A look into the mind of the pint-sized playboy.
Hollywood comedic legend Mickey Rooney passed away yesterday at 93. His over 90-year career spanned from infancy, performing in his parents' vaudeville show, all the way through the upcoming Night at the Museum 3 set to be released this December. Despite some interesting turns (including a pretty damn racist caricature of an Asian landlord in Breakfast at Tiffany's) he was a much beloved actor and notorious playboy who was married eight times, the first to Hollywood starlet Ava Gardner. Here are some of his best quotes on love and sex.
1. "Always get married early in the morning. That way, if it doesn't work out, you haven't wasted a whole day."
2. "I was a thirteen-year-old boy for thirty years.”
3. "I have so many wives and children that I don't know which house to go to first on Christmas."
4. "A lot of people have asked me how short I am. Since my last divorce, I think I'm about $100,000 short."
5. “I buy women shoes and they use them to walk away from me.”
6. "I'm the only man in the world with a marriage license made out to whom it may concern."
7. “I’m 5 feet 3, but I was 6 feet 4 when I married Ava (Gardner).”
8. "When I say, 'I do,' the justice of the peace replies, 'I know, I know.'"
9. “Love wears off too quickly.”
10. On marriage to Ava Gardner: "Oh, we told ourselves that we were very much in love, and our sex life helped us in that particular piece of self-deception."
11. Rooney's definition of alimony: "Pumping gas into another man's car."
12. "Nobody's proud about having eight wives …You're supposed to marry your childhood sweetheart and go off into the sunset … saying, 'It's forever, darling.' It doesn't work out like that and every marriage and every divorce are like a five-car crash."
13. “You’ve got to recognize, there will never be another you. It has nothing to do with ego; it happens to be the truth… There’ll never be another you. There’ll never be another me . . . And there’ll never be another show like this!”
14. On sex with Ava Gardner: "We were both athletic in bed, and pretty verbal, too. Once Ava lost her Southern reticence, she seemed to enjoy using the f-word. And I didn’t mind a bit, when, for example, she would look me straight in the eye, raise a provocative eyebrow, and say, “Let’s fuck, Mickey. Now.”
15. Mickey "Hard On" — his nickname according to ex Ava Gardner
16. “People say, “How can you be married eight times?” But I played the hand dealt me the way I was supposed to. I was friendly with most of my ex-wives. My God, there’s a Mickey Rooney’s Former Wives Marching Band!”
17. On Judy Garland: "She had an affair with a female singer and, caught up in the guilt, couldn’t accept herself. So she tried to lose herself in a never-never land where reality faded and her dreams drifted, just out of reach."
18. When asked if he would marry all of his eight wives over again: “Absolutely. I loved every one of them.”
19. On his romance with actress Lana Turner: "Lana Turner wasn’t the kind of girl who had much to say or had to say much. Her body said it all, and I got the message, loud and clear. Her auburn locks, her deep green eyes, her long lashes, the tip of her nose, her pouty lips, her graceful throat, the curve of her shoulders, her tiny waste, and, yes, the nicest knockers I have ever seen."
20. ”Had I been brighter, the ladies been gentler, the Scotch weaker, the gods kinder, the dice hotter — it might have all ended up in a one-sentence story.”
Image via Ryan Prince.
