Tears and Terror: The Disturbing Final Years of Mickey Rooney

He was one of Hollywood's greatest actors, someone whose estate could have been worth hundreds of millions when he died in summer 2014. Instead, he endured beatings, humiliation and poverty at the hands of his eighth wife and one of her sons, both accused today of elder abuse and destroying a legend.

[link to www.hollywoodreporter.com]



Just weeks after Chris was served with a restraining order on Valentine's Day in 2011 accusing him of financially exploiting Rooney as his business manager, the actor flew to Washington, D.C. Herb Kohl, chairman of the Senate Special Aging Committee, had read press reports that a conservator for Rooney was pursuing elder-abuse charges, and he invited Rooney to testify about what he'd been through. As a transcript of that hearing reveals, Rooney, without naming names, tearfully explained that he'd himself been a victim of the increasingly common crime, stripped "of the ability to make even the most basic decisions about my life," leading to an "unbearable" and "helpless" daily existence. In a process that began after Rooney confided in a Disney executive during filming of 2011's The Muppets, Rooney's attorneys filed court papers in their petition for a conservator (to protect him and recover his assets) that revealed the extent of the control — he wasn't even allowed to buy food or carry identification.

Last Edited by TheToolMan on 10/21/2015 01:11 PM