LOS ANGELES (AP) – Mickey Rooney’s approach to life was simple: “Let’s put on a show!”
He spent nine decades doing it, on the big screen, on television, on stage and in his extravagant personal life.
A superstar in his youth, Rooney was Hollywood’s top box-office draw in the late 1930s to early 1940s. He epitomised the “show” part of show business, even if the business end sometimes failed him amid money troubles and a seesaw of career tailspins and revivals.
Pint-sized, precocious, impish, irrepressible – perhaps hardy is the most-suitable adjective for Rooney, a perennial comeback artist whose early blockbuster success as the vexing but wholesome Andy Hardy and as Judy Garland’s musical comrade in arms was bookended 70 years later with roles in Night at the Museum and The Muppets.
Rooney died Sunday at age 93 surrounded by family at his North Hollywood home, police said. The Los Angeles County Coroner’s office said Rooney died a natural death.
There were no further details immediately available on the cause of death, but Rooney did attend Vanity Fair’s Oscar party last month, where he posed for photos with other veteran stars and seemed fine.
He was also shooting a movie at the time of his death, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, with Margaret O’Brien.
“Mickey was somebody that everybody loved, but to me he was part of the family,” Liza Minnelli posted on her Facebook page. “He was one of a kind, and will be admired and respected always.”
He was nominated for four Academy Awards over a four-decade span and received two special Oscars for film achievements, won an Emmy for his TV movie Bill and had a Tony nomination for his Broadway smash Sugar Babies.
