Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney was born Joe Yule Jr. on September 23, 1920 in Brooklyn, New York. He first took the stage as a toddler in his parents vaudeville act at 17 months old. He made his first film appearance in 1926. The following year, he played the lead character in the first Mickey McGuire short film. It was in this popular film series that he took the stage name Mickey Rooney. Rooney reached new heights in 1937 with A Family Affair, the film that introduced the country to Andy Hardy, the popular all-American teenager. This beloved character appeared in nearly 20 films and helped make Rooney the top star at the box office in 1939, 1940 and 1941. Rooney also proved himself an excellent dramatic actor as a delinquent in Boys Town (1938) starring Spencer Tracy. In 1938, he was awarded a Juvenile Academy Award. Teaming up with Judy Garland, Rooney also appeared in a string of musicals, including Babes in Arms (1939) the first teenager to be nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor in a leading role, Strike Up the Band (1940), Babes on Broadway (1941), and Girl Crazy (1943). He and Garland immediately became best of friends. "We weren't just a team, we were magic," Rooney once said. During that time he also appeared with Elizabeth Taylor in the now classic National Velvet (1944). Rooney joined the service that same year, where he helped to entertain the troops and worked on the American Armed Forces Network. He returned to Hollywood after 21 months in Love Laughs at Andy Hardy (1946), did a remake of a Robert Taylor film, The Crowd Roars (1932) called Killer McCoy (1947) and portrayed composer Lorenz Hart in Words and Music (1948). He also appeared in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), starring Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard. Rooney played Hepburn's Japanese neighbor, Mr. Yunioshi. A sign of the times, Rooney played the part for comic relief which he later regretted feeling the role was offensive. He once again showed his incredible range in the dramatic role of a boxing trainer with Anthony Quinn and Jackie Gleason in Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962). In the late 1960s and 1970s Rooney showed audiences and critics alike why he was one of Hollywood's most enduring stars. He gave an impressive performance in Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 film The Black Stallion (1979), which brought him an Academy Award nomination as Best Actor in a Supporting Role. He also turned to the stage in 1979 in Sugar Babies with Ann Miller, and was nominated for a Tony Award. During that time he also portrayed the Wizard in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz with Eartha Kitt at New York's Madison Square Garden, which also had a successful run nationally. Rooney appeared in four television series': The Mickey Rooney Show (1954) (1954-1955), a comedy sit-com in 1964 with Sammee Tong called Mickey, One of the Boys in 1982 with Dana Carvey and Nathan Lane, and The Adventures of Black Stallion (1990) from 1990-1993. In 1981, Rooney won an Emmy Award for his portrayal of a mentally challenged man in Bill (1981). The critical acclaim continued to flow for the veteran performer, with Rooney receiving an honorary Academy Award "in recognition of his 60 years of versatility in a variety of memorable film performances". More recently he has appeared in such films as Night at the Museum (2006) with Ben Stiller and The Muppets (2011) with Amy Adams and Jason Segel. Rooney's personal life, including his frequent trips to the altar, has proved to be just as epic as his on-screen performances. His first wife was one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood, actress Ava Gardner. Mickey permanently separated from his eighth wife Jan in June of 2012. In 2011 Rooney filed elder abuse and fraud charges against stepson Christopher Aber and Aber's wife. At Rooney's request, the Superior Court issued a restraining order against the Aber's demanding they stay 100 yards from Rooney, as well as Mickey's other son Mark Rooney and Mark's wife Charlene. Just prior, Rooney mustered the strength to break his silence and appeared before the Senate in Washington D.C. telling of his own heartbreaking story of abuse in an effort to live a peaceful, full life and help others who may be similarly suffering in silence. Rooney requested through the Superior Court to permanently reside with his son Mark Rooney, who is a musician and Marks wife Charlene, an artist, in the Hollywood Hills. He legally separated from his eighth wife in June of 2012. Ironically, after eight failed marriages he never looked or felt better and finally found happiness and peace in the single life. Mickey, Mark and Charlene focused on health, happiness and creative endeavors and it showed. Mickey Rooney had once again landed on his feet reminding us that he was a survivor. Rooney died on April 6th 2014. He was taking his afternoon nap and never woke. One week before his death Mark and Charlene surprised him by reunited him with a long lost love, the racetrack. He was ecstatic to be back after decades and ran into his old friends Mel Brooks and Dick Van Patten.
