Mickey Rooney Jr., musician, actor and first child of the movie legend, has died aged 77.

Mickey Rooney Jr., Mouse’s original sidekick, a musician and actor who was the first of nine children to movie legend Mickey Rooney, has died. He was 77 years old.

Rooney Jr. died Saturday at his home in Glendale, Arizona, said his longtime partner Chrissy Brown. the hollywood reporter. He said the cause of death is unknown.

Rooney Jr. played in bands with Willie Nelson and appeared with actor and musician Jerry Schatzberg. pink honeysuckle (1980) and Alan Rodolfo music composer (1984). John Bram also had small parts hot rods to hell (1966), helped compose the score, and the 1975 NBC film Beyond the Bermuda Triangle.

His mother was Betty Jane Baker, a singer and winner of the 1944 Miss Alabama beauty pageant. She met Mickey Rooney when he was serving in the US Army in Birmingham, Alabama during World War II. She became the second of his eight wives (after Ava Gardner and actress Martha Vickers); They were married from 1944 to 1948 before getting divorced.

Joseph Yule III (his father’s birth name was Joe Yule Jr.) was born in Birmingham on July 3, 1945.

He and his brother Tim Rooney were hired as supporting actors for ABC. mickey clubb in 1955. He worked on several episodes before being fired after some mishaps in the Disney paint department. (Paul Petersen, another original mouse owner, was also eliminated in season one.)

“Mickey Jr. was tall and talented,” Petersen wrote on Facebook. “He could sing and dance and act… and get into trouble. All three of us were fired for misbehaving with a mouse!”

Rooney Jr. played guitar, keyboard, bass, drums and harmonica. “My grandmother, Nanny Russ, had a ukulele,” he said in a 2001 interview. Riverside Press-Company Newspaper. “When he was 11, he asked me if I wanted to show him some chords. I could play the chords he showed me. I put these chords on a classical guitar and I was hooked.”

In the 1960s, he recorded songs such as “The Wandering Wind”, “The Choice Is Yours” and “It Certain Ain’t a Nice Thing”, which appeared on the ABC music show. Broken! and played in a band with his brothers Tim and Teddy.

In the 1970s, he introduced his father to his latest wife, future country singer Jan Chamberlin.

Rooney Jr. was married to Mercy Montello, a 1972 Playboy Playmate, and Laura Hollander before he and Brown, a singer and musician, met about 18 years ago.

He stressed that he had overcome the drug and alcohol problems that plagued him in his youth and that he had stopped smoking. “He was a wonderful person,” he said. “For the last 18 years with me and my family, he’s been an angel.”

Petersen created a GoFundMe page to help with expenses through his nonprofit Small Review, which supports former child actors.

“Mickey Jr. was the personification of ‘damaged property’. He gave everything he could,” Petersen wrote. “I was born the same day that Mick and ‘Mick’s’ father gave me the best advice I’ve ever received. One of my biggest regrets is that she didn’t do the same for her son. Mickey Rooney Jr. Rest in peace, finally.”