Los Angeles Police Commander Andrew Smith said that Rooney was with his family when he died at his North Hollywood home.
Smith said police took a death report but added that there was nothing suspicious and it was not a police case. He said he had no other details about how Rooney died.
Legend: Mickey Rooney has passed away at the age
of 93 after battling a long illness, pictured at the Vanity Fair Oscars
party last month in LA
He was still racking up film and TV credits more than 80 years later — a tenure likely unmatched in the history of show business.
'I always say, 'Don't retire — inspire,' he said in March 2008. 'There's a lot to be done.'
Among his roles in recent years was a part as a guard in the smash 2006 comedy A Night at the Museum.
Rooney won two special Academy Awards for his film achievements, and reigned from 1939 to 1942 as the No. 1 moneymaking star in movies, his run only broken when he joined the Army. He later won an Emmy and was nominated for a Tony.
At his peak he was the incarnation of the show-biz lifer, a shameless ham and hoofer whom one could imagine singing, dancing and wisecracking in his crib, his blond hair, big grin and constant motion a draw for millions.
'Mickey Rooney, to me, is the closest thing to a genius I ever worked with,' Clarence Brown, who directed his Oscar-nominated performance in The Human Comedy, once said.
Much-loved: Mickey enjoyed one of the longest careers in showbusiness, starting in the 1920s
Rooney's personal
life matched his film roles for color. His first wife was the glamorous —
and taller — Ava Gardner, and he married seven more times, fathering
seven sons and four daughters.
Through divorces, money problems and career droughts, he kept returning with customary vigor.
'I've been coming back like a rubber ball for years,' he commented in 1979, the year he returned with a character role in The Black Stallion, drawing an Oscar nomination as supporting actor, one of four nominations he earned over the years.
That same year he starred with Ann Miller in a revue called Sugar Babies, a hokey mixture of vaudeville and burlesque. It opened in New York in October 1979, and immediately became Broadway's hottest ticket.
Rooney received a Tony nomination (as did Miller) and earned millions during his years with the show.
To the end, he was a non-stop talker continually proposing enterprises, some accomplished, some just talk: a
chain of barbecue stands; training schools for talented youngsters; a
Broadway show he wrote about himself and Judy Garland; screenplays,
novels, plays.
Rooney was among the last survivors of Hollywood's studio era, which his career predated. Rooney signed a contract with MGM in 1934 and landed his first big role as Clark Gable as a boy in Manhattan Melodrama.
A loanout to Warner Bros. brought him praise as an exuberant Puck in Max Reinhardt's 1935 production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which also featured James Cagney and a young Olivia de Havilland.
Rooney was soon earning $300 a week with featured roles in such films as Riff Raff, Little Lord Fauntleroy, Captains Courageous, The Devil Is a Sissy, and most notably, as a brat humbled by Spencer Tracy's Father Flanagan in Boys Town.
The big break came with the wildly popular Andy Hardy series, beginning with A Family Affair.
'I knew A Family Affair was a B picture, but that didn't stop me from putting my all in it,' Rooney wrote. 'A funny thing happened to this little programmer: released in April 1937, it ended up grossing more than half a million dollars nationwide.'
The critics grimaced at the depiction of a kindly small-town judge (Lionel Barrymore) with his character-building homilies to his obstreperous son.
But MGM saw the film as a good template for a series and studio head Louis B. Mayer saw the series as a template for a model American home.
With Barrymore replaced by Lewis Stone in subsequent films and Rooney's part built up, Andy Hardy became a national hero and the 15 Hardy movies became a gold mine.
Rooney's peppy, all-American charm was never better matched than when he appeared opposite his friend and fellow child star Garland in such films as Babes on Broadway and Strike up the Band, musicals built around a plot of Let's Put On A Show!
One of them, the 1939 Babes in Arms, brought him his first Oscar nomination. He was also in dramas such as The Human Comedy, 1943, which gained Rooney his second Oscar nomination as best actor, and National Velvet, 1944, with Elizabeth Taylor.
But Rooney became a cautionary tale for early fame. He earned a reputation for drunken escapades and quickie romances and was unlucky in both money and love.
In 1942 he married for the first time, to Gardner, a statuesque MGM beauty. He was 21, she was 19.
'I'm 5 feet 3, but I was 6 feet 4 when I married Ava,' he said in later years. The marriage ended in a year, and Rooney joined the Army in 1943, spending most of his World War II service entertaining troops.
Rooney returned to Hollywood and disillusionment. His savings had been stolen by a manager and his career was in a nose dive. He made two films at MGM, then his contract was dropped.
