Mickey Rooney: Elder abuse hearing caps 80-year career
(CBS) Mickey Rooney appeared before Congress Wednesday to testify about elder abuse. The 90-year-old star is used to being in the spotlight, but usually for happier reasons.
Rooney - born Ninian Joseph Rule Jr. - began his career in the 1920s, appearing in shorts under the name Mickey McGuire. He became a bona fide movie star in the late 1930s with the advent of the Andy Hardy film series, in which he played the son of a judge.
Raising his status was his pairing with Judy Garland in the 1937 movie "Thoroughbreds Don't Cry." She and Rooney starred in the fourth Andy Hardy film, "Love Finds Andy Hardy" - the first to feature the character's name in the title - and they made a total of nine films together.
In the late 1930s and early 1940s Rooney was a huge box office draw. He's also acted in "National Velvet" with Elizabeth Taylor, "Breakfast at Tiffany's," "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World," and more recently, "Babe: Pig in the City," and "Night at the Museum." He received an honorary Oscar in 1983.
Rooney's off-screen life has brought nearly as much attention as his film and television work. Between 1942 and 1975 Rooney married seven times. He married his eighth and current wife, Jan Chamberlin, in 1978. She's the mother of Christopher Aber, against whom Rooney has a temporary restraining order.