Private Screenings: Mickey Rooney

Mickey Rooney joins host Robert Osborne on the TCM set to discuss his 70 plus years in Hollywood in Private Screenings: Mickey Rooney (1997). Among the highlights featured in the special, are Rooney's remembrances of Judy Garland, his frequent co-star in movies like Strike Up the Band (1940) and Girl Crazy(1943). Rooney calls Garland "his sister from the beginning." He also recalls fondly, musical director Busby Berkeley who helmed several successful Rooney-Garland collaborations, including Babes in Arms, for which Rooney received his first of four Oscar® nominations.

Rooney focuses more on his overall Hollywood experience rather than commenting on specific films. His career, which began at the tender age of 18 months in his parents' vaudeville act, continued in a series of fifty silent Mickey McGuire comedies (between 1927 and 1933) and culminated in an MGM contract in 1934. Rooney was just 14 years old when he signed with MGM, and running counter to other child stars, he remembers the time as "thrillingly frightening" and the studio as supportive and "a wonderland." The one film Rooney does mention in detail is Killer McCoy (1947), where a dispute with director Roy Rowland caused the actor to walk off the set. The movie was a turning point in Rooney's career, a time of transition from Andy Hardy type juvenile roles to the character pieces that would sustain his career for decades to come.

BW & C-41m. Closed Captioning.

by Stephanie Thames