Former child actor

Born: April 13, 1950;

Died: July 2, 2016

TEDDY Rooney, who has died aged 66, had a brief career as a child star and played Andy Hardy Junior when his father Mickey Rooney reprised one of his most famous juvenile characters, now grown up, in Andy Hardy Comes Home in 1958.

The Andy Hardy films were wholesome, brainless family entertainment, but behind the scenes Mickey was not exactly the perfect role model. He and Teddy’s mother, actress Martha Vickers, divorced when Teddy was an infant and Teddy saw his father only occasionally, although Mickey did give him a prostitute for his 13th birthday.

While his father went on making films into his nineties, Teddy retired from acting in the 1960s to concentrate on his music career. He sang and played bass in a band with his half-siblings Mickey Junior and Tim. They had a contract with Columbia and recorded under the name the Rooney Brothers, but never made the breakthrough into the charts.

Theodore Michael Rooney was the only child of Mickey Rooney’s third marriage. Mickey Rooney and Martha Vickers were married only for a few years. There were another five Mrs Rooneys after her.

Mickey Rooney does not say much about Teddy in his autobiography. However in The Life and Times of Mickey Rooney, which came out last year, writers Richard A Lertzman and William J Birnes noted that he missed the birth because “he was very busy and had to go to a party”.

Teddy was born, in Valley Hospital in Los Angeles, at 4am on April 13 1950 and Mickey “sauntered in” 13 hours later. There followed a quick series of breakups and reconciliations before the final split.

Andy Hardy Comes Home was one of Teddy’s first screen appearances and was followed by the comedy It Happened to Jane (1959), in which he played Doris Day’s son, Seven Ways from Sundown (1960), a western with Audie Murphy, the role of Huckleberry Finn in an instalment of Shirley Temple’s Storybook (1960) and guest appearances on various hit television series including Wagon Train (1960) and Lassie (1962).

Father and son also appeared together in The Money Driver (1960), a General Electric Theater production. Teddy said working with his father was one of the high-points of his career. “He was rarely around, but I idolised him,” he said. “The short times we had together I worshipped him even though my father certainly never set a good example.”

Initially his music career had looked promising. The Rooney Brothers were highly regarded in the industry. They wrote their own songs and secured a recording contract and television appearances, but hits proved elusive and they split up.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Teddy served in the Vietnam War. He also played in a garage band called The Yellow Payges. He was married and had two children, who survive him.

But, like so many Hollywood offspring and former child stars, Teddy struggled with alcohol and drug addiction problems. He had been in poor health for some time and was on a respirator in a hospice when Lertzman and Birnes interviewed him for their book in 2014.

BRIAN PENDREIGH