'I began to realize how few friends everyone has,' he wrote in his second autobiography. 'All those Hollywood friends I had in 1938, 1939, 1940 and 1941, when I was the toast of the world, weren't friends at all.'
His movie career never regained its prewar eminence. The Bold and the Brave, 1956 World War II drama, brought him an Oscar nomination as best supporting actor.
But mostly, he played second leads in such films as Off Limits with Bob Hope, The Bridges At Toko-Ri with William Holden, and Requiem For A Heavyweight with Anthony Quinn.
In the early 1960s, he had a wild turn in Breakfast At Tiffany's as Audrey Hepburn's bucktoothed Japanese neighbor and was among the fortune seekers in the all-star comedy It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World.
Rooney's starring roles came in low-budget films such as 'Drive a Crooked Road,' ''The Atomic Kid,' ''Platinum High School,' ''The Twinkle in God's Eye' and 'How to Stuff a Wild Bikini.'
But his later career proved his resilience: The Oscar nomination for Black Stallion. The Sugar Babies hit that captivated New York, London, Las Vegas and major U.S. cities.
Voicing animated features like The Fox And The Hound, The Care Bears Movie and Little Nemo.
An Emmy for his portrayal of a disturbed man in the 1981 TV movie Bill. Teaming with his eighth wife, Jan, off-Broadway in 2004 for a musical look back at his career called, fittingly, Let's Put On A Show.
Over the years, Rooney also made hundreds of appearances on TV talk and game shows, dramas and variety programs.
He starred in three series: The Mickey Rooney Show (1954), Mickey'(1964) and One Of The Boys (1982).
All
lasted one season and a co-star from One Of The Boys, Dana Carvey,
later parodied Rooney on Saturday Night Live, mocking him as a hopeless
egomaniac who couldn't stop boasting he once was 'the number one star
... IN THE WOOORLD!'
In 1983, the Motion Picture Academy presented Rooney with an honorary Oscar for his '60 years of versatility in a variety of memorable film performances.' That matched the 1938 special award he shared with Deanna Durbin for 'bringing to the screen the spirit and personification of youth.'
A lifelong storyteller, Rooney wrote two memoirs: i.e., an Autobiography published in 1965; Life Is Too Short, 1991. He also produced a novel about a child movie star, The Search For Sonny Skies, in 1994.
In the autobiographies, Rooney gave two versions of his debut in show business. First he told of being 1½ and climbing into the orchestra pit of the burlesque theater where his parents were appearing.
He sat on a kettle drum and pretended to be playing his whistle, vastly amusing the audience. The theater owner kept him in the show.
The second autobiography told a different story: He was hiding under the scenery when he sneezed. Dragged out by an actor, the toddler was ordered to play his harmonica. He did, and the crowd loved it.
Whatever the introduction, Joe Yule Jr., born in 1920, was the star of his parents' act by the age of 2, singing Sweet Rosie O'Grady in a tiny tuxedo.
His father was a baggy-pants comic, Joe Yule, his mother a dancer, Nell Carter. Yule was a boozing Scotsman with a wandering eye, and the couple soon parted.
While his mother danced in the chorus, young Joe was wowing audiences with his heartfelt rendition of Pal O' My Cradle Days. During a tour to California, the boy made his film debut as a midget in a 1926 Fox short, Not To Be Trusted.
Young Joe Yule played another midget in a Warner Bros. feature, Orchids and Ermine, starring Colleen Moore.
Then he tried out for the lead in a series of Mickey McGuire comedies, meant to rival Hal Roach's Our Gang.
'I was ready to be Mickey McGuire,' Rooney wrote in his memoirs, 'except for one thing: his hair was black, mine was blonde.'
His mother dyed his hair black the night before the audition, and her son won the role. He also acquired a new name: Mickey McGuire. He starred in 21 of the silent comedies, 42 with sound.
The boy was also playing kid parts in features, and his name seemed inappropriate. His mother suggested Rooney, after the vaudeville dancer, Pat Rooney.
After splitting with Gardner, Rooney married Betty Jane Rase, Miss Birmingham of 1944, whom he had met during military training in Alabama. They had two sons and divorced after four years. (Their son Timothy died in September 2006 at age 59 after a battle with a muscle disease called dermatomyositis.)
His third and fourth marriages were to actress Martha Vickers (one son) and model Elaine Mahnken.
The fifth Mrs. Rooney, model Barbara Thomason, gave birth to four children. While the couple were estranged in 1966, she was found shot to death in her Brentwood home; beside her was the body of her alleged lover, a Yugoslavian actor. It was an apparent murder and suicide.
