Rooney’s Own ‘Babe’ Boom

Personal trainers, flattering stylists and gourmet slop: Performing piglets may enjoy all these perks, yet never can they approach the career longevity of a Mickey Rooney. “The pigs had to be changed every six weeks,” explained Rooney, the most enduring of the human co-stars of “Babe: Pig in the City,” “because they get too big.”

On a pale morning 10 days before Wednesday’s release of George Miller’s sequel to his international smash “Babe,” the 78-year-old Rooney held forth in the Westlake Village Hyatt. The short sleeves of his golf shirt reached halfway down the 5-foot-2 1/2-inch actor’s forearms; his jaunty wool hat was a wild patchwork of conflicting herringbones and plaids. His blue eyes seemed to grab you by the lapels; his stout fingers closed around a wrist tightly enough to cut off circulation.

Despite obvious enthusiasm, he had to remain mute about “Babe” under the terms of Universal Studios’ publicity blackout, in place before release of the film. Rumors attributed the blackout to troubles plaguing the film.

Though he couldn’t dwell on particulars, Rooney gladly sketched the out-sized dimensions of this, his first U.S. theatrical release in eight years. “There has been on screen nothing like it,” Rooney said of his role in “Babe,” his voice as raspy and confident as a carnival barker’s. “I can’t think of anybody that’s ever . . . I mean: This goes for Tom Cruise. It goes for John Travolta; Nicolas Cage--whom I admire so much as an actor. I admire them all!”

In 1939, nearly 60 years ago, when Clark Gable, Robert Taylor and Tyrone Power were among the world’s most admired actors, Mickey Rooney towered above them all, as Hollywood’s biggest box-office draw. If his roles have diminished in the ensuing decades, it is not for lack of gumption. His urge to keep on entertaining at all costs has led him to roles in such parched material as the TV movie “Senior Trip” and straight-to-video “Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toymaker.”

“Some of them were so bad,” Rooney said, launching the one-liner, “they weren’t released. They escaped!”

Still, he has grabbed occasional gems--an Emmy-winning performance as a retarded outpatient in the TV movie “Bill,” an Oscar-nominated turn as a hale jockey in 1979’s “The Black Stallion.”

And what other actor working today could point to a career that has included roles alongside Jean Harlow and Helen Hunt, Tom Mix and Tim Roth?

Following an eight-year tradition, Rooney and his eighth wife, singer and impressionist Jan Chamberlain Rooney, will be waving to revelers along the route of the Hollywood Christmas parade Sunday. Then, the duo will embark on a singing stint in Florida.

“It [the singing tour] will run only one hour,” Rooney assured. “Not like ‘Meet Joe Black,’ which runs for three hours and a minute.”

In late December, Rooney will resume the throne of the Wizard in Madison Square Garden Productions’ national tour of “The Wizard of Oz.” The actor is banking on a box-office boost from the recent big-screen return of the original, starring his onetime co-star and dance partner Judy Garland.

“With Judy’s picture just being released, it’s so timely,” he said.

Rooney remains more than a mere spokesman for the California Department of Aging, which he will refer to only as “the Department of Experienced People.”

“The words ‘aging’ and ‘older’ connote that you have no more energy,” he lectured. “That you’re getting old. It’s to coin a word, fable-istic.” All that morning, Rooney had done yeoman’s work to debunk these fable-isms: winking, roaring and, above all, selling that constellation of TV pilots, films and commercials springing from his imagination.

Doffing his hat, he revealed a ruddy head sprouting some noticeable new growth, for which he thanks the hair-growth drug Propecia. “Age is nothing but experience,” Rooney said and sounded the refrain. “Some of us are just more experienced than others.”

Actor’s Interpretation of Monkey Talk

A few mornings later, Universal chief Frank Biondi had been given the boot, some allegedly none-too-child-friendly dog attacks had been purged from the final “Pig in the City” print and Rooney’s gag order had finally been lifted. “You’d think for chrissakes it was the impeachment,” the actor quipped. “Aw, come on!”

Rooney had a confession to make. “Well, you know, I don’t have a line in the picture,” he said. “And my family is like, six chimpanzees and one orangutan. And my speech is in monkey talk.” He offered a taste of his character, a castoff vaudevillian called Fugly Floom.

“When Boss Hogget’s wife is looking for the pig somewhere in the city, she comes down and asks me, ‘Did you see where he went?’ My dialogue would be something like--and you can’t write this--Eeeek-dooyadoado-aah-aah! Eee ramahh-adadoo. Ah-yeeyeeyee-dadadoodying-yvadeeda dough-da.

“You can’t write that! And don’t chide it by thinking it’s gibberish, because it isn’t! It’s my interpretation of monkey talk. OK?”

At a Chinese restaurant in Melbourne, Australia, Rooney began improvising this talk for Miller, and the “Babe” director just loved it. “He said, ‘That’s it, that’s it!’ ”

Rooney’s explanation of his craft is a refreshing throwback for those steeped in the current Hollywood climate of post-Method self-analysis.

On the “Babe” set, Rooney said, Miller gave him wide latitude for the role. Does the actor remember any instances in which he decided to take a scene a step further? “No!” Rooney yelled. “I don’t go into any of that crap! That’s a bunch of crap! It’s up to the director to give life to the scene, and say, ‘Cut! That’s it!’ Or ‘Try once more.’ ”

Did Rooney study for the role? “Hold it!” he snapped that topic shut. “I never study. I’m not an actor that has to go into . . . if I’m going to play a guy that cuts downtrees, I don’t have to go into the forest to see how they do it!”

Perhaps he took some locution cues from the animals around him. “My locution?” Rooney bristled. “Whaddaya mean, my locution? All of this is extemporaneous. You can’t teach people or actors to talk like this! Do you believe that?”

There may be plenty of actors out there who might have made a study of the apes, their speech mannerisms and how they talked. Not Rooney.

“Well, I tell ya!” Rooney decreed from the vantage of seven decades in show business. “They better go back to school if they have to do that!”