£1000 A WEEK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 April 1940, Page 9

£1000 A WEEK

MICKEY ROONEY’S SALARY. BOX OFFICE STAR OF YEAR. It may be impossible to have too much of a good thing, but many people are beginning to wonder if we are not having too much of Mickey Rooney. Let me hasten to assure (says the writer in a film magazine) that this is not a personal prejudice; I can take my Andy Hardy or leave it alone. No, as a matter of fact, those who are most worried by the problem whether or not to ration Mickey are film executives responsible for marketing the talents and manly beauty of the Great (Puppy) Lover. Mickey in the box-office star of the year. His name pulls more dollars into American ticket offices than that of any other player in the business. In Great Britain he is second in popularity only to that other ’teen-age wonder, Deanna Durbin. The value his employers place on his srvices may be judged by his recent rise in salary from £250 to £lOOO a week. He is, however, in a unique position for a ranking star. Unlike any of his predecessors as King of the Box-Office, he owes much of his popularity to a screen series—the Hardy pictures. This series is one of the studio’s most valuable assets. The Hardy films make more money than the Hollywood epics. To drop them would be unthinkable. And Mickey Rooney’s presence in the cast is essential to their success. As a result, the young actor is called upon to carry a far bigger programme of pictures than is generally considered good for the stellar health of a film player. The situation is further complicated by the action of exhibitors who. not unnaturally anxious to "cash in” on Rooney’s phenomenal present popularity, give his contribution a prominence not always intended by the producers. In the next twelve months Mickey is scheduled to appear in at least ten films (most big stars insist that four pictures a year are too many)., These include his Hardy Family commitments and “Young Tom Edison,” an ambitious story of the early life of the great inventor.