A year later, Rooney began a three-month marriage to Margaret Lane. She was followed by a secretary, Caroline Hockett — another divorce after five years and one daughter.
In 1978, Rooney, 57, married for the eighth — and apparently last — time. His bride was singer Janice Darlene Chamberlain, 39. Their marriage lasted longer than the first seven combined.
After a lifetime of carrying on, he became a devoted Christian and member of the Church of Religious Science.
He settled in suburban Thousand Oaks, about 40 miles west of Los Angeles. In 2011, Rooney was in the news again when he testified before Congress about abuse of the elderly, alleging that he was left powerless by a family member who took and misused his money.
'I felt trapped, scared, used and frustrated,' Rooney told a special Senate committee considering legislation to curb abuses of senior citizens. 'But above all, when a man feels helpless, it's terrible.'
Through divorces, money problems and career droughts, he kept returning with customary vigor.
'I've been coming back like a rubber ball for years,' he commented in 1979, the year he returned with a character role in The Black Stallion, drawing an Oscar nomination as supporting actor, one of four nominations he earned over the years.
That same year he starred with Ann Miller in a revue called Sugar Babies, a hokey mixture of vaudeville and burlesque. It opened in New York in October 1979, and immediately became Broadway's hottest ticket.
Rooney received a Tony nomination (as did Miller) and earned millions during his years with the show.
Longevity: Los Angeles, California, USA --- In
1927, Mickey Rooney appeared as the famous cartoon character Mickey
McGuire in a series of short comedies (left) and (right) the child-actor
pictured in 1932 promoting Fast Companions
Career: Mickey Rooney in the 1943 movie The Human Comedy - for which he was nominated for an Oscar
Rooney was among the last survivors of Hollywood's studio era, which his career predated. Rooney signed a contract with MGM in 1934 and landed his first big role as Clark Gable as a boy in Manhattan Melodrama.
A loanout to Warner Bros. brought him praise as an exuberant Puck in Max Reinhardt's 1935 production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which also featured James Cagney and a young Olivia de Havilland.
Rooney was soon earning $300 a week with featured roles in such films as Riff Raff, Little Lord Fauntleroy, Captains Courageous, The Devil Is a Sissy, and most notably, as a brat humbled by Spencer Tracy's Father Flanagan in Boys Town.
Two child stars: Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland in a publicity portrait for the film 'Strike Up The Band', in 940
Very capable: Mickey Rooney is shown in this
file photo as G.I. Dooley in the 1956 Hollywood movie The Bold and the
Brave (left) and (right) in his then-signature role as Andy Hardy in
Love Laughs at Andy Hardy in 1946
Popular: Mickey Rooney and Patricia Breslin
starred in 1958's Andy Hardy Comes Home - as the actor continued the
lucrative franchise
The big break came with the wildly popular Andy Hardy series, beginning with A Family Affair.
'I knew A Family Affair was a B picture, but that didn't stop me from putting my all in it,' Rooney wrote. 'A funny thing happened to this little programmer: released in April 1937, it ended up grossing more than half a million dollars nationwide.'
The critics grimaced at the depiction of a kindly small-town judge (Lionel Barrymore) with his character-building homilies to his obstreperous son.
But MGM saw the film as a good template for a series and studio head Louis B. Mayer saw the series as a template for a model American home.
With Barrymore replaced by Lewis Stone in subsequent films and Rooney's part built up, Andy Hardy became a national hero and the 15 Hardy movies became a gold mine.
Rooney's peppy, all-American charm was never better matched than when he appeared opposite his friend and fellow child star Garland in such films as Babes on Broadway and Strike up the Band, musicals built around a plot of Let's Put On A Show!
First wife: Mickey Rooney plays golf with his
first wife, Ava Gardner in 1942 and (right) at their wedding in January
of the same year
Superstars: Mickey Rooney and wife, Ava Gardner,
arrive in New York in January 1942, en route to Boston where Rooney is
to appear at a Red Cross benefit
One of them, the 1939 Babes in Arms, brought him his first Oscar nomination. He was also in dramas such as The Human Comedy, 1943, which gained Rooney his second Oscar nomination as best actor, and National Velvet, 1944, with Elizabeth Taylor.
But Rooney became a cautionary tale for early fame. He earned a reputation for drunken escapades and quickie romances and was unlucky in both money and love.
In 1942 he married for the first time, to Gardner, a statuesque MGM beauty. He was 21, she was 19.
