MICKEY ROONEY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 January 1940, Page 2

MICKEY ROONEY

Mickey Rooney first succeeded on the stage when he was 11 months old. To yonug to walk, he crawled on the stage, where his father and mother were performing, and stopped the show. Since then he has won success in every venture he has undertaken. At the moment his object is to learn the intricacies of direction. He has given up his dance orchestra to study directing. When he enters a new field he is obliged to sacrifice some recreation or “business” because of lack of time. He gave up the orchestra because that was the most successful of his current sidelines. Mickey and Sidney Miller, have written dozens of tunes, one of which. “Mister Heartbreak,” was a great success. “I Swear by my Eyes,” a ballad, is the latest. Rooney is most adept at learning dance routines, to. He learned a difficult soft-shoe dance routine he does with Judy Garland in a picture in but three days. “It usually takes veterans a week, and the average dancer ten days,” said Busby Berkeley. He recently bought an old car and has rebuilt it into a racing car, and he is no slouch when it comes Io sports. Football is his favourite. He is the Southern Californian champion for boys of his age at ping-pong, scores in the low eighties at golf, and holds his own against some boxers well known in California.