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TV cast: Regis Toomey and Claire Carle- ton (bottom) are featured with Rooney and Carla Balenda (top) in the comedies. up in Compton and a graduate of Compton Junior College, she was as far removed from show business as Mickey was from the atmosphere of the Hardy family he “lived” with for 12 years at M-G-M. Under her firm but apparently gentle hand, he has given up his smoking, his gambling and his money. Rooney, once the little terror of Hollywood, now has three piggy banks scattered about his Wood¬ land Hills home, and he empties his pockets into them every night. “When I first knew Mickey,” Elaine says, “he thought nothing of throwing a hundred dollar bill onto a Las Vegas dice table. Now he bets a five, and he has to come to me to get it. I never had much money, so I’m just naturally careful with it.” Mickey’s tremendous enthusiasm for life has been channeled into strange ports for a guy who once boasted of having two movie stars (Ava Gardner and Martha Vickers) and a beauty contest winner (towering Betty Jane Rase), as his one-at-a-time wives. “Mickey Rooney Enterprises is a real going proposition,” he says, the pride squeaking out all over. “We’ll do 6 39 Mickey Rooney Show films for NBC. We’re financing two pilot films: Date Line Tokyo, with Dane Clark, and The Magic Lantern, starring Sabu. We’re gonna do a picture called ‘The Atomic Kid.’ And I’ve got two more scripts ready to go. I’m reaching the point—honest—where I get my kicks watching the new kids coming up.” Mickey’s TV show, which has been two years in the planning, is based on his characterization of Mickey Mulligan, a network page. The perma¬ nent cast includes Regis Toomey and Claire Carleton as his parents, Joey Forman as his pal, John Hubbard as his boss and a pert newcomer, Carla Balenda, as a network secretary arid his girl. The pilot film, which the Hollywood wheels all got a look at last spring, is generally called one of the funniest half-hour films ever. If the rest are as good, Rooney has all the makings of the show of the year on his hands. The lone stumbling block is the fact that he is spotted smack opposite Jackie Gleason Satur¬ day nights. The Mickey of old would have jutted his chin and snapped, “I’ll murder that bum.” Instead, he shakes his head admiringly and says, “That Gleason, he’s one of the great¬ est. I hope I can do just half as good.” This is a far cry from the chip-toting Rooney who tried to elbow his way back into Hollywood’s upper ranks after World War II, wagging his jaw and dragging his talent behind him. The “Hardy” films had about worn out their welcome with the general public, and so had Mickey. He was too old to go on being Andy Hardy, too young for the dramatic parts he wanted. When he was neither getting married nor getting divorced, he was making bad pictures. “That was a real dry spot, that post¬ war period,” Mickey says now, “but I sure learned a lot from it. And I even got a second chance. How many guys are that lucky?”