Mickey Rooney LIFE IS TOO SHORT CHAPTER 32 Barbara:
Dr Buckley was one of the wisest most compassionate men in the world but he had chosen an indirect way to tell me this awful news. He had just walked into my room, greeted me and my visitors, and then the phone rang.
"WHAT! WHAT! BOTH DEAD? BOTH OF THEM?" I heard him say. He finished with "I UNDERSTAND!" and then he hung up. He looked at me sadly as he told me that my fifth wife, Barbara, had been murdered and the man who shot her had also been shot to death in the struggle.
I wanted to know about my kids. Once I knew they were alright I began to sob as much in relief for my kids as in my grief for Barbara's death. I asked my friend ,Red Barry, to bring my kids to me. "Oh poor Barabara" and then "My poor babies", I would keep saying. I died too that day in Dr Buckleys arms. It seemed like a steel band had been wrapped around my chest and I didn't take a full breath for 3 years. The preacher who did the funeral was the same one who had made my marriage legal to Barbara in 1960 and had baptized all four of our kids. The body of the murderer was shipped back to his mother in Belgrade.
For days I was close to a catatonic state but I was aware enough to care about my kids. When I got out of the hospital I rented a small room in Beverly Hills and gathered in it with all my kids. I stayed close to them until 10 days after Barbara died my attorney, Dermot Long, called and told me that my mother had died. Ever since my life started falling apart she had been drinking. Not long after my friend, Fred Pankey, had also drunk himself to death in a cheap hotel on Sepulveda Boulevard.
"Ahh God," I prayed, "when will the sorrow end?" I would learn that it would only end when I stopped running away from God. I had been running from him for days in the ways of a labyrinthine and he still kept following me. And I still didn't know what he was doing or where I was.
MICKEY ROONEY LIFE IS TOO SHORT CHAPTER 33 VISIONS:
I had many more set backs in the next dozen years but I would survive them as I do the ones nowadays with the help of a faith I had almost forgotten. I got added help from a visitation.
It came at an unlikely place: the coffee shop of a casino on the shores of lake Tahoe. I was a last minute fill- in for Judy Garland who was too sick to make it. I was having breakfast at Harrahs with a few friends. We were half-listening to a lot of aimless talk when a busboy came up behind me and whispered my name. I started to get out of my chair thinking someone was paging me on the phone. The busboy leaned over, put his lips to my ear, and said, "MR ROONEY JESUS CHRIST LOVES YOU VERY MUCH."
For a minute I couldn't quite believe what I had heard. I turned to look at him. He was wearing a white jacket, had blond curls, a white rose complexion, and shining teeth. He smiled at me and then disappeared into the kitchen. I finished my breakfast then I walked over to the hostess.
"I would like to talk to that busboy who was working at our table." I said casually
"Which busboy are you talking about?" she asked.
"The one with the light blond curls. Sort of surrounds his head like a helmet." I said.
She answered with, "WE DONT HAVE A BUSBOY WITH BLOND HAIR."
" But I was just talking to him?" I asked impatiently
"You can go back into kitchen and look", she offered.
When I went back there I saw no boy with hair like a- a halo. Then my flesh started crawling and my hair stood up on my arms. I KNEW I HAD BEEN VISITED BY AN ANGEL.
"GOD", I said, "WHO AM I THAT YOU SHOULD SEND ME AN ANGEL? I WHO HAVE BEEN PAYING SO LITTLE ATTENTION?"
When my sixth marriage fell apart Barbaras parents started taking care of my kids. I saw them every now and then but I couldn't really be a father to them. I was still addicted to barbiturates and it seemed like no one could do anything for me. I would have been the first one to sign up for Betty Ford clinic if it had existed then. Then quite unconsciously Judy Garland helped with an object lesson of her own. On this particular day in 1967 I kept phoning Judy but was getting no answer either at four in the morning or after noon. I had a hunch Id better go by and see if she was alright. Judy and I were like brother and sister and that kind of relationship sometimes has that sixth sense about each other.
I called Dr Buckley asking him to meet me at Judys place. "Something tells me she needs help," I said.
When we got there we found the front door locked. We crawled over a wall and found the back door locked as well.
Just like in the movies I put a handkerchief around my hand and punched in a window pane.
We found Judy naked and unconscious facedown on the pillow.
After feeling her pulse Dr Buckley said she was alive and he phoned for an ambulance.
"Mickey help me find what shes on." he said. We searched the house and after looking through the likeliest places I found a cache of pills at the bottom of one of Judys boots.
After cracking the pill and tasting it Dr Buckley said that it was Percodan
As we dressed Judy Buckely explained to me that Percodan was powerful enough to haul a Steinway over the Andes Mountains. This view of Judy and of myself pushed me to an utter cry of the heart.
In answer to those prayers Jeri Greene appeared on my doorstep. She made a start by consulting a movie producer and mutual friend named Leo Popkin. The two of them decided they needed to find a specialist for me. I remember Jerri driving me down from my house in Coldwater Canyon one winter morning to where Leo was waiting for us. We waited in my car while Leo talked with another man.
Finally he came to my side of the car and said, "DO YOU WANT TO GET WELL?" "Yes I do," I answered, " I don't want to live like this anymore." Two days later I was on the plane to San Francisco with Jeri. She helped check me into a hospital under an assumed name. I was going to get well.
It wasn't easy. Doctors didn't really understand addictions as well as they do now. They didn't have all the support groups they do today meetings like Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12 step programs. These doctors took a very basic common sense approach: "YOU DONT WANT TO BE A DRUG ADDICT? WELL THEN FIRST OF ALL YOU HAVE TO STOP TAKING DRUGS." The doctors kept me in bed and made sure I was eating right. They also gave me back rubs. Besides that they really didn't know what to do.
Then one night I made my own breakthrough. I looked to a power higher than myself. "FATHER," I prayed. "COME INTO MY HEART. I HAVE SINNED. I CANNOT MAKE IT WITHOUT YOU. PLEASE HELP ME! PLEASE HELP!
He did help. From that day on I was a well man.
I didn't pass from sick to well in one day. I spent the next 10 years working my way from sick to being completely healed. But that prayer marked a turning point for me.
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