A Look At The Several Marriages Of Old Hollywood Star Mickey Rooney

Mickey Rooney was married for the majority of his adult life, but that's not to say he was a strict proponent of the "Together forever" portion of matrimony. Au contraire, Rooney had an eye-watering eight wives over the years. While Elizabeth Taylor is often considered the queen of serial marriages, Rooney actually outdid her in the "I do" department. 

Like we said, Rooney married eight times, starting in his early twenties. His first marriage, to Ava Gardner, came in 1942, when the former child actor was 21 and his bride just 19. The marriage wasn't exactly warmly received by MGM co-founder, and legendary Hollywood producer, Louis B. Mayer. As Rooney revealed in his autobiography, "Life's Too Short," Mayer forbade the stars from marrying. "I simply forbid it," Rooney recalled Mayer saying. Naturally, Rooney protested that, saying that it was his life. Enter: A zinger that all but summed up Old Hollywood power dynamics: "It's not your life. Not as long as you're working for me. MGM has made your life." 

Of course, Rooney and Gardner did manage to go ahead with their nuptials, but the hard-won marriage proved short-lived. After marrying in January 1942, Gardner filed for divorce that September, on the grounds that they simple weren't compatible. However, she later told Vanity Fair that it was because of Rooney's adultery (the final straw being a night when he'd bragged to his friends about past romps with other women in front of her). Mickey denied this in his autobiography, and they even reconciled somewhat after divorcing. However, they ultimately did part ways for good, and Rooney was on to missus number two. 

The following article includes allegations of domestic abuse.

To his credit, Mickey Rooney didn't remarry immediately after his divorce from Ava Gardner. Like we said, they had an on-again, off-again fling for some time, and it was only in 1944 that he married his second wife, Miss Birmingham Betty Jane Rase. Let's just say things moved fast. Rooney revealed in "Life's Too Short," that he proposed just a few hours after they met, and they married a week later. Unfortunately, marriage number two didn't pan out well, either. 

Rooney wrote in "Life's Too Short" that his wife had no interest in showbiz, even saying, "I was married to a hick." He added, "I gave her what she seemed to want, the old-fashioned, male chauvinistic pig solution: I kept Betty Jane home, barefoot and pregnant, literally." Things came to a head after he'd had a tense moment on set. After Rase (later known as B.J. Baker, a singer who worked on a number of TV series, including "The Flintstones") told him she would be better off moving home, he recalled firing back that she should ... and she did. "Betty Jane was on her way back to Birmingham, three months pregnant, with one-year-old Mickey, Jr., in tow," he wrote. 

Not long after, Rooney met his third wife, Martha Vickers — though this time, the relationship was a slower burn (we're talking three months before the engagement). Notably, Rooney and Vickers tied the knot the same day he finalized his divorce from Rase.

After Mickey Rooney's 1951 divorce from Martha Vickers, he found love again with Elaine Mahnken. Back to speedy romances, Rooney proposed within a month, and they married in Las Vegas soon after. Rooney bought Mahnken her dream home, and even though he went through depression for part of their marriage, they remained together. Rooney even wrote in his autobiography that she took over their finances and helped him clear most of his debts. However, once he met Barbara Ann Thomason, everything changed, and they had an affair. 

Once Mahnken found out about Rooney's infidelity, she started having an affair, as well, and asked for a divorce — though Rooney decided he wanted to work on the marriage for fear of being a "Four-time loser." That said, he admitted in "Life's Too Short" that he knew, intuitively, he wanted to be with Thomason, and ultimately divorced Mahnken to be with her. They wed officially in 1960.  Rooney and Thomason would have four children together, though she ultimately had an affair with Milos Milosevich, which Rooney believed was a result of his own indiscretions. 

He and Thomason began the divorce process, but discussed reconciling after Rooney tried to get full custody of their children. Horrifyingly, that would never happen, because after Thomason broke things off with Milos in February 1966, she was killed in a murder-suicide by the latter. Heartbreakingly, it seemed as though Thomason had anticipated needing help ahead of the break up, as she had friends and her attorney with her at the time. Sadly, no one in the home heard either of the fatal gunshots.