'I'm 5 feet 3, but I was 6 feet 4 when I married Ava,' he said in later years. The marriage ended in a year, and Rooney joined the Army in 1943, spending most of his World War II service entertaining troops.
Rooney returned to Hollywood and disillusionment. His savings had been stolen by a manager and his career was in a nose dive. He made two films at MGM, then his contract was dropped.
'I began to realize how few friends everyone has,' he wrote in his second autobiography. 'All those Hollywood friends I had in 1938, 1939, 1940 and 1941, when I was the toast of the world, weren't friends at all.'
Second wife: Mickey Rooney, home from the war,
greets his wife, Betty Jane, with a big kiss today while his mother Mrs.
Nell Pankey looks on
His movie career never regained its prewar eminence. The Bold and the Brave, 1956 World War II drama, brought him an Oscar nomination as best supporting actor.
But mostly, he played second leads in such films as Off Limits with Bob Hope, The Bridges At Toko-Ri with William Holden, and Requiem For A Heavyweight with Anthony Quinn.
Third wife: Rooney married Michigan-born actress Martha Vickers in 1949. The couple divorced two years later in 1951
In the early 1960s, he had a wild turn in Breakfast At Tiffany's as Audrey Hepburn's bucktoothed Japanese neighbor and was among the fortune seekers in the all-star comedy It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World.
Rooney's starring roles came in low-budget films such as 'Drive a Crooked Road,' ''The Atomic Kid,' ''Platinum High School,' ''The Twinkle in God's Eye' and 'How to Stuff a Wild Bikini.'
But his later career proved his resilience: The Oscar nomination for Black Stallion. The Sugar Babies hit that captivated New York, London, Las Vegas and major U.S. cities.
Voicing animated features like The Fox And The Hound, The Care Bears Movie and Little Nemo.
An Emmy for his portrayal of a disturbed man in the 1981 TV movie Bill. Teaming with his eighth wife, Jan, off-Broadway in 2004 for a musical look back at his career called, fittingly, Let's Put On A Show.
Over the years, Rooney also made hundreds of appearances on TV talk and game shows, dramas and variety programs.
He starred in three series: The Mickey Rooney Show (1954), Mickey'(1964) and One Of The Boys (1982).
Fourth wife: Rooney with 22-year-old Elaine Mahnken his 4th wife in 1952
Fifth wife: Shown here at St. John's Hospital is Mickey Rooney, wife Barbara Thomason and their new daughter Kelly Ann in 1959
Margaret Rooney, 45, actor Mickey Rooney's sixth wife, filed for divorce against the chunky actor on December 23rd 1966
Wife number 7 was Carolyn Hockett, 25, a former
secretary at the Miami Herald in Miami, Florida. Happy newlyweds are
pictured in Rooney's dressing room at the Fremont Hotel in 1968
In 1983, the Motion Picture Academy presented Rooney with an honorary Oscar for his '60 years of versatility in a variety of memorable film performances.' That matched the 1938 special award he shared with Deanna Durbin for 'bringing to the screen the spirit and personification of youth.'
A lifelong storyteller, Rooney wrote two memoirs: i.e., an Autobiography published in 1965; Life Is Too Short, 1991. He also produced a novel about a child movie star, The Search For Sonny Skies, in 1994.
In the autobiographies, Rooney gave two versions of his debut in show business. First he told of being 1½ and climbing into the orchestra pit of the burlesque theater where his parents were appearing.
He sat on a kettle drum and pretended to be playing his whistle, vastly amusing the audience. The theater owner kept him in the show.
The second autobiography told a different story: He was hiding under the scenery when he sneezed. Dragged out by an actor, the toddler was ordered to play his harmonica. He did, and the crowd loved it.
Eighth wife: Jan Rooney with her husband Mickey Rooney as he is honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2004
Friends in high places: President and Mrs.
Ronald Reagan (center) pay back stage visit to Ann Miller and Mickey
Rooney, stars of the hit Broadway musical Sugar Babies, during
intermission at the evening performance
Black Stallion: In 1979 - Rooney enjoyed a career renaissance by appearing in the hit, Black Stallion movie
Whatever the introduction, Joe Yule Jr., born in 1920, was the star of his parents' act by the age of 2, singing Sweet Rosie O'Grady in a tiny tuxedo.
His father was a baggy-pants comic, Joe Yule, his mother a dancer, Nell Carter. Yule was a boozing Scotsman with a wandering eye, and the couple soon parted.
