In pictures: Mickey Rooney
- Published
Mickey Rooney started his career as a child actor in his parents' vaudeville act; here he poses at the age of five in a promotional photo dated about 1925.
His film and musical career spanned eight decades; in this 1957 picture, he performs a dance routine during rehearsal for the TV show George M Cohan Story in Hollywood.
Mickey Rooney with his first wife, actress Ava Gardner, in New York in 1942. He married eight times in all.
In 1944, Rooney starred in the now classic film National Velvet opposite Elizabeth Taylor. The film was based on Enid Bagnold's 1935 novel.
Rooney was nominated for a best actor Oscar for his role in war movie The Bold and the Brave in 1957.
Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney starred in several movies together. In this 1963 photo, the pair put their heads together over a television script for their first onstage reunion in 18 years. "We weren't just a team, we were magic," Rooney said in a stage show about his life.
Having declared bankruptcy by the early 1960s, Rooney's career enjoyed a revival with the release of Disney live action and animation musical film, Pete's Dragon, in 1977.
Actress Debbie Reynolds, right, clowns around with Sugar Babies co-stars Ann Miller, left, and Mickey Rooney backstage at New York's Mark Hellinger Theatre in 1980.
Rooney was nominated for four Academy Awards and received two special Oscars, including one in 1983 for his body of work.
Rooney, with eighth wife Jan (to his left), met Queen Elizabeth II during a garden party celebrating her state visit to the US at the British embassy in Washington in 2007.
Rooney starred in Bristol pantomime Cinderella in 2008, opposite comic Bobby Davro - Rooney played Cinderella's father, Davro was Buttons and Rooney's wife Jan was the fairy godmother. It was a role the veteran actor had previously played in Sunderland and, in 2009, he reprised the role again in Milton Keynes.
In one of his final appearances, Rooney arrives at the 2014 Vanity Fair Oscar party in March this year.