If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.

In the wake of Barbara Ann Thomason's tragic murder, Mickey Rooney fell into a deep depression. In a move similar to what happened after Elizabeth Taylor's husband Mike Todd died and she married Eddie Fisher, Rooney had a brief marriage to Thomason's best friend, Marge Lane. Just as Taylor's relationship with Fisher didn't go the distance, Rooney and Lane's marriage was exceptionally short (even for him). Within 100 days, they split. Rooney wrote in "Life's Too Short" that he felt as though he was in a haze for almost all of it, still battling with the grief of his wife's death. He recalled Lane attempting to get a massive divorce settlement, but that it was denied by the judge because of how short their marriage was. 

Thankfully, Rooney took a brief pause after his divorce from Lane. Even after meeting his seventh wife Carolyn Hockett, he waited to see how she'd connect with his and Thomason's children before moving forward with the relationship. Once he saw their bond, however, they were wed, and it was another fairly lengthy marriage in Rooney's terms. Unfortunately for Rooney, he was involved in a number of bad investments while married to Hockett, and she was concerned about their family's financial security. This led to a divorce he felt blindsided by for years after. According to Rooney, she only explained that his mismanagement was the reason for their split years later. Despite that, he said they kept things amicable after parting ways.

Jan Chamberlin was Mickey Rooney's wife from the late '70s until his death in 2014, but that's not to say the relationship was drama-free. Far from it, as pointed out in Richard A. Lertzman and William J. Birnes' 2015 "The Life and Times of Mickey Rooney." When Rooney first met his final bride, she was the fiancée of his son, Mickey Rooney, Jr." Rooney himself rubbished this in "Life's Too Short," however, writing, "Jan had not been dating Mickey Rooney, Jr. ... My son just liked her singing, and he wanted me to meet her." 

Jan reiterated this to the authors of "The Life and Times of Mickey Rooney," and they said they believed her. Nevertheless, they made note of the fact that a number of Rooney's kids disagreed with that version of events. Drama struck up again in the late-1990s, when Chamberlin accused Rooney of spousal battery. As was reported by Los Angeles Times at the time, Rooney was arrested, but later released, and charges were dropped. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter in 2015, Chamberlin claimed Rooney had been abusive towards her, but declined to share any details, telling the outlet, "I don't want to relive that."

Towards the end of his life, Rooney made a number of serious allegations of his own, very publicly sharing that he had been a victim of elder abuse, and even being awarded a protection order against one of Chamberlin's sons. There have also been claims that Chamberlin was physically abusive towards Rooney, though she denied it, and Rooney never filed anything against her himself.  

If you or someone you know is dealing with elder abuse, you can find resources and support at the National Adult Protective Services Association website.

For public figures who've been married multiple times, it's almost a given that there will be some kind of chatter about it. Mickey Rooney was no exception, but he tried to be in on the joke when asked about it by reporters. However, there's no mistaking that it was awkward for him. Writing about his wedding to Carolyn Hockett, he admitted, "I chartered a plane to Las Vegas for the wedding and braced myself for the newspaper stories about this half-pint actor who was setting new records in the marriage game." 

The "Half-pint" comment, of course, referred to a headline about his previous marriage to Barbara Ann Thomason, which he'd also addressed in "Life's Too Short," recalling, "The New York Daily News had fun with that. Their headline read, 'Half Pint Takes a Fifth.'" Rooney alluded to the marriage jokes getting to him in a 2006 interview with Esquire, specifically mentioning the "Half-pint" jab. "When I got married for the fifth time, there was a newspaper headline that read: 'Half Pint Takes on a Fifth.' Okay, that's clever wording. And the truth is, I've been married eight times. But Jan and I have been married for 34 years now," Rooney said. "We get tired of hearing, 'Oh, that Mickey. He only gets married for two weeks,'" he added. 

In the same interview, Rooney hinted that the reason he got married so many times was because he believed it was expected. "Back then, marriage was something you did because you thought it was proper," the actor pointed out. Well, he certainly delivered.