Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1938)

Mickey the McCoy (Continued from page 71) only a few miles from his famous kid in Culver City. Mickey now lives with his mother, who runs a restaurant on Wilshire Boulevard. Mickey has stuck up for himself ever since the day he crawled onto the stage, where his folks were cavorting, and sneezed. The tank-town audience yowled with glee, so his dad stuck a French harp in his little paws and Mickey was in show business. He's never been out of it since. But a lot of film has spun over the reels since they drafted the swaddling Mickey from Will Morrisey's Revue to play a grown-up midget in pictures. So many thousands of feet of it have registered Mickey's snub-nosed pan in a half a thousand movies that you'd need an adding machine to count it up. I CAN remember the little snipe stealing a picture called "My Pal the King," right in the face of Tom Mix's two six-shooters. Maybe it discouraged Tom. It was one of the last pictures he tried. And I could see half-pint Mickey, whip in hand, strutting around the rank-smelling set of Clyde Beatty's "The Big Cage," baiting lions and tigers roaring helplessly in their cages. And training a lion cub, the same cub, "Tarzan," who later grew up and bit Charles Bickford in the neck, just to get even with the human race. And then Max Reinhardt and his raves, calling Mickey Rooney the perfect Puck for Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." And Mickey, forthwith, scooting a toboggan down the mountain slopes at Big Pines in the middle of production and cracking his thigh in two. They said it was tough for the kid to give up that great part to little George Breakstone who substituted. But nobody has ever heard of George since; and Mickey is still very much around. Forty pictures he has made in the last year and a half. Fighting Freddie Bartholomew pretty even in "Little Lord Fauntleroy," "The Devil Is a Sissy," "Captains Courageous" and "Lord Jeff." Going to town to the tune of nation-wide approval in "Love Finds Andy Hardy." Everywhere drawing the professional praise of directors, other stars, critics. But what had happened to Mickey Rooney personally, I didn't know. He must have grown up by now, I thought. Good Heavens! He might have even turned into a young gentleman! IlllCKEY said, sure, come on out for lunch. Maybe you, like me, have been under the impression Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was owned by the Schencks, Louis B. Mayer and a few thousand scattered stockholders. Let me correct you: Mickey Rooney owns the joint. He strode ahead to the commissary, all the five feet, one inch of him, solid as mahogany, tough as hickory; cocky and strutting. If you have ever watched kid stars mince self-consciously about studio lots hand-in-hand with loving parents or doting relatives you'll realize what a welcome relief is Mickey Rooney 's assertive get-along. People passed, front office big shots, directors, stars, grips, props, gaffers, mugs. "Hi, Butch!" signalled Mickey. "Nutsy, boy!" "Yah, Fred — how'djuh come out on tha third race?" "A great gang around this lot," confided Mickey. "Regular Jo's." In the commissary we brushed by Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy, at a table. "Hi, boys," said Mickey. Then to me, "A couple of pretty good actors." Above the clatter of plates and dishes and excited hum which is a studio beanery at noon, Mickey Rooney, seventeen, held forth on the really important goings-on of life as he found them. "Women," stated Mickey flatly, "are the bunk. Nuts to 'em." I thought of Tarkington's tortured "Seventeen" and sighed. But, of course, Hollywood's no small town. "Yeah," croaked the Mick, "a lotta janes did me wrong — so nuts to 'em. The boys and me decided to give 'em the atmosphere. We play poker and pal around, you know, just the boys." The waitress came up. Mickey slipped her a loving pat. "I'll have the salad, dear," said Mickey, seventeen. "Okay, honey," said the waitress, thirty-five. "I'm in training," offered Mickey, explaining the salad. "It's awful — no fancy foods, no dissipation — can't even shave." fided, sotto voce, "is just publicity." He winked. I winked. Mickey has always been unusually active in extra-studio shebangs. He used to have a peewee football team, three or four years ago, that ran out on the field between the Los Angeles professional gridiron games. He had a twelve-piece jazz band once. He was junior Ping-pong champ of something or other the last time I heard. He used to dodge around the L. A. Tennis Club cooking up this and that. It was a sight to see him batting balls against six-foot Lester Stoefen. "Yeah," said Mickey, and his tone was slightly wistful. "You see, if I didn't do those things, I'd miss the fun the rest of the kids get. I never got to go to public school. I was always making pictures, studying on the lot. I had to stir