Mickey Rourke
Mickey Rourke was born Phillip Andre Rourke, Jr. on September 16, 1952, in Schenectady, New York, the son of Annette Elizabeth (Cameron) and Philip Andre Rourke. His father was of Irish and German descent, and his mother was of mostly English and French-Canadian ancestry. When he was six years old, his parents divorced. A year later, his mother married Eugene Addis, a Miami Beach police officer, and moved to Miami Shores, Florida. After graduating from Horace Mann Junior High School, Rourke's family moved to a house located on 47th Street and Prairie Avenue in Miami Beach. In 1969 Rourke attended Miami Beach Senior High School, where he played second-string first baseman under coach Skip Bertman. He also acted in a school play, "The Serpent," directed by legendary "Teacher To The Stars" Jay W. Jensen. In 1971 he graduated from Miami Beach Senior High School, and after working for a short time as a bus boy at the famed Forge Restaurant on Miami Beach, Rourke moved back to New York to seek out a career in acting. Rourke's teenage years were more aimed toward sports more than acting. He took up self-defense training at the Boys Club of Miami. It was there he learned boxing skills and decided on an amateur career. At the age of 12, Rourke won his first boxing match as an 118-pound bantamweight, defeating Javier Villanueva. Some of his early matches were fought as Andre Rourke. He continued his boxing training at the famed 5th Street Gym in Miami Beach, soon joining the Police Athletic League boxing program. In 1969 Rourke, now weighing 140 pounds, sparred with former World Welterweight champion Luis Rodriguez. Rodriguez was the number one-rated middleweight boxer in the world and was training for his match with world champion Nino Benvenuti. Rourke claims to have received a concussion in this sparring match. In 1971, at the Florida Golden Gloves, Rourke received another concussion from a boxing match. Doctors told him to take a year off and rest. In 1972 Rourke knocked out Ron Robinson in 18 seconds and John Carver in 39 seconds. On Aug. 20, 1973, Rourke knocked out 'Sherman "Big Train"' Bergman' in 31 seconds. Shortly after, Rourke decided to retire from amateur boxing. From 1964 to 1973, Rourke compiled an amateur boxing record of 27 wins (17 by knockout) and 3 defeats. At one point, he reportedly scored 12 consecutive first-round knockouts. As an amateur, Rourke had been friendly with pro-boxer Tommy Torino. When Rourke decided to return to boxing as a professional in 1991, Torino promoted some of Rourke's fights. Rourke was trained by former pro-boxer Freddie Roach at Miami Beach's 5th Street Gym and the Outlaw Boxing Club Gym in Los Angeles. He made $250 for his pro debut, but by the end of his second year of boxing, he had earned a million dollars. In June 1994, Rourke appeared on the cover of World Boxing Magazine. He sparred with world champions James Toney, John David Jackson, and Tommy Morrison. Rourke wished to have 16 professional fights and then fight for a world title. However, he retired in 1994 after eight bouts and never got his desired title fight. His boxing career resulted in severe facial injuries that required a number of operations to repair his damaged face. Rourke went back to acting but worked in relative obscurity until he won a Golden Globe Award for his role as Randy "The Ram" Robinson in The Wrestler (2008). He was nominated for Best Actor, as well, but lost.
Mickey Rowe
Mickey Rowe (he/him) is the award-winning, best-selling author of Fearlessly Different. He has had a prolific and varied career as an actor, director, consultant, and public speaker; now highly sought after both nationally and internationally. He was the first autistic actor to play Christopher Boone, the lead role in the Tony Award-winning play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. He has also appeared as the title role in the Tony Award-winning play Amadeus and more. Mickey has been featured in the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, the TODAY show, PBS, Vogue, Playbill, NPR, CNN, Wall Street Journal, HuffPost, Forbes, and has keynoted at organizations including the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts where he has also led all staff DEIA meetings, The Kennedy Center, Yale University, Columbia University, CUNY, Disability Rights Washington, The Gershwin Theatre on Broadway, the DAC of the South Korean government, and more. Mickey was the founding Artistic Director of National Disability Theatre, which works in partnership with Tony Award-winning companies such as La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego and the Goodman Theatre in Chicago.
Mickey Schiff
Mickey Schiff is known for Project X (2012), Entourage (2015) and Space Oddity (2022).
Mickey Scodova
Mickey Scodova is known for Escape from Death Block 13 (2021).
