Mickey Rooney's life read like a B movie: fame and
fortune far too young with far too little understanding, followed by
wild excesses and extreme poverty and a final act of redemption. As a
script it would have undoubtedly been rejected.
He will forever be linked with Judy Garland, two hugely
talented young performers who struggled to deal with the realities of
life once the director yelled "cut". Theirs was a partnership born in a
very different moment in time in the film industry and in our culture.
On the heels of the Great Depression and on the eve of war, we were a
country less cynical and more willing to embrace the promise of hope.
Rooney and Garland captured this with a spark of the spirit and the
twinkle of the eye.
And one other item caught my attention as I read the NY Times
piece on the life of Mr. Rooney: how hard working an actor he was at the
height of his stardom. We have grown accustomed to our biggest stars
appearing before us for a brief moment and then disappearing into the
night. Not so in the days when there were contracts with studios and
even a Mickey Rooney had a clock to punch and a job to go to every day.
He was a little man of big stature, and though his star
certainly faded over the years, he will hopefully be remembered kindly
by history as something more than a meteor who shined for a moment and
then burnt out.
No comments:
Post a Comment