Editing Mickey Rooney (section)

== Legacy ==
[[File:Mickey Rooney 2 Allan Warren.jpg|thumb|right|Rooney in 1986]]
Rooney was one of the last surviving actors of the silent-film era. His film career spanned 88 years, from 1926 to 2014, continuing until shortly before his death. During his peak years from the late 1930s to the early 1940s, Rooney was among the top box-office stars in the United States,<ref name="Mccartney">{{cite web|last=McCartney|first=Anthony|url=https://www.ocregister.com/2014/04/07/legendary-star-mickey-rooney-dies-at-age-93/|title=Legendary star Mickey Rooney dies at age 93|work=Orange County Register|date=April 7, 2014|access-date=January 5, 2020}}</ref> and in 1939 was ''the'' biggest box-office draw, followed immediately by [[Tyrone Power]].<ref>''International Motion Picture Almanac, 1933–present'' (Annual). Quigley.</ref>

He made 43 films between the ages of 15 and 25. Among those, his role as Andy Hardy became one of "Hollywood's best-loved characters," with [[Marlon Brando]] calling him "the best actor in films".<ref name="Monush">{{cite book|last=Monush|first=Barry|title=Screen World Presents the Encyclopedia of Hollywood Film Actors: From the silent era to 1965|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ddcLyAEACAAJ|year=2003|publisher=Applause Theatre & Cinema Books|isbn=978-1-55783-551-2|pages=648–651}}</ref>

"There was nothing he couldn't do," said actress [[Margaret O'Brien]].<ref name=Mccartney /> MGM boss Louis B. Mayer treated him like a son and saw in Rooney "the embodiment of the amiable American boy who stands for family, humbug, and sentiment," wrote critic and author [[David Thomson (film critic)|David Thomson]].<ref name="Thomson">{{cite book|last=Thomson|first=David|title=The New Biographical Dictionary of Film|url=https://archive.org/details/newbiographicald00thom|url-access=registration|year=2002|publisher=Knopf|isbn=978-0-375-41128-1|pages=[https://archive.org/details/newbiographicald00thom/page/754 754]–755}}</ref>

By the time Rooney was 20, his consistent portrayals of characters with youth and energy suggested that his future success was unlimited. Thomson also explains that Rooney's characters were able to cover a wide range of emotional types, and gives three examples where "Rooney is not just an actor of genius, but an artist able to maintain a stylized commentary on the demon impulse of the small, belligerent man:"<ref name=Thomson />

{{cquote|Rooney's Puck in [[A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935 film)|''A Midsummer Night's Dream'']] (1935) is truly inhuman, one of cinema's most arresting pieces of magic.&nbsp;... His toughie in ''Boys Town'' (1938) struts and bullies like something out of a nightmare and then comes clean in a grotesque but utterly frank outburst of sentimentality in which he aspires to the boy community&nbsp;... His role as [[Baby Face Nelson (film)|''Baby Face Nelson'']] (1957), the manic, destructive response of the runt against a pig society.<ref name=Thomson />}}

By the end of the 1940s, Rooney was no longer in demand, and his career declined. "In 1938," he said, "I starred in eight pictures. In 1948 and 1949 together, I starred in only three."<ref name=Unterburger /> Film historian [[Jeanine Basinger]] observed while his career "reached the heights and plunged to the depths, Rooney kept on working and growing, the mark of a professional." Some of the films that reinvigorated his profile were ''Requiem for a Heavyweight'' (1962), ''It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World'' (1963), and ''The Black Stallion'' (1979). In the early 1980s, he returned to Broadway in ''Sugar Babies'', and "found himself once more back on top".<ref name=Unterburger />

Basinger tries to encapsulate Rooney's career:
{{cquote|Rooney's abundant talent, like his film image, might seem like a metaphor for America: a seemingly endless supply of natural resources that could never dry up, but which, it turned out, could be ruined by excessive use and abuse, by arrogance or power, and which had to be carefully tended to be returned to full capacity. From child star to character actor, from movie shorts to television specials, and from films to Broadway, Rooney ultimately did prove he could do it all, do it well, and keep on doing it. His is a unique career, both for its versatility and its longevity.<ref name=Unterburger>{{cite book|last1=Unterburger|first1=Amy L.|last2=Lofting |first2=Claire |title=Actors and actresses|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=odIa2vtGhHAC|series=International dictionary of films and filmmakers|volume=3|year=1997|publisher=St. James Press|isbn=978-1-55862-300-2|pages=1053–1056|oclc=264881830}}</ref>}}