While his mother danced in the chorus, young Joe was wowing audiences with his heartfelt rendition of Pal O' My Cradle Days. During a tour to California, the boy made his film debut as a midget in a 1926 Fox short, Not To Be Trusted.
Young Joe Yule played another midget in a Warner Bros. feature, Orchids and Ermine, starring Colleen Moore.
Awards: Mickey Rooney takes the stage to make an
award presentation at the 14th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, in
Los Angeles in 2008 (left) and accepting his 1983 honorary Oscar
Multi-talented: Mickey Rooney plays his piano
where his Oscar, Emmy and other awards are displayed at his home in
Westlake Village in 2007
Then he tried out for the lead in a series of Mickey McGuire comedies, meant to rival Hal Roach's Our Gang.
'I was ready to be Mickey McGuire,' Rooney wrote in his memoirs, 'except for one thing: his hair was black, mine was blonde.'
His mother dyed his hair black the night before the audition, and her son won the role. He also acquired a new name: Mickey McGuire. He starred in 21 of the silent comedies, 42 with sound.
The boy was also playing kid parts in features, and his name seemed inappropriate. His mother suggested Rooney, after the vaudeville dancer, Pat Rooney.
After splitting with Gardner, Rooney married Betty Jane Rase, Miss Birmingham of 1944, whom he had met during military training in Alabama. They had two sons and divorced after four years. (Their son Timothy died in September 2006 at age 59 after a battle with a muscle disease called dermatomyositis.)
National Velvet reunion: Mickey Rooney wears a
Napoleonic-era hat as he tapes an I love New York television commercial
with British-American actress Elizabeth Taylor, in New York in 1981
Friends: Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney put
their heads together over a television script for their first onstage
reunion in 18 years, for the taping of the first of 32 variety shows
which Garland do for CBS in 1962
His third and fourth marriages were to actress Martha Vickers (one son) and model Elaine Mahnken.
The fifth Mrs. Rooney, model Barbara Thomason, gave birth to four children. While the couple were estranged in 1966, she was found shot to death in her Brentwood home; beside her was the body of her alleged lover, a Yugoslavian actor. It was an apparent murder and suicide.
A year later, Rooney began a three-month marriage to Margaret Lane. She was followed by a secretary, Caroline Hockett — another divorce after five years and one daughter.
In 1978, Rooney, 57, married for the eighth — and apparently last — time. His bride was singer Janice Darlene Chamberlain, 39. Their marriage lasted longer than the first seven combined.
Advocate: Mickey Rooney testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, about elder abuse, before the Senate Aging Committee in 2012
After a lifetime of carrying on, he became a devoted Christian and member of the Church of Religious Science.
He settled in suburban Thousand Oaks, about 40 miles west of Los Angeles. In 2011, Rooney was in the news again when he testified before Congress about abuse of the elderly, alleging that he was left powerless by a family member who took and misused his money.
'I felt trapped, scared, used and frustrated,' Rooney told a special Senate committee considering legislation to curb abuses of senior citizens. 'But above all, when a man feels helpless, it's terrible.'
MICKEY ROONEY'S WIFE 'HAD NOT SEEN HIM FOR ALMOST A YEAR BEFORE HE DIED' AND WAS ONLY TOLD OF HIS DEATH BY GOSSIP WEBSITE
Although
they had been married since 1978 and their marriage lasted longer than
his first seven marriages combined, Mickey Rooney's wife, Janice
Chamberlain, had reportedly not seen him for almost a year before he
died.
Jan was informed of Mickey's death by the TMZ gossip website telling them she had not seen her husband since last April.
Prior to his death on Sunday, Mickey was living at the Studio City home of her son Mark Aber and his wife, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
The Rooney family had been torn apart in recent years when Mickey accused another of Jan's sons Christopher of starving him and depriving him of medicine.
In 2011, Mickey testified before Congress about abuse of the elderly, alleging that he was left powerless by a family member who took and misused his money.
Jan was informed of Mickey's death by the TMZ gossip website telling them she had not seen her husband since last April.
Happier times: Mickey Rooney with eighth and
final wife Jan in 2006 at the Hilton Hotel in Kensington. The two became
estranged in recent years and Jan learned of his death from gossip
website TMZ
Prior to his death on Sunday, Mickey was living at the Studio City home of her son Mark Aber and his wife, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
The Rooney family had been torn apart in recent years when Mickey accused another of Jan's sons Christopher of starving him and depriving him of medicine.
In 2011, Mickey testified before Congress about abuse of the elderly, alleging that he was left powerless by a family member who took and misused his money.
DM
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