biography
| name: |
Rooney, Mickey
|
| |
originally Joe Yule, Jr
|
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1920– )
|
| biography:
| Film actor, born in New York City, New York, USA. Born into a vaudeville family, he crawled on stage before he was two and made his first film at age six. He changed his name after starring in a series of short subjects based on a character named Mickey McGuire. He gained serious attention for playing Puck in the motion picture of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935). In 1937 he launched a popular series of (15) feature films in which he played Andy Hardy. In 1938 his role in Boys Town gained him a Special Academy Award and his diminutive size allowed him to play boys until he was about 28 years old. He proved to be multi-talented as he moved from musicals to raucous comedy to serious drama. He returned to the stage (1979) in a long-running tour with Sugar Babes and won an Emmy for his television role in Bill. Later films include Erik the Viking (1989), Making Waves (1994), and Long Road Home (1996), and he wrote and acted in The Legend of O B Taggart (1995). Married several times, often down but never out, he proved to be one of the most resilient showbusiness characters of his era. |
|
|
