"MRS. SMITH" ON MICKEY ROONEY'S LETTERS TO HER : HE WAS OPEN AND HONEST : SHE MIGHT HAVE BEEN THE ONLY WOMAN IN HIS LIFE HE COULD TRUST LIKE THAT

Excerpt:  Mickey was very open in his letters to Smith, who read us some passages from his correspondence with her.  Not love letters per se, they were filled with recollections and sometimes anger, but always Mickey in his own, heretofore unpublished words:

March 1950: She (Martha Vickers) could hardly stand up when I came home.  After I'm at the studio all day, and the kid is there, I don't need to be a nanny.
 

June 1958: referring to Barbara Ann and specifically to her attempted suicide by an overdose of pills; "Thanks for your concern.  She is all right. I just don't want to get trapped again.  They use my house as if it's their house to party.

February 1966: "I appreciate both of your calls and help.  I appreciate 'Mr. Smith's kind of assistance...  This has been the biggest nightmare and it never seems to end... I'd like to meet sometime soon... Please call me... I miss being close to you - I can still smell your scent.

"I think I saw a side of Mickey that he revealed to no one else," Smith said. "He was very romantic, kind; he had a very nostalgic sense; and I was able to experiment sexually with him that I couldn't with my husband.  He was very athletic.  Very.  He was quite inventive..."

She continued; "Also, we lent him money over the years, and much of it was never repaid.  We just chalked it up to Mickey.  He did give Mr. Smith his start."

The years wore on, but Mickey continued to regard Mrs. Smith as his close confidant, revealing to her his disappointment that the life he had enjoyed when they first met in the 1940's was gone and that age had caught up with him.  They stopped seeing each other when he was in his nineties, even though they were still writing.  She told us that she attempted to contact Mickey just before his death.

"While we were in some communication, I was virtually locked out of his life after all the problems," she said.  "It was as if the family crying for him had put a wall up between Mickey and the outside world. I tried several times but was thwarted each time.  Just before his death, I attempted to send a car for him to bring him back to our house.  I believe it was his daughter-in-law that said that he was not interested.  I cannot believe that for one minute.  At no time had MIck ever told me about abuse or anything like that.  I learned about that on the news.  He always told me how content he was.:

In one letter to Smith, Mickey wrote, "As always, I miss you my dear.  As we get older, I begin to forget this or that. But don't think for a minute that I ever forget about us...."

Mrs, Smith heard about Mickey Rooney's death on the news.

"I was crestfallen.  My heart broke.  I remember all of our good times, our closeness, our being intimate for over sixty years.  I felt I lost a piece of myself with his death."

Notes: These excerpts are found in pages 480 and 481.  Rooney died in 2014 and for all his drama he was ninety-four years old.  He was buried in Hollywood Forever cemetery.