Mickey Rooney Shuns Ghost to Tell His Story: Womb to Forever After

Even after more than six decades in the glare of Hollywood’s limelight, the diminutive actor who was the All-American kid Andy Hardy before World War II is still a whirlwind of energy.

Mickey Rooney, who wraps up a limited national tour of Neil Simon’s “The Sunshine Boys” with Donald O’Connor and Lewis J. Stadlen this week, hardly takes time to catch his breath before launching into another major acting project.

“After I finish with Donald (in Stamford, Conn.) I go to Vancouver, British Columbia, to start the ‘Black Stallion’ as a television series for the Family Channel,” Rooney said over the phone from Columbus, Ohio, where he was performing Simon’s play about the reunion of two feuding vaudeville partners. “We make 20 in Canada and we make eight in France. And next year already we have an order for 52 (programs), so what we’re doing is making three years (of shows) in two.”

In the half-hour series, Rooney reprises the role of the wise old trainer Henry, which he originated in the 1979 film based on the Walter Farley children’s classic. His performance earned an Oscar nomination that year.

Somewhere in between, the 69-year-old entertainer will complete the last touches on his forthcoming autobiography, due out from Random House next year.

“It’s my Boswell,” he said with a laugh. “I’m sick and tired of all the motion picture celebrity potpourri of literature that they didn’t write. I think men of letters should write Boswells, but if they want to pay me to write about my life, I’m going to write it. I’m sick and tired of hearing how many men went to bed with Joan Collins. The book isn’t worth reading unless you wrote it yourself. There’s no ghost writers involved here. It’s totally truthful, from the womb until now. I’ve got about two or three more hours to go.”

If a new TV series and finishing a book isn’t enough, Rooney also is starting plans for several other endeavors. He is working with his friend Marvin Hamlisch on an idea for a musical titled “Summer Girl, Winter Man,” the story of a relationship between an older man and a younger woman. He would play the role opposite Liza Minelli.

He also is involved in discussing a new children’s musical called “Lucky the Leprechaun,” about a leprechaun who must do 101 good deeds. And he has been writing a spoof of the Broadway hit, “Phantom of the Opera,” in which he would play “Phantom of the Uproar.”