The Life and Times of Mickey Rooney

by Richard A. Lertzman

  Golf had become a passion with Mickey, who had been shooting in the low 80s at the Lakeside Country Club. It was a sport where size did not matter, as long as you could swing a driver and lay down a putt. It was the great equalizer. Mickey did not care that his new wife didn’t play the sport. She could follow him around this challenging course for eighteen holes, and he could show off his prowess. Ava recalled, “I had to learn to play golf quickly otherwise I’d never see the boy. He continued to be a fanatical golfer but whenever he got in a slump, he’d break our clubs. . . . He had a real Irish temper.”42

  When it came to being a husband, however, Mickey was clueless. He had no idea what his domestic duties were during their honeymoon with regard to companionship or anything other than sex. While Ava enjoyed spending the time just lazing around the hotel suite and enjoying the breathtaking views of the Monterey coast, Mickey was loaded with energy. He detested sitting around a hotel room. He liked constant motion. He would call his cronies and bookies back in Los Angeles, missing the action. He needed action. He needed to be involved and on the move. To be sure, Rooney had a thoroughly chauvinistic upbringing. He was raised to believe that a wife should look pretty, keep him company at dinner, not complain when he was out with the boys, and be ready to jump in the sack whenever the mood hit him.

  Ava, meanwhile, was beginning to realize that she may have made a mistake and gotten herself into a mess. She was spending more time with Les Peterson than with her groom. During Mickey’s long absences, Peterson kept Ava company by playing cards with her, entertaining her with stories about the studio, and treating her to ice cream and chocolate sodas, as she had no real money of her own. Ava remarked to Peter Evans, “He was pleasant enough company, but he was not a substitute for a real husband.”43

  Yet Ava was tired of being confined to her room and tired of Les. She was therefore relieved when Peterson announced to the couple, four days into the honeymoon, that they should pack their bags, as they were now embarking on a long promotional tour for the new Hardy picture, The Courtship of Andy Hardy.

  “We drove to San Francisco,” Peterson recalled, “and checked into the Palace Hotel, where we got the Presidential Suite—the same suite where President Harding died.”44 Peterson had been married for three years, to actress Eleanor Stewart, who became known as one of the queens of the Westerns, appearing in the William Boyd/Hopalong Cassidy films. Les understood what it was like to be married to an entertainer. Ava, too, would soon find out what it meant.

  Out on the road for the promotional tour, Mickey was mobbed when he made his appearances at the premiere. The Courtship of Andy Hardy was the fourteenth Hardy film, with no sign of the series tiring or fear of saturation. The film, which costarred Donna Reed, cost only $329,000 to produce and turned a profit of over $2 million just domestically. Big-budget films that year, such as MGM’s Woman of the Year, Random Harvest, or Mrs. Miniver, cost three times as much and turned a far smaller profit. The Rooney/Hardy films were in essence cheap programmers that kept MGM in the black.

  While Mickey spent the day being interviewed, photographed, and fawned over, Ava sat in a corner looking pretty—and was totally bored. Since Peterson was a native of the area, he took Ava and Mickey on a sightseeing tour of the city, riding the cable cars, eating in Chinatown, cruising the bay in a boat, and being mobbed by fans everywhere they went. On their second day, it was reported that Carol Lombard had died in a plane crash while on a war bond tour, and the Andy Hardy appearances were temporarily put on hold for a day, out of respect for Lombard, but also for Clark Gable. That was the only respite to the newspaper exposure that followed Mickey and Ava’s tour. The next day, Howard Strickling told Peterson to continue the tour, and the Mickey media frenzy resumed.

  “My wife arrived by train, after Mickey finished his business in San Francisco,” Peterson recalled, “and we proceeded to Chicago by Union Pacific. We spent the night at the Ambassador East and did some more promotion for the picture, then took the Twentieth Century for New York. We checked into the New Yorker Hotel, because Mickey and I were old friends of the proprietor.”45 Mack Kanner, who had built the forty-three-story hotel, had been rumored to be connected to organized crime in his development of the Garment District. He was also a close friend of Eddie Mannix.

