[4] At the height of a career ultimately marked by declines and comebacks, Rooney performed the role of Andy Hardy in a series of 16 films in the 1930s and 1940s that epitomized the mainstream United States self-image.

[4] Clarence Brown, who directed him in two of his earliest dramatic roles in National Velvet and The Human Comedy, said Rooney was "the closest thing to a genius" with whom he had ever worked.

Drafted into the military during World War II, Rooney served nearly two years, entertaining over two million troops on stage and radio.

However, numerous low-budget, but critically well-received pictures through the mid-1950s had Rooney playing lead dramatic roles in what were later regarded as films noir.

[8] His mother was an American former chorus girl and burlesque performer from Kansas City, Missouri, while his father was a Scottish-born vaudevillian, who had emigrated to New York from Glasgow with his family at the age of three months.

[4][13] Rooney got bit parts in films such as The Beast of the City (1932) and The Life of Jimmy Dolan (1933), which allowed him to work alongside stars such as Joel McCrea, Colleen Moore, Clark Gable, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., John Wayne, and Jean Harlow.

Although some critics describe the series of films as "sweet, overly idealized, and pretty much interchangeable," their ultimate success was because they gave viewers a "comforting portrait of small-town America that seemed suited for the times", with Rooney instilling "a lasting image of what every parent wished their teen could be like".

[30][31] Jane Ellen Wayne describes one of the "most famous scenes" in the film, where tough young Rooney is playing poker with a cigarette in his mouth, his hat is cocked, and his feet are up on the table.

[32] For their roles in Boys Town, Rooney and Tracy won first and second place in the Motion Picture Herald 1940 National Poll of Exhibitors, based on the box-office appeal of 200 players.

1 box office bait in 1939 was not Clark Gable, Errol Flynn, or Tyrone Power, but a rope-haired, kazoo-voiced kid with a comic-strip face, who until this week had never appeared in a picture without mugging or overacting it.

[37] Rooney's "bumptiousness and boyish charm" as an actor developed more "smoothness and polish" over the years, writes biographer Scott Eyman.

[40] He served more than 21 months (until shortly after the end of World War II), entertaining the troops in America and Europe in Special Services Jeep Shows.

He spent part of the time as a radio personality on the American Forces Network, and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for entertaining troops in combat zones.

His New York Times obituary reported, "at one point in 1950, the only job he could get was touring Southern states with the Hadacol Caravan", promoting a patent medicine that was later forced off the market.

[49] In 1958, Rooney joined Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra in hosting an episode of NBC's short-lived Club Oasis comedy and variety show.

[54][55] In 1966, Rooney was working on the film Ambush Bay in the Philippines when his wife Barbara Ann Thomason—a former model and aspiring actress who had won 17 straight beauty contests in Southern California—was found dead in her bed in Los Angeles.

[56] Francis Ford Coppola had bought the rights to make The Black Stallion (1979), and when casting it, he called Rooney and asked him if he thought he could play a jockey.

[57] The film garnered excellent reviews and earned $40 million in its first run, which gave Coppola's struggling studio, American Zoetrope, a significant boost.

(1964),[65] The Fugitive, Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre, The Jean Arthur Show (1966),[65] The Name of the Game (1970),[62] Dan August (1970),[66] Night Gallery (1970),[66] The Love Boat,[67] Kung Fu: The Legend Continues (1995),[66] Murder, She Wrote (1992),[66] and The Golden Girls (1988)[66] among many others.

Rooney garnered a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or a Special for his role in 1981's Bill.

His acting quality in the film has been favorably compared to other actors who took on similar roles, including Sean Penn, Dustin Hoffman, and Tom Hanks.

[73] A major turning point came in 1979, when Rooney made his Broadway debut in the acclaimed stage play Sugar Babies, a musical revue tribute to the burlesque era co-starring former MGM dancing star Ann Miller.

[54] Biographer Alvin Marill states, "at 59, Mickey Rooney was reincarnated as a baggy-pants comedian—back as a top banana in show biz in his belated Broadway debut.

Vanity Fair called it "a homespun affair full of dog-eared jokes" that featured Rooney singing George Gershwin songs.

He made his British pantomime debut, playing Baron Hardup in Cinderella, at the Sunderland Empire Theatre over the 2007 Christmas period,[84][85] a role he reprised at Bristol Hippodrome in 2008 and at the Milton Keynes theater in 2009.

[86] In 2011, Rooney made a cameo appearance in The Muppets, and in 2014, at age 93, six weeks before his death, he reprised his role as Gus in Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, which was dedicated to Robin Williams, who also died that year, and to him.

"[82] An October 2015 article in The Hollywood Reporter maintained that Rooney was frequently abused and financially depleted by his closest relatives in the last years of his life.

[88] Rooney died of natural causes (including complications from diabetes) in Studio City, Los Angeles, California, on April 6, 2014,[103] at the age of 93.

[110] MGM boss Louis B. Mayer treated him like a son and saw in Rooney "the embodiment of the amiable American boy who stands for family, humbug, and sentiment," wrote critic and author David Thomson.

"[61] Film historian Jeanine Basinger observed while his career "reached the heights and plunged to the depths, Rooney kept on working and growing, the mark of a professional."