Mickey Rooney: Looney Tunes
Mickey Rooney, 89 (not dead, just better), is currently onstage in London in a panto. An interviewer over there who made the mistake of trying to profile him got a lot of evasive answers and some that were downright loony: ‘For instance, he has written that he had an affair with Norma Shearer, an established star at MGM. “Norma made it very clear that she wanted me,” he wrote. “I put up no further resistance.” She was 38, he was 19. “No,” he says, when I inquire, “I didn’t date her.” But you wrote that you did, I say. “There were things in the book that were not true,” he says, slowly. But you wrote it! “I know,” he says, “but it is not true.”‘ Like George W. Bush, Mickey Rooney is not a member of the reality-based community.
