- [at 58 years old] I'm in pretty good shape for the shape I'm in.
- [asked if he would marry all of his eight wives again] Absolutely. I loved every one of them.
- My partners weren't what we call in horse racing parlance "routers". They were sprinters; they went out of the gate, but then they stopped. They couldn't go the distance.
- People say, "How can you be married eight times?" But I played the hand dealt me the way I was supposed to. I was friendly with most of my ex-wives. My God, there's a Mickey Rooney's Former Wives Marching Band!
- [on his marriages] When I say "I do", the Justice of the Peace replies, "I know, I know". I'm the only man in the world whose marriage license reads, "To Whom it May Concern". But to have been married eight times is not normal. That's only halfway intelligent.
- You've got to recognize, there will never be another you. It has nothing to do with ego; it happens to be the truth. There will never be another person the same. There'll never be another you. There'll never be another me . . . And there'll never be another show like this!
- The audience and I are friends. They allowed me to grow up with them. I've let them down several times. They've let me down several times. But we're all family.
- Love wears off too quickly.
- I don't regret anything I've ever done. I only wish I could have done more.
- I was a 14-year-old boy for 30 years.
- [upon winning his lifetime achievement Oscar, 1983] Tonight, I could even kiss Louis B. Mayer!.
- [on his lifelong friend and frequent co-star, Judy Garland] Judy turned to drugs because she was in pain and because drugs made her feel good. As one of the MGM kids, she'd been treated for most of her life to magical, instant solutions to everything . . . She could never accept herself, so she was always on the run.
- I didn't ask to be short. I didn't want to be short. I've tried to pretend that being a short guy didn't matter.
- The guys with the power in Hollywood today, the guys with their names above the title, are thieves. They don't make movies, they make deals. Their major function is to cut themselves in for 10% of the gross--off the top, of course--which is why they make movies that cost $50 million.
- [Bill Clinton] was a Rhodes Scholar. Do you know who the scholars were? Marxists!
- I just want to be a professional. I couldn't live without acting.
- There may be a little snow on the mountain, but there's a lot of fire in the furnace.
- All the muddy waters of my life cleared up when I gave myself to Christ.
- I've been through four publics. I've been coming back like a rubber ball for years.
- [on his feud with Ernest Borgnine] All the Oscars in the world can't buy him dignity, class and talent. I don't know why he is famous and why he is a star. Talk about a lucky jerk.
- If it's immorally wrong, it's not normal. Jesus Christ said, "The effeminate are an abomination to me". Are you aware of that? I don't watch the [Ellen DeGeneres] show. I wish her all kinds of luck. Except that I'm not a fan. But there are a lot of people who aren't fans of Mickey Rooney and you can't please everyone.
- [in 2007] I think the family pictures are what people really want to see--and musicals, of course.
- I don't get caught between lesbians and gays. If you can't say something nice about someone, just shut your mouth.
- I never knew anything about anyone being gay in Hollywood when I was working in the studios. Did you know that? They weren't in closets, they were in safes.
- I lost $2 at Santa Anita and I've spent $3 million trying to get it back.
- Sure, I love the chicks. I love 'em all. But when you're nuts about too many, how can a guy settle down to one?
- Hollywood has unfortunately become a memory. It's nothing but a sign on the side of a hill.
- When I was 19 years old I was the #1 star for two years. When I was 40, nobody wanted me. I couldn't get a job.
- There was, in fact, a standard studio recipe. Take one young actress, pluck her eyebrows, cap her teeth, shape her hairline, pad as required and throw her into the ring with Andy Hardy. Then wait and see. If the public responded, the starlet became a star.
- I was aware, even at age three, that my father had a penchant for going out by himself after a show, then returning at dawn with a nervous grin on his face. I could only guess, from my mother's angry reactions that he was doing something that hurt her very much. She kept talking about my dad's "floozies"--which I took to be another name for "bartender." You see, I thought my dad had a problem with Punch, not with Judy.
- When "Sugar Babies" opened, I was the most famous has-been in show business.
- [In his autobiography] Had I been brighter, had the ladies been gentler, had the scotch been weaker, had the gods been kinder, this could have been a one-sentence story: Once upon a time, Mickey Rooney lived happily ever after.
- [In a 1970 David Frost interview] I have nine kids, seven wives, and the American Bar Association to support. I'm a very quiet person, a fellow who believes in the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, and bacon, lettuce and tomato with a lot of mayonnaise.
- [observation as a young man on his most famous role] It's funny how a character can grow on a feller. I depend on [Andy Hardy] all the time. When I'm not sure whether I should do a certain thing, I ask myself, "Would Andy do it?" And if Andy won't do it, I won't.
- [2008, on the controversy surrounding his Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) role] Blake Edwards wanted me to do it because he was a comedy director. They hired me to do this overboard, and we had fun doing it . . . Never in all the more than 40 years after we made it--not one complaint. Every place I've gone in the world people say, "God, you were so funny". Asians and Chinese come up to me and say, "Mickey, you were out of this world", [Had I known people would get offended] I wouldn't have done it. Those that didn't like it, I forgive them and God bless America, God bless the universe, God bless Japanese, Chinese, Indians, all of them and let's have peace.
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