Mickey Rooney Jr., the first of actor Mickey Rooney’s nine children and a founding member of the Mouseketeers, has died. He was also a singer and actor. He was 77.
Rooney Jr. passed away on Saturday at his home in Glendale, Arizona, according to Chrissie Brown and The Hollywood Reporter. She said that the reason for death is unknown.
Rooney Jr. worked with Willie Nelson in bands and co-starred with the musician-actor in the 1980 movies Songwriter by Alan Rudolph and Honeysuckle Rose by Jerry Schatzberg (1984).
He also provided music for the films Hot Rods to Hell (1966), directed by John Brahm, and Beyond the Bermuda Triangle (1975), produced by NBC, in which he had cameo appearances.
His mother was vocalist Betty Jane Baker, who took first place in the 1944 Miss Alabama pageant.
In Birmingham, Alabama, where the American Army was stationed at the time of World War II, she first met Mickey Rooney.
She was his second wife (after Ava Gardner and before fellow actress Martha Vickers), and they were wed from 1944 until their divorce in 1948. He had eight marriages in total.