- published: 05 Oct 2015
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Mickey Rooney (born Joseph Yule, Jr.; September 23, 1920 – April 6, 2014) was an American actor of film, television, Broadway, radio, and vaudeville. In a career spanning nine decades and continuing until shortly before his death, he appeared in more than 300 films and was one of the last surviving stars of the silent film era.
At the height of a career that was marked by precipitous declines and raging comebacks, Rooney played the role of Andy Hardy in a series of fifteen films in the 1930s and 1940s that epitomized American family values. A versatile performer, he could sing, dance, clown, and play various musical instruments, becoming a celebrated character actor later in his career. Laurence Olivier once said he considered Rooney "the best there has ever been."Clarence Brown, who directed him in two of his earliest dramatic roles, National Velvet and The Human Comedy, said he was "the closest thing to a genius I ever worked with."
Rooney first performed in vaudeville as a child and made his film debut at the age of six. At thirteen he played the role of Puck in the play and later the 1935 film adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream. His performance was hailed by critic David Thomson as "one of cinema's most arresting pieces of magic". In 1938, he co-starred with Spencer Tracy in the Academy Award-winning film Boys Town. At nineteen he was the first teenager to be nominated for an Oscar for his leading role in Babes in Arms, and he was awarded a special Academy Juvenile Award in 1939. At the peak of his career between the ages of 15 and 25, he made forty-three films and co-starred alongside Judy Garland, Wallace Beery, Spencer Tracy, and Elizabeth Taylor. He was one of MGM's most consistently successful actors and a favorite of studio head Louis B. Mayer.
Actors: Chris Martin (editor), Eddie Piller (actor), Enamel Verguren (writer), Enamel Verguren (director), Shane Fell (actor), Shane Fell (actor), Rob Messer (actor), Sleazy (actor), Vittorio Paulo (actor), Chris Harman (actor),
Genres: Drama, Short,Actors: Judy Davis (actress), Philip Williams (actor), Al Waxman (actor), Bruce McFee (actor), Aron Tager (actor), John Stocker (actor), Hugh Laurie (actor), Daniel Kash (actor), Adrian Hough (actor), Aidan Devine (actor), Michael Rhoades (actor), Victor Garber (actor), William Holden (actor), Jayne Eastwood (actress), Rosemary Dunsmore (actress),
Plot: The movie starts off at the beginning of Judy Garland's life singing when she was two years old. It jumps to when she was 12 and was signed by MGM and later when her father dies. The movie tells about her early struggles with MGM and with the addiction to barbiturates. It then jumps to the marriage to Vincette Minelli and the struggles with that, and leads into the rest of the movie and her marriages to Sid Luft, Mark Herron, and Mickey Deans and ends when she dies in 1969
Keywords: actor-shares-first-name-with-character, actress, alcoholism, amphetamine, award, based-on-autobiography, camera-shot-of-feet, carnegie-hall-manhattan-new-york-city, character-name-in-title, child-starActors: Michael Parks (actor), Rue McClanahan (actress), Jackie Cooper (director), Nicholas Pryor (actor), Jack Carter (actor), Piper Laurie (actress), John McGreevey (writer), Charles Fox (composer), Martin Balsam (actor), Philip Sterling (actor), Don Murray (actor), Moosie Drier (actor), Stanley Kamel (actor), Donna Pescow (actress), Selma Archerd (actress),
Plot: The early life and struggles of Judy Garland (portrayed by Andrea McArdle), and of the film star's trials as a youngster in dealing with the Movie Studio system that held her back while her mother was forever pushing her to excel.
Keywords: actor's-life, actress, amphetamine, barbiturates, based-on-book, domineering-mother, father-daughter-relationship, intimate, loss-of-father, meningitisActors: Treg Brown (editor), Kent Rogers (actor), Sara Berner (actress), Sara Berner (actress), Sara Berner (actress), Sara Berner (actress), Leon Schlesinger (producer), Carl W. Stalling (composer), Tex Avery (director), Mel Blanc (actor), Mel Blanc (actor), Kent Rogers (actor), Kent Rogers (actor), Dave Barry (actor), Dave Barry (actor),
Plot: A tour of Ciro's Nightclub packed with caricatures of many top stars, including (in order) 'Cary Grant', 'Greta Garbo' (qv) 'Edward G. Robinson' and 'Ann Sheridan' (qv), 'Johnny Weissmuller' (qv), 'James Cagney' (qv), 'Humphrey Bogart' (qv) and 'George Raft' (qv), 'Harpo Marx' (qv), 'Clark Gable', 'Bing Crosby' (qv), 'Leopold Stokowski' (qv), 'James Stewart (I)' (qv) and 'Dorothy Lamour' (qv), 'Tyrone Power (I)' and 'Sonja Henie' (qv), The Frankenstein Monster, 'Larry Fine (I)' (qv), 'Moe Howard (I)' (qv), 'Curly Howard' (qv), 'Oliver Hardy' (qv), 'Cesar Romero (I)' (qv), 'Mickey Rooney (I)' (qv), 'Judy Garland (I)' and 'Lewis Stone (I)' (qv), 'Kay Kyser' (qv), 'Peter Lorre (I)' (qv), 'Henry Fonda' (qv), 'J. Edgar Hoover' (qv), 'Ned Sparks (I)' (qv), 'Jerry Colonna' (qv), and 'Groucho Marx' (qv); many more just get sight gags, such as 'Claudette Colbert', 'Norma Shearer' (qv), 'William Powell (I)' (qv), 'Don Ameche' (qv), 'Wallace Beery' (qv), 'C. Aubrey Smith' (qv), 'Boris Karloff' (qv), 'Arthur Treacher' (qv), 'Buster Keaton' (qv) and 'Mischa Auer' (qv).
Keywords: celebrity, celebrity-caricature, conga, dancing, fan-dancer, horse, hotfoot, merrie-melodies, nightclub, reference-to-jerry-colonnaActors: Gene Autry (actor), Joe E. Brown (actor), Jackie Cooper (actor), Lester Dorr (actor), Mary Treen (actress), Louis Lewyn (producer), Sammy Lee (director), Tom Mix (actor), Tom Neal (actor), Roy Rogers (actor), Mickey Rooney (actor), Trigger (actor), Rudy Vallee (actor), Johnny Weissmuller (actor), Sally Payne (actress),
Genres: Short, Western,Actors: Buster Keaton (director), Warner Baxter (actor), Edgar Bergen (actor), Don Brodie (actor), Charles Butterworth (actor), Bing Crosby (actor), Lester Dorr (actor), Stuart Erwin (actor), Oliver Hardy (actor), Al Jolson (actor), E. Alyn Warren (actor), Dorothy Lamour (actress), Irene Rich (actress), Louis Lewyn (producer), Edmund Lowe (actor),
Plot: A group of stable hands is given a race horse when its owner retires from the business. (The group is played by the "Original Sing Band," which uses their mouths to sound like musical instruments.) They raise money to run the horse in the Hollywood Derby at Santa Anita race track. Many Hollywood personalities attend the event.
Keywords: african-american, announcer, auction, band, city-in-title, dancing, horse, horserace, movie-star, musicianOh, American Rose you put a thorn in my side
Can’t you see that the plane is leaving but
I just can’t take the ride
Oh no I can’t fly back to England now
I got your breath in my blood too strong
And I knew that night down in Tennessee
I was fated to sing this song.
Down on my knees after Memphis
Nowhere to run
Just the sad country music on the radio driving me on
Down on my knees after Memphis
And feelin’ so small
Like a faded country star
When there’s no hope left at all
Oh I’m down, down on my knees