  As Ava recalled, Rooney took New York by storm, mobbed by fans as he plugged the new Hardy picture. He was the typical Mickey for the reporters: a little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down his pants.

  Mickey appeared at a war bond rally, attended a couple of charity events, met with New York gossip columnists such as Walter Winchell and Ed Sullivan, and was greeted like a conquering hero, playing up each appearance as much as he could, with all his charm and charisma. Mickey was splashed across all the New York daily newspapers. He had a meeting with the executives at Loews, who owned MGM, including the chairman, Nicholas Schenck, Mayer’s boss and arch enemy. Schenck was also one of the richest men in America. Mickey Rooney later said, “Nick Schenck was a very strange man.”46

  Bappie came to New York and joined the tour. Mickey was thrilled. Now Ava had a shopping companion. The studio gave Ava an expense account, and she and her sister went shopping in the elegant stores along Fifth Avenue. She was looking for an outfit to wear to President Roosevelt’s birthday ball on January 30, to which Mickey and his traveling companions had been invited. Mickey, Ava, Les, and Bappie were to attend the party and have dinner with the president. Afterward, they were invited to stay and watch FDR deliver one of his Fireside Chats on the radio.

  After New York, it was on to Boston, where Mickey was scheduled to entertain at a Red Feather Community Chest function, where Mickey and Ava hobnobbed with the Cabots and Lodges. Mickey was still the center of attention, yet this time not so favorably: Reporter E. J. Kahn of The New Yorker was less than impressed with the young actor, writing in the January 20, 1942, issue, “He tries to prove himself a man of intelligence and knowledge by talking rapidly and loudly on every subject under the sun and gesturing with his hands. . . . [I]f you asked him for the time, he’d end up telling you how a watch was made. . . . [H]e considers himself an authority on everything.” It must have rankled Strickling that Mickey was out of his sphere of control in New York City, where the publicity head could not quash this type of negativity.

  It was then on to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where training was under way for World War II and where Mickey would do some photo opportunities with the soldiers. E. J. Kahn wrote about the visit in the same New Yorker article, mocking Mickey’s indifference to the men. “He seemed only moderately interested in the activities of the enlisted men. His manager [most likely Les Peterson] spent most of his time looking at his watch.” It’s not clear if Mickey was fazed by the New Yorker article. But with the external pressure of the tour schedule, his desire to get back to California, his need to figure out how to meld himself into married life, or his narcissism—why should the issues of other people have had any impact on him?

  As for Ava, she had mixed feelings about the tour. She believed her contribution was to be the eye candy while Mickey was honored at every stop. She recalled:

  [W]e took off on a whistle stop tour selling war bonds and Mickey’s new movie. Chicago, Boston, Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Washington, God knows where else.

  But wherever we went, thousands of screaming bobby-soxers were there to mob him. I swear to you, they were every bit as wild as Frank’s [Sinatra] fans when he was at the top. It was phenomenal . . . the enthusiasm, the hysteria of those kids made me understand why Mayer was so fucking desperate to keep our marriage off the front pages.

  Les Peterson, who was still with us, never introduced me as Mickey Rooney’s wife, which pissed me off. I knew he was only doing what Mayer had told him to do—as Eddie Mannix was only doing what Mayer told him to do when he put the skids under my dreams of a white wedding. That was another thing that pissed me off: everybody obeyed Louis B. Mayer.

  Les said all I had to do was
sit on the arm of Mick’s chair at the press conferences and keep looking at him like a fan, like I was one of the bloody bobby-soxers—oh, and I had to make sure the reporters got a good look at my pins! He was incorrigible. “I’m only doing my job, honey,” he’d say whenever I put up a squawk.

  But I was enjoying myself, so was Mickey. We were two kids having a whale of a time. We never for a minute forgot that it was our honeymoon! We were discovering new things about each other all the time—as I said, there was plenty of scope for that! Like he was athletic in the sack, and I was plenty verbal, and we were very, very loud!

  It was a hoot, and we made sure there was always time for a quickie. I was seeing and doing things I never thought I would do and see in my life.

