‘The greatest actor of them all’: Mickey Rooney’s scandalous life – and sad decline

• Hollywood, 1942. Mickey Rooney was the biggest star in the world. He’d spent three consecutive years as the most successful performer at the global box office. He’d won a special Academy Award for child stars, and been nominated for the grown-up Best Actor Oscar too. Laurence Olivier had called him “the greatest actor of them all”. And he was about to marry Ava Gardner.