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He was one of Hollywood's greatest actors, someone whose estate could have been worth hundreds of millions when he died in summer 2014. Instead, he endured beatings, humiliation and poverty at the hands of his eighth wife and one of her sons, both accused today of elder abuse and destroying a legend. Mickey Rooney shrieks in pain. Is he OK? "No, I'm not," he says, choking back tears. It's July 2010, inside The Grill on the Alley in Thousand Oaks, and in the midst of an interview with one of the authors of this piece, the diminutive 89-year-old has been...

At the age of 93, actor Mickey Rooney has passed away. As his many lengthy eulogies have made abundantly clear, his was a life of stratospheric highs and humiliating lows. He was one of the biggest stars in the world as a teen; he fell into bankruptcy and irrelevancy as an adult. He reinvented himself and rebounded. He crashed and burned. Few lives have had as many epic twists and turns, making his obituaries obsessively engrossing reading.

Actor Mickey Rooney (1920-2014) was a man of great patriotism and faith. These were his greatest roles. The number one box office star in America during the greatest years of the Hollywood Golden Age, 1939-1941, was not Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, Judy Garland, or even Jimmy Stewart. It was Mickey Rooney. Rooney died Sunday at age 93. His acting career, begun on Vaudeville and matured in Hollywood, spanned over 90 years and ten decades. Mickey Rooney starred in over 300 films and was one of the last surviving stars of the silent film era. Rooney was awarded an Honorary Oscar...

One of the last remaining stars of Hollywood's golden era, Mickey Rooney was born to vaudeville parents, and appeared with them onstage by the age of 1. He became a star when he was signed to play the part of comic book hero Mickey McGuire in a series of successful shorts that began in 1927 with "Mickey's Circus" and ended with "Mickey's Derby Day" in 1936. But it was at MGM in the 1930s that the diminutive dynamo hit real fame, particularly with the "Andy Hardy" movie series that launched in 1937. While at MGM he earned Oscar nominations for...

Mickey Rooney, who spent nearly his entire life in the show business, died today. He was 93.

A judge has granted Mickey Rooney a temporary restraining order from his stepson, who is accused in court filings of withholding food and medicine from the 90-year-old veteran actor and meddling in his personal finances. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Reva Goetz approved the stay-away order on Monday after attorneys for Rooney sought protection for the Academy Award-nominated actor, claiming he lives in fear of stepson Chris Aber. "All I want to do is live a peaceful life, to regain my life and be happy," Rooney wrote in a statement. "I pray to God each day to protect us, help...

There is no big mystery about Twitter. Anybody with access to the Web can use it. In fact, just to keep things in perspective about this CNN Political Ticker story on how conservatives somehow have the upper hand on Twitter, be sure to watch this video of Ben Stiller explaining the "glories" of Twitter to a skeptical Mickey Rooney. Here are some of Rooney's classic remarks about Twitter in response to Stiller's explanations: "Do you find this fun and interesting?""I don't find that entertaining." "How do you get caught up on Tweets?""Can children do it?"

On this day in 1920 actor Joe Yule Jr - better known as Mickey Rooney - was born in Brooklyn, New York to Scottish-born vaudevillain/actor Joe Yule and Nell Carter. Mickey was best known in his youth for playing Andy Hardy with Judy Garland in cheerfully naïve musicals that usually ended up in an impromptu musical show. Joe Yule Jr legally changed his name in 1932 to Mickey Rooney. Making his stage debut with his parents at the age of 15 months, it may not be a surprise that he ended up an actor. He was taught to sing, dance,...

We're living in a post-Nipplegate world -- and apparently it's only going to get worse. In case you haven't heard, Fox has already rejected a Super Bowl ad starring Mickey Rooney for Airborne, the natural cold remedy. Why? Well, in the ad, the 84-year-old Rooney is in a sauna. Someone behind him coughs. He overreacts, jumps up, screams, heads for the door, and drops his towel. His bare bum is exposed for two seconds or so. Clearly scandalous. Who doesn't want to see Mickey Rooney's bare behind? Turns out the Mickey Rooney commercial isn't the only new ad that's already...