  In Boston we had dinner at the mayor’s house. . . . From Fort Bragg we took a side trip to Raleigh to visit Mama. [Her mother was dying of cancer.] This was the first time she had met Mickey, and she’d gotten dressed up to the nines. He made such a fuss of her. My whole family turned out for him. . . . And Lord, when Mickey had an audience was he good. He did his impersonations, he sang, he danced. He clowned. He was the complete movie star and Mama loved her movie stars! He made her the center of attention. It was probably the last truly great day of her life. . . . I’ve never been able to express my gratitude for the things that touch me deeply and nothing had ever touched me as deeply as Mickey’s performance for Mama that day. He treated her like a queen.

  It went downhill so fucking fast from there. . . . If the sex hadn’t been so good, it wouldn’t have lasted as long as it lasted. It’s a pity nobody believes in simple lust anymore.47

  Mickey agreed—and years later, in Life Is Too Short, he said, “We were both athletic in bed, and pretty verbal, too. Once Ava lost her Southern reticence, she seemed to enjoy using the f-word. And I didn’t mind a bit, when, for example, she would look me straight in the eye, raise a provocative eyebrow, and say, ‘Let’s fuck, Mickey. Now.’ Some years later, Hedda Hopper would say of Ava, ‘That girl was made to love and be loved.’ I had to agree with that judgment.”48

  In Washington the couple went directly to the president’s birthday ball, on January 30. Peterson recalled, “Ava, Bappie, Mickey and I all sat at one table. And there was the usual empty place for Roosevelt. After we were there for a while, Roosevelt wheeled over in his wheelchair and had one course with us. He had a hard time taking his eyes off Ava, then duty called and he said goodbye, thanked us for coming and wheeled over to another table.”49

  The next day, Mickey made a few war bond appearances. The war effort was fully under way, and the Hollywood Victory Committee went into a full court press with a war bond rally that started at this event in the nation’s capital. They had recruited many of the leading actors and actresses, which included Mickey, Jimmy Stewart (now Lieutenant Stewart), William Holden, Betty Grable, Rosalind Russell, and Pat O’Brien, to push the effort. After the events, Mickey and Ava joined the group on the Sante Fe Chief’s special train back to Los Angeles. War was just over the Pacific horizon, there were movies to make, war bonds to sell, and the Rooneys’ honeymoon was officially over.

  12

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  The First Divorce

  Neither Mickey nor Martha Vickers appears happy as they sign their marriage application in Las Vegas on June 4, 1949.

  PHOTO COURTESY OF PAM MCCLENATHAN.

  When Mickey and Ava returned to Los Angeles on the Santa Fe Special, which pulled into historic Union Station, it was back to reality. They settled into their new apartment at the Wilshire Palms, and Mickey started work immediately on the film A Yank at Eton.

  But it was more than back to work; it was back to Mickey’s old life. Whereas Ava wanted to settle into a life of domesticity, Mickey would have none of it. Growing up as he had, always on the road, with a dad who was hardly around, Mickey didn’t know what a good marriage was. Thus, his marriage to Ava was troubled almost right from the start.

  For Mickey it seemed that this marriage was just an episode to be quickly set aside as he resumed his daily life with work, calling his bookies from the studio, trying to escape work early to head to the track or the golf course, and clubbing at night. Ava, at this point, was still too shy for the fast lane Mickey sought. She wanted her new husband to come home to their apartment, where she could cook some Southern dishes, listen to records, or talk. Their concept of marriage was totally different. Ava was traditional, and looking to be domestic; while Mickey was still a twenty-one-year-old boy caught up in the Hollywood life. They came from different universes.

  Mickey, however, was oblivious to this, and believed that their mutual sexual attraction was all they needed. He recalled:

  Oh, we told ourselves that we were very much in love, and our sex life helped us in that particular piece of self-deception. Once Ava got into the spirit of things, she wanted to do it all the time. And she quickly learned what it was that turned me on about her. Let me count the ways: a smoldering look, a laugh, a tear, kicking off her shoes as soon as she got in the house, getting all dolled up, not getting all dolled up, coming down to breakfast in a pair of shorts—and no top at all. In bed, let’s just say that Ava was . . . well, she had this little rosebud down there at the center of her femininity that seemed to have a life of its own. I am not talking about muscles. One gal I knew had trained her muscles, so that she could snap carrots in her pussy, not hands. But Ava had something different. She had this little extra—it was almost like a little warm mouth—that would reach up and grab me and take me in and make my, uh, my heart swell. She also had big brown nipples, which, when she was aroused, stood out like some double-long golden California raisins. And I sucked those warm breasts, I did taste her mother’s milk.1

