Mickey Rooney: The Last Male Star
When I say that Mickey Rooney was the last male star, I mean that he was the last male star alive from Hollywood’s Golden Age: when stars could be manufactured, as Mickey was, by a mogul like Louis B. Mayer. I am aware that Kirk Douglas is still alive, but he didn’t become a screen star until 1946, well past what I consider the pinnacle, the late 1930s. And it was in the late 1930s and early 1940s that Rooney ruled. In 1939, 1940, and 1941, he was the biggest draw at the box office. He seemed the epitome of the beaming boy next door. It was only later that we learned he was in reality a horny toad, shtupping the likes of Norma Shearer, then the Queen of MGM. Click here for a photo gallery of Rooney’s career.
