"MRS. SMITH" WAS HOLLYWOOD-CLOSE TO MICKEY ROONEY and KNEW HE'D BEEN ADDICTED : MISSY ASKS YOU

Mrs. Smith, who was in a relationship with Hollywood star Mickey Rooney, was clearly "in the know" when it came to Mickey and the actresses he worked with.  She says she got involved with him 1940ish.

She says that the studio got both Judy Garland (the star of Wizard of Oz) and Mickey Rooney hooked on drugs, sleeping pills (downers) and amphetamines (uppers) and that is how the studio controlled and managed their child stars.  Mickey and Ava Gardner, in their first marriages to each other, went out to clubs and drank heavily.  According to the authors Ava new he was screwing around but when she got word that he had gone off with a fifteen year old girl, she knew she was on the way out of that marriage.  It seems to me that Mickey Rooney may have been addicted to booze and sex and gambling. He was debt with the bookies and as a result there was always debt as well as his ability to earn more because, at least for some time, he was a top earning star.  The studio knew all this about him but they didn't stop casting him.  He was addicted to Ava, even after their divorce he wanted her back.

  

Missy asks you!  Are you an addict?  What of?  

When in your life did your addiction begin?

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HOW DID "MRS. SMITH KEEP A RELATIONSHIP WITH MICKEY FOR SIXTY-FIVE YEARS?

Mrs. Smith spoke to the authors of The Life and Times of Mickey Rooney.

..."I became sexually involved with Mickey between his divorce of B.J. and his marriage to Mart.  Mickey is a very caring and passionate lover.  While we never considered a relationship beyond clandestine meetings and coorespondence, it also was a friendship like no other.  We were able to tell each other our deepest secrets and confidences, which we have done for over sixty years.  We never had a scheduled time or meeting setup; it just happened...well, when it happened.  Whenever we could sneak away. While the sexual aspect eventually was not the focus, we remained almost soul mates.  I heard about the travails with his flavor of the years, and I was able to unload my problems. We both listened and commented.  It was actually better than being in psychoanalysis.  ...  We sometimes talked on the phone, and many times we corresponded  We never sent any letters to our homes; we were very careful... (page 478)

The two led their own lives but Mrs. Smith was in attendance at parties where Mickey, the life of the party, clearly went into another room to have sex with someone (other than her) or left with a woman.

Mrs. Smith also had strong opinions of his various wives.  She thought Martha was a drinker who humiliated him.  Elaine took money from him to help pay off her first husband's gambling debts but seem to be into him for the money.  Barbara, whom Mickey had children with, was murdered and Mrs. Smith reported this terribly traumatized  Mickey.  Soon after he married Barbara's best friend, Marge, who became mother to the four children he'd had with Barbara.  Carolyn, Mrs. Smith reported, was temporarily of interest to Mickey, at a time when he wanted to give up Hollywood and hide out.  Jan was possessive but willing to settle down with Mickey.

So we know that in some way Mrs. Smith and her husband were film-business or Hollywood connected, because there was some socialization with Mickey.  Also, they were close enough that the couple loaned money to Mickey that he never repaid....

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"MRS. SMITH " : THE MISTRESS WHO LASTED 65 YEARS THROUGH OLD HOLLYWOOD ACTOR MICKEY ROONEY'S EIGHT MARRIAGES

This won't be the first time here at MISTRESS MANIFESTO that I've elected a name-unknown woman to the pantheon of Mistress of the Month. I did so back in June of 2017 when I elected "Evey" the once-upon-a-time mistress of singer-songwriter James Taylor. We saw that relationship through the eyes of his then wife, singer-songwriter Carly Simon.  

This month we learn about "Mrs. Smith" who was in an unconventional relationship with Rooney for sixty five years. The book was published in 2015 and she was alive to be interviewed at the time.

The book "The Life and Times of Mickey Rooney" is the primary source for this month's posts.  It's considered to be a definitive biography by authors WIlliam J. Birnes and Richard Lertzman.

MRS. SMITH

Born in 1920, an actor, singer, and dancer with roots in vaudeville stage entertainment, Mickey Rooney started out as a baby and made his first film in 1926. Born Joe Yule, Jr. in Brooklyn, New York, he became a famous Hollywood star young and was the top earning Hollywood star in the late 1930's. He's most known today for staring with Elizabeth Taylor in the equestrian film National Velvet in 1944.  A child actor who retained his youthful looks into his thirties, Rooney would go on to take roles in several other equestrian films but by age 40 the height of his career was in the past, yet he soldiered on. Rooney lived to be 93 years old and by then had worked in three hundred films. He was never a hands-on father but most of his children were proud to be his and loved him. In real life he lived to bet on the horses and was an investor in the Santa Anita horse-racing park.

The five-foot-two actor was an unlikely lothario because - I hate to say this - he was not physically the most handsome of men. Yet, he had attractive energy and charisma and according to Mrs. Smith he was an energetic and inventive lover. His chaotic life was fueled and fired by gambling - betting on the horse races, drinking, and womanizing, though he married eight time, fathered ten children, and had unknown numbers of other lovers. He himself said in his own memoir that he could have just about anyone. (He liked women who were taller than he was.) So it was entirely intriguing to me that he had a mistress, a married woman who socialized in some of the same Hollywood circles that he did. It's evidence that the mistress can play an entirely different role than a wife and that a mistress can be a mistress for a lifetime. There is no evidence that he Kept Mrs. Smith financially but she says he gave her husband his start in the business and that they lent him some money that was never paid back.

A married woman herself, Mrs.

Smith, the name used by the authors to hide her identity, comes at us in chapter 26 of the book, a chapter called Time May Lie Heavy Between.

"We were both at a party, a little tipsy and ... well, it happened."  So begins the story of a former actress  - her long-term spouse is still unaware of her unconventional sixty-five year love affair with Mickey Rooney, which lasted from the 1940's until his death.  She was also his confidant, pen pal, friend, and possibly the only person to whom Mickey unlocked his deepest secrets, desires, and fears."  (page 477) 

Mrs. Smith had taken a vow of silence - self imposed - and was finally ready to speak!

She may have been the only person on earth that he could trust to be his confidant and though they got together here and there, when possible. He wrote to her, so she clearly had some way to receive his letters and keep them without risking her marriage. She knew of his affairs and his marriages, the intense drama of his life, especially when one of his wives with whom he had four children was murdered, and his addictions of which there were a few, and perhaps there was no one who got to know the human being that Mickey was better.

Stick with us this month as we learn more!

Missy

You may also be interested in these posts that are in my archives:

June 2017

EVEY – Singer-Songwriter James Taylor’s Japanese New York Mistress and His Wife, Singer-Songwriter Carly Simon

August 2015

BOB HOPE

So Many Women So Little Time - Who Was The Long Married Comedian – Actor and Patriot’s Mistress? Sandy Vinger For One

September 2017

PAUL NOVAK – 27 Years as Mae West’s Much Younger Live-In Companion: Protective and Loving Till The Day She Died

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Notes: IMDb : Micky Rooney also provided some of the information for this post.

The beautiful actress Ava Gardner was his first of eight wives, and Mickey Rooney's other seven wives were not well known individuials.