Mickey Rooney : Judy Garland musicals, Andy Hardy stardom, The Black stallion movie, dies at 93

Mickey Rooney, the pint-size, precocious actor and all-around talent whose more than 80-year career spanned silent comedies, Shakespeare, Judy Garland musicals, Andy Hardy stardom, television and the Broadway theater, died Sunday at age 93.

Los Angeles Police Commander Andrew Smith said that Rooney was with his family when he died at his North Hollywood home.

Despite his Hollywood success, the ‘National Velvet’ star – who married eight times, including to legendary actress Ava Gardner – was declared bankrupt by the early 1960s, with much of his money going on a “reckless” lifestyle and alimony payments to his ex-wives.

However, he enjoyed a resurgence in popularity thanks to the 1977 movie ‘Pete’s Dragon’ and Broadway show ‘Sugar Babies’ later that decade and continued to work regularly in TV, theatre and film, with his most recent appearance being in 2011 movie ‘The Muppets’.

Summing his life up in his 1991 autobiography, ‘Life Is Too Short’, the diminutive star quipped: “Had I been brighter, the ladies been gentler, the Scotch weaker, the gods kinder, the dice hotter – it might have all ended up in a one-sentence story.”

brands : The Muppets, The Hardy Boys, PEte’s Dragon, National Velvet, Orchids and Ermine, Life Is Too Short

Agencies/Canadajournal