When I was a kid growing up in America, I used to watch the old black and white films with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, the stories where Mickey and his pals would put on a show of some kind, stage it in a barn or a neighborhood playhouse. Something about those old films clicked for me and in junior high and high school, I got involved in local productions – I think I was probably 10 when I first went on stage.

Much later while working on a film, the producer, who had been a casting director, had the idea of casting Mickey in a small but significant role. I hadn’t thought about him in decades but when the day came that Mickey was to arrive for the shoot, I was given the assignment of picking him up at the airport and driving him to the small city in Utah where we would be filming his scenes.

I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone of his age with so much energy. He was as intense and bright and talkative as his character Andy Hardy had been in his films of the 1940’s - there was little about him to indicate that 40 or 50 years had elapsed since he was the bright-eyed MGM superstar inspiring his thespian collaborators to action. It was an hour’s drive or more to the location and he did most of the talking, which certainly made things easier for me because I must admit, I was more than a little star-struck.

A few years later, I was producing a TV show in New York and there was an episode that called for a character not unlike Mickey to make a guest appearance. I persuaded the executive producer to hire Mickey for the show and again I had the chance to work with him. The cast of this show was comprised of solid New York actors, folks who worked in the theater and did summer stock and when Mickey arrived, there was a noticeable buzz in the air – he was a hero to all of them.

When it came time to do his key scene, Mickey bounded into the studio and after greeting all of his co-stars, proceeded to start the scene. I don’t think he had learned his lines or if he had, he must have decided that they didn’t suit him particularly well so we had to do the scene a number of times. At some point, the director suggested that Mickey just sing his lines and so he did, improvising a tune that made the points his character was supposed to make and in the process charging the room with that inestimable Mickey Rooney energy – it was perfect.

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