Mickey Simpson
A burly American supporting actor, Mickey Simpson was born Charles Henry Simpson to Fred and Bertha Rogers Simpson in Rochester, New York. His paternal heritage was Irish. He was the eldest of four sons, one of whom, Richard, died in childhood. When his father was unable to find work following the 1929 stock market crash, his mother supported the family as a waitress. By his 20s Mickey had grown into a hulking figure and considered a boxing career. He has been referred to in some sources as the 1935 "New York City Heavyweight Boxing Champion," but the only official records of his ring work are for two fights in Los Angeles in 1939, both of which he lost. Simpson, nicknamed "Mickey," arrived in Los Angeles in the late 1930s. Some unconfirmed stories have him working as a chauffeur for Claudette Colbert. In 1939 he reportedly played a bit part in Stagecoach (1939), a film whose director, John Ford, would loom large in Simpson's career. Simpson found fairly steady movie work playing guards, cops, bouncers and thugs until his career was interrupted by World War II, in which he reportedly served in the U.S. Army. When he returned to Hollywood it was John Ford who resurrected his career, giving him a small but notable role as one of Walter Brennan's sons in My Darling Clementine (1946). Simpson would appear in a total of nine Ford films, though his most familiar role is probably that of Sarge, the racist diner owner who beats up Rock Hudson near the end of Giant (1956). Simpson worked, primarily in lesser roles--he even showed up in a short, Gents in a Jam (1952), with The Three Stooges--until his 57th year. He died of heart failure in Northridge, CA, near his Reseda home, on 23 September 1985, at the age of 71. He was buried at Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery, in Los Angeles.
Mickey Solis
Mickey Solis is a screenwriter and actor. He was born in Big Rapids, Michigan, to make-up artist Dawn Butler and social service worker Miguel Solis III. Mickey was raised on a small farm by his grandparents, Elena and Mike Solis Jr., two migrant Mexican-American farm workers who, during the 1960s and '70s, traveled with their six children picking crops from Southern Texas to the Midwest. Mickey and his sister, Isidra, were the first generation of the Solis family born in Michigan and raised away from the migrant camps. Obsessed with all genres of film and television as a boy, and often discovered playing make-believe among the trees and corn fields, Mickey was encouraged by his grandparents and aunt, Marisa, to begin stage acting locally as a young teen. Later, in college at Western Michigan University, he pursued religious studies, drama history, script analysis, and performance training. He moved to Massachusetts in 2003 to pursue graduate training in drama at The Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University. Solis quickly found success as an actor, starring in five seasons of plays at the American Repertory Theater from 2005 to 2011, under the tutelage of legendary stage directors like Robert Woodruff, Anne Bogart, Les Water, and Mark Wing-Davey. He moved to New York City in the mid aughts, working as a professional actor in film, television, commercials, Off Broadway, and in regional theaters across America. In 2010, encouraged and mentored by renowned filmmaker and theater director Janos Szasz, Solis wrote and later optioned his first screenplay, a dramatic thriller titled Michigan, about a mysterious string of suicides in a small Midwestern town. Over the following decade, Solis authored more original feature scripts and television pilots, and wrote and co-wrote short films with festival premieres in NYC, such as Lament for the Artist and Fall North, starring friend and fellow experimental stage actor Bill Camp. In 2018 Solis began his first film development project. The feature-length action thriller Rogue Hostage was shot in 2020, starring John Malkovich, Tyrese Gibson, and Michael Jai White. It was produced by Yale Productions and will premiere in June of 2021.
Mickey Stone
Mickey began his career as a radio announcer and worked in the business for well over a decade before stepping away from the broadcasting realm in 2005. He continues to work as a voice over artist in a variety of commercial endeavors to this day with his voice being heard across the country and around the world both on television and radio. In 2005 he crossed over into the world of film with a small role in the Matt Darst zombie flick The Dead Shall Rise. He followed it with roles in several short films including One Way Ticket, Something Ridiculous, Sell Out, and The Breakthrough playing everything from a bath toy-selling hood to a tobacco-chewing redneck neighbor. From there Mickey landed roles in the feature films Broken Faith (2012)and Golden Circle as well as The Sky Has Fallen (2009)by Doug Roos and Bryon Blakey's PMS Cop (2014)(which was subsequently picked up and distributed by Full Moon Features). He has also appeared in a couple of web series along the way. Mickey was the murderous Magnus Blackwood in American Wasteland's Stage Fright (2012) and the gruff and world-weary Detective Walt Benedict in Nathan Shelton's nod to HP Lovecraft, Shadow Bound (2013).
Mickey Sumner
Mickey Sumner was born on January 19, 1984. She is an actress and director, known for Frances Ha (2012), Snowpiercer (2020) and Battle of the Sexes (2017). She has been married to Chris Kantrowitz since July 1, 2017. They have one child.
Mickey Wagner
Mickey Wagner is known for The Despot, Ruthless (2023) and Shrapnel (2023).
