He stood only a few inches taller than five feet, but Mr. Rooney was
larger and louder than life. From the moment he toddled onto a burlesque
stage at 17 months to his movie debut at 6 to his career-crowning
Broadway debut in “Sugar Babies” at 59, he did it all. He could act,
sing, dance, play piano and drums, and before he was out of short pants
he could cry on cue.
Mr. Rooney’s personal life was as dynamic as his screen presence. He
married eight times. He earned $12 million before he was 40 and spent
more. Impulsive, recklessly extravagant, mercurial and addicted to
playing the ponies and shooting craps, he attacked life as though it
were a six-course dinner.
Along with Deanna Durbin, Mr. Rooney was given a special Academy Award
in 1939 “for bringing to the screen the spirit and personification of
youth.” The next year he received his Oscar nomination for “Babes in
Arms.” His second nomination was for his performance in the film version
of William Saroyan’s “Human Comedy” (1943) as the messenger boy who
delivers telegrams from the War Department telling families in a small
California town that their sons have died. That movie seems saccharine
and preachy more than 70 years later, but time has not tarnished the
desolation on Mr. Rooney’s face when he reads those telegrams.
Nobody ever doubted his talent. Of his “all but unimprovable”
performance in “National Velvet,” James Agee wrote, “He is an extremely
wise and moving actor, and if I am ever again tempted to speak
disrespectfully of him, that will be in anger over the unforgivable
waste of a forceful yet subtle talent, proved capable of self-discipline
and of the hardest roles that could be thrown it.”
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