Mickey, Barbara Ann, Kerry (left), Kelly (right), and Michael in Barbara’s arms.
PHOTO COURTESY OF KELLY ROONEY.
Mickey, Barbara Ann, Kerry (left), Kelly (right), and Michael in Barbara’s arms.
PHOTO COURTESY OF KELLY ROONEY.
By officially resigning from Rooney’s management, Maurice Duke, as he later told his daughter, had “escaped the lunacy of Mick”—and after the murder of his friend Gus Greenbaum by mob associates of casino operator Moe Dalitz, the Duke believed he had also escaped with his life. He was quickly replaced by the competent Red Doff as Mickey’s manager and press agent. But all was not rosy for Mickey, who, yet again, stepped into the spotlight of the gossip columns with his pending divorce from Elaine, his newest marriage to Barbara Ann Thomason, and his erratic behavior on Tonight. Mickey was certainly not fading away as many had predicted; though he did seem to be decomposing before a national audience.
One of the most important and well-known Hollywood screenwriters, Larry Gelbart (M*A*S*H, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Oh, God!, and Tootsie), told us, “Sadly, the talent was always there. It was his real life that distracted him and made him the butt of many punch lines. I worked with him on a tour of A Funny Thing [Mickey played Pseudolus]. He had such great timing and knew the natural rhythms of his character.”1
As Mickey was severing his business relationship from Duke, his marriage to Elaine was imploding. After he discovered her betrayal with her ex-husband—Elaine spent much of her time at their house in Lake Arrowhead with her male “friends”—Mickey set out on the prowl looking for his next conquest. His friend, car salesman Bill Gardner introduced him to his friend Barbara Ann Thomason, another tall and lanky beauty in the mold of Ava Gardner, only this time a blonde. Born in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1937, Barbara came from a military family. Her father was an officer in the air force, and the family moved around for the early part of her life, including a stint in England.
While attending Emerson Elementary School in Phoenix, she became known as the prettiest girl in town. Her family then moved to Inglewood, California, in 1951, where, while a student at Inglewood’s Morningside High School, she began entering beauty pageants. By October 1953 her dreams of success started to come true when she won several local contests. In 1954 she was crowned Queen of the Championships of Southern California. Later that year, she won the Miss Muscle Beach and Miss Surf Festival titles. After graduating from high school, she became a dance instructor for Arthur Murray and then, as Tara Thomas, she became a model, appearing in Modern Man magazine in December 1957.
She was seventeen years younger than Rooney when they were introduced, but for Mickey, that made no difference. A beautiful girl was a beautiful girl regardless of height or age. An aspiring actress, Barbara lived with a roommate, nightclub singer Pat Landers, in a small apartment at 1436 Laurel Avenue, off the Sunset Strip. Using the stage name of Carolyn Mitchell, she did bit parts on television shows such as Crossroads. When she met Mickey, she had just finished her largest role, in Roger Corman’s Drag Strip Riot, as Betty and was working on his film The Cry Baby Killer, as Carole Fields, which starred Jack Nicholson in one of his first leading roles.
“My mother was a real Southern California beach beauty,” recalled Mickey and Barbara Ann’s eldest daughter, Kelly. “She just fell head over heels in love with my father. Although her career was just taking off, she was more interested in a family life and children. I don’t think she was starstruck with my dad, as she was already appearing in films.”2
Mickey, who had returned to his typical pattern of wooing beautiful young women, was focused on Barbara immediately. In fact, right after they began to date, he bought her a $4,500 fur coat, a gift that was reported in Harrison Carroll’s column on February 12. Elaine naturally noticed the story and exploded.
She told Arthur Marx, “I told Mickey that I had a boyfriend and I wanted to leave Mickey. But Mickey begged me not to. Mickey was still under the care of a psychiatrist. I felt sorry for him again, so I said okay, I would stay but I would not give up my young man. Mickey knew that right up front, and he didn’t care. After he bought her a fur coat for $4,500, he felt so guilty, he even bought me one, a more expensive one at that. I figured what was the difference? If it was the end of a marriage, it was the end of a marriage.”3
As Mickey began his relationship with Barbara Ann, he was blind to her emotional instability. He was head over heels in love with her. Barbara, too, was smitten, but when Mickey told her that he would not go through a divorce from Elaine to marry right her then and there, it led Barbara to three suicide attempts, one of which made national headlines and every show-biz gossip column.
