Mickey Rooney Jr. 1945-2022

Mickey Rooney Jr., born in Birmingham, Alabama, an original Mouseketeer, musician and actor who was the first of screen legend Mickey Rooney‘s nine children, has died. He was 77.

Rooney Jr. died Saturday at his home in Glendale, Arizona. The cause of death is unknown.

Rooney Jr. played in bands with Willie Nelson and appeared with the actor-musician in Jerry Schatzberg’s Honeysuckle Rose (1980) and Alan Rudolph’s Songwriter (1984). He also had small parts in John Brahm’s Hot Rods to Hell (1966) — he helped score the soundtrack — and in the 1975 NBC movie Beyond the Bermuda Triangle.

His mother was Betty Jane Baker, a singer and winner of the 1944 Miss Alabama beauty pageant. She first met Mickey Rooney when he was stationed in the U.S. Army in Birmingham, Alabama, during World War II. She became the second of his eight wives (after Ava Gardner and before fellow actress Martha Vickers); they were married from 1944 until their 1948 divorce.