He’s Off to Be the Wizard

“I know what you’re going to ask me,” Mickey Rooney says, plopping his 5-foot-2 frame into an overstuffed armchair in the living room of his suburban Los Angeles home. “You want to know how I like doing something Judy Garland was in.”

That’s been a recurring theme for more than a year, since the 78-year-old actor assumed the title role in the Radio City Entertainment production of “The Wizard of Oz,” which opens at the Pantages Theatre on Thursday. And the question is more than a bit tiresome to this Hollywood legend, who’d rather discuss the production itself or, better yet, entertain visitors with impressions of Jimmy Stewart and Jean Arthur in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” and the Bergman-Bogart-Lorre team in “Casablanca.”

Not that Rooney belittles the Garland connection. Some of his better-known films (“Babes in Arms,” “Strike Up the Band,” for starters) were made with the actress, who skyrocketed to fame as Dorothy in the 1939 cinematic version of the L. Frank Baum tale. The actor once wrote a stage script titled “Mickey and Judy.” And one of his dogs--the daughter of Yorkshire terriers Gloria Swanson and Charlie Chaplin--was named for the actress who, he once said, had more impact on his life than any of his eight wives.

“The more talent you looked at in Judy, the more beautiful she became,” Rooney says, discussing Garland’s plain-Jane charm and awkward grace. “I knew she was going to go places, but, in the end, she was running away from life.”

While the Garland link has promotional value, the actor’s performance has drawn notice on its own. The New York Daily News found Rooney “impressive,” noting that the audience was “eating out of the palm of his hand.” The New York Times called him “a marvel of longevity . . . [still] eager to put on a show.”

Jo Anne Worley, who co-stars as the Wicked Witch of the West, says playing the Wizard isn’t “rocket science.” Still, she adds, Rooney is the perfect fit: “Everyone grew up with Mickey and identifies with his open-faced American look,” she says. “That’s good luggage to bring to the portrayal of the wizard, whom the audience must love and believe is doing his best to get Dorothy back home.”

Despite pyrotechnics and special effects, the show--which moves to the Orange County Performing Arts Center after finishing its Pantages run--is more of a homage to the movie than a creative departure along the lines of Julie Taymor’s “Lion King.” The action is presented entirely in black-and-white until Dorothy (Jessica Grove) joins the Munchkins in Oz--just like in the film.

The crowd’s familiarity with the material makes for a powerful communal experience, says executive producer Tim Hawkins. “Everyone is reciting the lines, singing the songs--it’s like ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show,’ ” he says. “Rooney is a wonderfully unique physical presence--a born entertainer who has to love and be loved in a really big fashion. And he knows a lot more about harnessing that energy than he may have at 35.”

Rooney is the first to admit that the road has been bumpy since 78 Mickey McGuire comedies and the Andy Hardy series made him the personification of the all-American boy. Though he was the top male box-office draw from 1939 to 1941, the glare of the spotlight so early in his life made for problems later on.

MGM, he claimed in his 1965 autobiography “i.e.,” would have preferred that he remain a teen for 40 years. Though he’s made more than 300 movies, he says, landing “adult” roles was a challenge. The actor got an Oscar nomination for 1979’s “The Black Stallion” and an Emmy award for the 1981 TV movie “Bill.” Still, before his Broadway comeback in 1980’s “Sugar Babies,” he was king of the dinner-theater circuit--a personality who accepted $500 for showing up at a party pretending to be a friend of the host.

To smooth the rough edges, Rooney turned to alcohol and played the horses. He also filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in 1996, as he had done a few decades before. He proudly declared that he followed W.H. Auden’s counsel: “Thou shalt not live life within thy means.”

“I’m the Cowardly Lion, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman--looking for courage, brains and heart,” Rooney says, alluding to the “Wizard of Oz” characters. “Acting is a form of therapy and I’m still searching for who I am.”