things up — or, well, I guess I'd have been pretty lonesome." He's always got what he wanted though, even if it took some stirring. When Mickey was just a little squirt around eleven he had ambitions for an A Queen of the Screen rode pickaback on a Queen of the Stage when Shirley Temple was guest of honor at a tea given by Gertrude Lawrence on her recent holiday in Bermuda The training to which he referred was for the Big Game, Sunday. It was a sell-out, he said; he'd been peddling tickets all over the lot for weeks, and training like an acrobat. His team, Mickey Rooney's M-G-M Lions, stacked up against the Sequoia Panthers, another kid outfit. Wayne Morris was to be head linesman, Gene Autry, field judge and Jackie Coogan, umpire; it was all set to be the battle of the Century. The newsboys got the gate receipts. M-G-M had forked out six hundred frogskins for uniforms and Clark Gable had promised to show up and lead a cheer or something. Mickey, of course, was the quarterback. "Then it's true," I ventured, "that Freddie Bartholomew's going to play a blocking back as advertised?" "Haw, haw," chortled Mickey. "Him? Say, this is a real game. That," he con automobile. His mother thought he was much too young, which he was, and that he'd surely kill himself in a car. So, instead, she handed him fifteen dollars for a bicycle. In a few days, Mickey showed up, not with a bike, but a car. He'd scoured the old car lots and found one — for fifteen bucks! Mickey speared a sheaf of lettuce. "I've always been a little guy," he said. "I guess I'll never be much bigger; my folks were little. But," he brightened, "maybe I'm lucky at that. I've never been shoved out of the money like a lot of kids when they got awkward. I got the nicest flock of annuities you ever saw." One, continued Mickey, pays him $750 a month when he's twenty-one and $1000 a month when he's thirty, which ain't exactly hay. "Sure," said Mickey, slightly piqued when I put the question, "I handle my own dough — what you think I am— £ baby? Listen, I've always worn lonj pants. Never had a pair of bloomers or in my life!" Another nice thing about being a perpetual peewee, said Mickey, was tha you could get away with murder witl the dames. He made hot love to Pa tricia Ellis without any kicks when h was only thirteen — on the screen o course. "But girls are out now," reaffirmec Mickey. "I'm through with 'em." A lovely little dream with carame! hair and big round eyes sat down a the next table. The M-G-M commis sary is always crammed with star tling unknown bit-and-exti-a beauties Mickey halted his fork halfway to the hopper. "U-m-m-m-m," he said. "Would like her for Christmas!" UlS pals, Mickey informed me, were assorted — Frankie Darro; a bunch of boys' names I didn't know, Woody Van Dyke, the director, and Spencer Tracy. No gals. Judy Garland? "Just the old build-up," assured Mickey. "Don't you believe it. I haven't got any time for kids. Listen, I work." He figured it out. He averaged a picture and a half a month or more. But, J at that, it was a cinch, Mickey said. I "I never study any scripts at home,"" he scoffed. "A lot of guys do, but that's a lot of spinach." A studio scenarist passed by our table. Mickey collared him. "Say," he said, "about that script. I read it over the other day and my part looks a little weak. Now here's what I thought — " They argued it earnestly for five minutes. "The trouble with living, though," said Mickey, returning to me, "is the twists. Too many dames hanging around." "Dessert?" said the waitress. "Well now, dear," replied Mickey, staring boldly across the hall, "if you could bring me that cutie over there with the streamlined gams and that come-hither look for dessert, I might talk business." The waitress giggled. She said the cutie wasn't on the menu — only chocolate, strawberry and vanilla ice cream and the pudding. "No dice," croaked Mickey. He rose. "Well," he informed me, "I've gotta go. Think I'll drop some money with the bookies this afternoon. You got the dope on me, haven't you?" "Sure," I said. "Swell," approved Mickey. "Just say I'm a regular guy with a regular gang, that's all. Say I can take care of myself all right. And — say that as far as I'm concerned — dames are the bunk!" "Oh, sure," I agreed. "The bunk — absolutely." Mickey shook hands. "Well, so long," he said. He whirled and shot through the broken field of tablecloths; waitresses dodged nimbly to one side. Two little blonde extras at one table inched their chairs over nervously as Mickey passed. In their eyes were looks of mild terror. And in mine, I'm sure, was a happy reassured gleam. Neither the years nor the movies had softened up the one genuine tough little nut in Hollywood. Seventeen or seven, he was still Mickey (himself) McGuire, rough and tough and hard to bluff. Mickey Rooney is still Mickey the McCoy. And nobody knows it better than himself. 76 PHOTO PLAY