Mickey had rented a new house, which belonged to longtime (and very controversial) Los Angeles mayor Sam Yorty, the perennial butt of many Johnny Carson jokes, at 12979 Blairwood Road in Sherman Oaks, where Barbara Ann took up residence shortly after Mickey moved in. The new house was always filled with Barbara’s friends and acquaintances, including her former roommate Pat Landers and longtime friend actress Kim Chance from Albert Zugsmith’s High School Confidential. Guests at the house also included famous baseball player Milwaukee Braves first baseman Frank Torre, former Yankee manager Joe Torre’s brother; along with Braves pitcher Lew Burdette, Red Schoendienst, and Gene Conley. Reportedly, Barbara Ann passed out by Mickey’s pool. When she was discovered, by Landers and Chance, to revive her they tossed her into the pool. When she didn’t wake up, Landers fished her out and called for an ambulance to resuscitate her and transport her to North Hollywood Hospital, where she was admitted for one night. The girls blamed the incident on Mickey, who they said had tossed Barbara in the pool. But Barbara Ann, perhaps disconsolate over Mickey’s refusal to marry her—he was still married to Elaine—had written and posted suicide notes with tape throughout the house. The papers the next day, August 13, carried sordid tales of the suicide attempt, Barbara Ann’s nude body floating in the pool, and the currently married Mickey’s involvement.
Red Doff, now in a difficult position as Mickey’s manager and publicist, carefully responded by telling the Los Angeles Daily Times, a month later on September 13, 1958:
Barbara was unconscious when Landers and Chance arrived, so they decided to wake her up by undressing her and putting her in the swimming pool. Just for good measure, Landers took off her clothes so she could get into the pool and dunk Barbara in the water. When that didn’t work, Landers called her doctor, who told her to contact the police. The Fire Department also responded and took Barbara to North Hollywood Hospital, which released her the next day. When Mickey got home, he found notes all over the house and visited the hospital to check on Barbara and went home after he found out she was fine.4
The newspaper story continued:
Barbara, who claimed she merely took the wrong pills by mistake, said of Rooney, “I’m madly in love with him and he with me.” But Doff insisted to The Times that there was no romance. He said, “Mr. Rooney had left for an engagement at Harrah’s Club in Lake Tahoe. It’s all a publicity stunt cooked up by these three girls,” Doff told The Times. “Sure Mickey knows Barbara and has taken her out a few times. But Mickey likes all girls. After all, he’s not even divorced yet and here someone is trying to get him married already. I’m Mickey’s closest friend and you can quote me as saying that he enjoyed Miss Thomason’s company just as he did the many other girls he has been out with since separating from his wife. But that’s as far as it went!”5
Elaine, who was not to be trifled with, knew early on that Mickey was always on the lookout for a pretty woman, and though she herself was cheating on him, she refused to put up with it. Once she caught him trying to get his office phone number to a beautiful girl serving hors d’ouevres at a party they were throwing, and she got so mad she walloped Mickey hard across his mouth, drawing blood. Although she claimed that Mickey had begged her several times to reconcile, she was fed up and embarrassed.
Now that a divorce was in the offing, she was determined to get the highest possible settlement. She hired divorce attorney Max Gilford, who was also an actor and producer and the husband of actress Anne Gwynne, to get her piece of the pie. Gilford played hardball and threatened to expose Mickey’s lifestyle to the media. While Mickey and Elaine had officially separated in early 1958, the settlement negotiations dragged on for months. Elaine had requested a temporary alimony of $2,350 per month until a settlement was reached. Mickey was unhappy and did not feel she deserved that much. He hired divorce attorney Dermot Long and tried to play his own game of hardball.
Even after she had agreed on terms and the interlocutory degree was granted, on May 18, 1959, neither would be able to marry until June 7, 1960. But by the time of the interlocutory decree, Barbara was already five months pregnant with Kelly Ann, who would be born on September 13, 1959. According to Pam McClenathan, Elaine tried to extort Mickey for extra money in return for not reporting the pregnancy and overlooking the fact that Mickey had actually married Barbara, on December 1, 1958, in Mexico, while he was still legally married to Elaine.6 Hence, already a pedophile because of Liz Taylor and Lana Turner, he was now also a bigamist, and was about to have an illegitimate child. Mickey refused to pay Elaine any hush money, and she promptly sought to sell the story to the gossip magazines. However, it was the Los Angeles Times, on June 3, 1959, before the final divorce decree that reported that Barbara was “four months pregnant.”
“Mickey fucking dragged me and all the records into his divorce. I thought I was finished with him . . . apparently not,” recalled Maurice Duke.7
Mickey’s divorce from Elaine—public, ugly, tainted with the smudge of bigamy, and wrapped around her love for her first husband, who intruded himself into Mickey’s life and then wound up getting killed by the very mobsters to whom Mickey was heavily in debt and for whom he even occasionally made collections—would probably have psychologically crippled most people. But not Mickey, who persevered into his next marriage and into another murder.