  Sidney Miller told us that he was the first dinner guest of the Rooneys when they returned to Los Angeles. “It was like two different worlds. Ava was far more mature and respectful of marriage. She kept house, cooked, decorated, and really tried to make Mickey a home. Mickey had schpilkas and had to always be on the go. He couldn’t just sit in that apartment while Ava was content to. I mean you could see they were in love, but they were miles apart.”

  Ava told Peter Evans:

  The idea of being married had always appealed to me, and I was hopelessly in love with him by this time. We lived in a tiny apartment on Wilshire and Palm Drive in Westwood that we’d rented from Red Skelton. One bedroom, living room, kitchen, and a tiny dining room. (There’s a big high rise there now.) We were out all the time. . . . Oh God, Mickey and I were out practically every night of our lives together. We danced, he drank a fair amount—I was catching on pretty fast. But Mick was working every day, too. He was carrying the weight of the studio on his shoulders. I don’t know how he did it. We had a damn good goosefeather mattress. I supposed that helped the boy!

  I wasn’t working. . . . For a couple of months anyway I had no doubt that Mick was going to be my mate for eternity. We were seen everywhere together, Hollywood’s most devoted couple. Well that’s what I believed anyway. We were madly in love. We were screwing a lot.

  A week or so after we got back from our honeymoon, I . . . [had] an inflamed appendix. [After the surgery I] stayed in the hospital for three weeks. So I came home and the first night I found evidence that Mick had been screwing someone in our bed. On the fucking goosefeather mattress! That ain’t a very nice thing for a nineteen-year-old bride, quite pretty, too, to discover. I’d been away for three weeks and he’d already dragged somebody into our bed. I don’t know who the hell it was but I knew that somebody had been keeping my side of the bed warm!

  I remember it had something to do with a douche bag—somebody had been using my douche bag. I had what they called a tipped infantile uterus. . . . [O]ne time with Mickey I experimented with a rubber. I didn’t like it one bit. No, no, no. But I never got pregnant, not until I was married to Frank anyway.

  Anyway, I knew that somebody had been using my stuff. I called Bappie. She said d
on’t you dare touch it! Get the little bastard to clean up his own fucking mess. He denied it, of course. He played the little innocent. Nobody could pile on the applesauce like Mickey. He was the best liar in the world—well Frank Sinatra can tell a good story, too. . . .

  Mickey tried to make-up for the rotten douche bag business. . . . He bought us a small house in Bel Air, which I helped to choose and decorate. . . .

  Mick also bought me the most beautiful diamond ring, a real iceberg—and asked for it back the following week to pay off his bookies. . . .

  Actually I didn’t mind the ring going back, well not too much, anyway—diamonds are an acquired taste and at nineteen I still hadn’t acquired it. . . . His relationship with his bookies was built on eternal optimism. . . . He had a kind of cartoon resilience.

  But once I knew he was fooling around, even though he continued to deny it, I should have checked out right there. Even though I knew the girls he was screwing didn’t mean a thing to him. . . . He was just a lecherous sod who loved getting his rocks off. Everybody was fucking everybody in those days. Maybe it was the war! Lana Turner, who had become a good friend of mine, knew how distraught I was. She said a fuck meant nothing to men like Mickey. I should just brush it aside, she said.

  “Well if you’re not going to leave him, you must do something to let the little bastard know how you feel,” Lana said.

  That night we had dinner at Chasen’s. Afterward, Mickey insisted on buying drinks for the whole bar. I knew that once he bought for the bar, he’d have to stay around until the bar bought drinks for him. It was a machismo thing. . . .

  I knew the marriage was not going to last anyway. We were playing injury time with benefits—for both of us! We both liked screwing too much to give that up cold turkey. . . .