Joseph Yule Jr.

I don't really have much to add to the passing of Mickey Rooney. I might add that I just talked to a neighbor who was on their way to the store (still driving) who told me they were 93. I said keep it up and you'll pass Mickey Rooney.

They replied that they met Mickey Rooney once. "He was jerk. I just read that all he had left was $18,000. That's what you get for eight wives."

I added, that and craps, playing the horses, coupled with drinking, and it's amazing he made to 93, even if he spent the last several years of life not drinking.

Sure, Mickey famously had eight wives. Elizabeth Taylor had seven unique husbands, married eight times. She apparently liked Richard Burton twice as much as any of the others. King Henry VIII had only six wives, proving that Mickey's patience and love of women exceeded that of a king's, especially when one of Henry's wives developed breathing problems when her head became detached from the rest of her body.

Another friend of mine said he almost met Mickey Rooney. This friend worked for a racing Publication, 'Racing Star Weekly' in NYC, and Rooney apparently stopped by for something. Maybe to personally renew his subscription. This would have been about the time Rooney was on Broadway in 'Sugar Babies.' The magazine's offices were not far from the Broadway theaters.

Usually someone in show business who likes the racetrack owns a horse now and then. Apparently Rooney didn't. Probably never held onto money long enough to pay for the hay.

That same friend who follows these things, said that the other day radio personality Don Imus literally played 11 instances! of radio, network and cable broadcasters and news people who informed all of us that, "Andy Rooney has passed away yesterday at 93. He will be missed."

Oh, you mean that CBS '60 Minutes' sourpuss who passed away in 2011 did it again? Wow. Not that guy who starred in four MGM musicals with Judy Garland and who probably raised more money singing, dancing and "putting on the show" than PBS does in a week playing 1960s music. (Judy who?)

This of course shows that these "journalists" are as unknowledgeable and superficial as I've always thought them to be. But then again, live to be 93 and no one really knows if you were alive yesterday or not. Luckily for the Rooney family of Pittsburgh Steelers ownership and Empire Racing Casino they haven't been pronounced dead any more than what was necessary.

Which leads to a terrific piece of poetic prose when Aljean Harmetz, in his NYT obituary of Rooney sums up Rooney's finances and lifestyle when he writes: "...for the mirage of running his own production company, and ended up mired in debt and B movies. Suits for alimony, child support and back taxes pursued him like tin cans tied to the bumper of the car he was driving to his next wedding."

But Rooney, by his own accounts, had fun doing it.

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