings at my office with John McCain (on multiple occasions), George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Ralph Nader, Jesse Jackson, Dick Gephardt, John Kerry, John Edwards, Howard Dean, and, completing the circle to the Kennedy administration, Ted Sorensen.
Forget Oliver Stone. I’m starting to have suspicions about MYSELF…
Having had fun with that, I turned it into a separate post…