The actor seems to be getting a handle on things now, however--with the help of Jan Chamberlin Rooney--a professional singer-songwriter and his wife of 24 years. A 1991 autobiography entitled “Life Is Too Short” was written for her and is a mea culpa, of sorts.

“It’s the story of my failures, forgetting who I really love and having to rebuild,” says Rooney, sporting a striped T-shirt, white running shoes and olive cords. (And at 165 pounds, he’s 35 pounds thinner than he was a few years back.) “I’ve put my wife through some doozies, and the fault is mine alone. The pitfalls in marriage come from not paying attention to what needs paying attention to. Things you think will make you happy don’t.”

Chamberlin Rooney (whom Mickey calls “mother”) is an easygoing former model in her late 50s who met her husband in 1974 when she was singing with his son Mickey Jr. “When you travel, it’s easy to get waylaid,” says Chamberlin Rooney. “He’s a charmer and has chased lots of women--but he’s going to get it right, now.”

Rooney found religion a few decades ago when a Lake Tahoe waiter leaned over and whispered “Jesus loves you” in his ear. Ask him if he’s been born again and he answers: “Dear Lord, I hope so.” In contrast to the frustrated former child actor in his first published novel--1995’s “The Search for Sonnie Skies”--who guns down a film cast and crew, Rooney has targeted himself. He has given up smoking and drinking and is trying to curtail his trips to the track.

It was his wife who pushed Rooney into doing the super-successful “Sugar Babies”--a project he initially resisted. “I tricked him into taking he part, telling him that Jack Albertson would do it if he didn’t,” she recalls. “I don’t like the term ‘has-been,’ but that show put him back where he belongs.”

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Six years ago, the Rooneys moved from North Ranch in Thousand Oaks into an unpretentious home on an artificial lake--a house they’d been leasing out for 20 years. With their 11 children (two of them hers) grown and gone, the environment is dominated by pets. The couple has a gray Airedale/boxer mix, two Yorkies, a Jack Russell terrier, two very vocal macaws and a Senegal parrot. Animal rights is their new issue of choice. Rooney is also the spokesman for the California Department of Aging, representing people he calls “experienced.”

Though Rooney says he would play the Wizard indefinitely, he’s casting a wider net. Creative and entrepreneurial by nature (he helped launch and once owned part of the TCBY yogurt chain), he’s written a series of novels and scripts. In one, his wife would portray English chanteuse Lillie Langtry and he’d play Judge Roy Bean, who opened a saloon in her honor. Another, “The Broken Heart,” would be great for Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, he says, “but no one wants to do anything with the books that I write.”

The Rooneys have toured their two-person revue in the U.S., and they’ll take it to Australia again in November. On the solo front, the actor starred in the Family Channel’s “The Adventures of the Black Stallion” TV series in the early ‘90s, appeared in a 1995 Toronto production of “Crazy for You” and last year was featured in the film “Babe: Pig in the City,” from which most of his footage was cut.

Though a certain emotionality has been lost in this “dot com” world, says Rooney, change, for the most part, is good.

“Mr. Lucas now takes all of his characters and puts them on deserts that don’t exist,” he says. “It’s a new way of movie-making. Salaries, too, have improved. I started out at $400 a week and MGM raised me to $1,250.”

Reentering the present, Rooney strolls over to the piano, improvises some jazz and asks his wife to join in. A few days before, he’d written a song for her: “I Always Come Back to You.”

“Finding happiness in your own backyard--that’s another theme of ‘The Wizard’ that applies to my life,” Rooney says.

With that, he heads for the TV, lights up a pipe and immerses himself in the horse races. “He’s easily swayed,” his wife observes.

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“THE WIZARD OF OZ,” Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd. Dates: Opens Thursday. Plays Tuesdays-Fridays, 7:30 p.m.; Saturdays, noon, 4, 7:30 p.m.; Sundays, 11 a.m., 2 and 5 p.m. Ends July 4. Prices: $27-$59.50. Phone: (213) 365-3500. Also: Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. July 7-18. $29.50-$49.50. (714) 556-ARTS; (714) 840-7878.