Rooney's trip to land of 'Oz';
This Wizard operates under his own spell 

BY LORI ROTENBERK
 

Mickey Rooney is being totally unreasonable.

He knows it's so and blames it on having been awake since 3 a.m., giving more interviews than he has fingers.

"One, two, three . . ."  He's counting them off, unconsciously calling attention to his hands -- his digits look like water-logged bratwurst. They poke the air, emphasizing a caustic voice laden with pebbles. When he turns, the egg shape of his head is notable. It's bare at the top, save for needles of gray hairs that protrude stiffly up.

His neck is gone, folded accordian-like into his chin.

As he babbles, an imaginary eye is concerned with seeing him as the Wizard.

The Wizard of Oz.

That's why he's in town this particular day, to promote the stage version of the movie musical that opens March 21 at the Rosemont Theatre. The show, which also stars Eartha Kitt as the west's wicked witch and newcomer Jessica Grove as Dorothy, runs thorugh April 5.

For sure, he's ornery enough to be the Wizard. Maybe even delusional enough. And he does know how to create an illusion.

At a Daley Plaza news conference earlier in the day, where Rooney skipped with the Munchkins and hoisted his ample behind into a hot air balloon basket, he told the multitudes this: " 'The Wizard of Oz' starred, of course, Judy Garland. I think of her every day. I loved that girl. I used to go visit her on the movie set when they were filming."

Later that day, Rooney was asked to go into more detail about what he remembers of Garland during the filming of the original film.

"I wasn't really interested in it at the time. I was only interested for Judy that it would be a good picture," he said.

Did she talk to you much about the film?

"Never, never. I hate to be so difficult. But we never discussed it. I never once said, 'How's it going? What are you shooting now?'

"I maybe went once to the set. But I was always welcomed. I was once very important at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. . ."

Drifting and listing, he's suddenly off on his own.

Attention turns to Jessica Grove, who has the difficult of filling the ruby slippers long ago discarded by Garland. Grove is a 16-year-old Cleveland native who initiated the stage role at New York City's Madison Square Garden in May, 1997.

"Yes, ask her questions," Rooney interrupts. "I just can't do this . . . have the interview be about me. I'm too big. Focus on Jessica. . . ."

Do you think it will be a difficult role, and what do you think about working with Mr. Mickey Rooney?

"I . . ." she begins.

"I think it is wrong," Rooney butts in, "for her to even think of Judy Garland. She has to concentrate on being herself."

And so the interview continued. What kind of Wizard does he have in mind? What is his interpretation of the persnickety, bushy-haired crank?

Yelling, he announces: "I don't have any preconceived ideas! Any guy who has to spend time in a hospital in order to play a doctor doesn't know how to act. Acting is being just yourself. Who you are."

Oh-Oh.

That's the look Rooney's manager wears on his pug face. The manager is a dead ringer for the actor -- he was once his stand-in. The effect is surreal.

Rooney continues: "After a lifetime of playing parts, it's time to get off, like the Bard said. Now, I wouldn't get off permanently.  It's just the fact that I am, pardon the expression, an executive. I am a 77-year-old man and I want to work, i.e. for themselves and for me."

He discards the garb of the Wizard to tell of two ideas he wants to pursue for films. One would star Rooney (of course) with Luciano Pavarotti. He calls it "The Great Voice Transplant."

The idea calls for Rooney to have the beautiful tenor pipes of Pavarotti, who plays his manager.

To further the career of the voice (which they know wouldn't sell well in a body like Rooney's), both men agree to a transplant.  Black-bearded Pavarotti becomes the singer, and Rooney loses his gift.

There's trouble when the newly endowed Pavarotti ends up a boozer and smoker. He blows the millions the pair made.

They have a fight. Pavarotti would slap Rooney.

"You-a shut-a up-a," he says in a voice akin to Sylvester Stallone's.

They part, but one day (honest to gosh, Rooney gets all teary telling this ending), he finds Pavarotti wasted in a bar. All is forgiven and the guys put their arms around each other. . . .

Geez, he's really crying.

For a second only. Because his telling of the other film is already under way. Rooney would produce this one, which he'd like to star Jack Nicholson.

It's called "No Problem," and in Rooney's chaotic telling, it's about a psychiatrist who hears that phrase too many times in one day.

Imitating the fury of the doctor at hearing so many "no problems," Rooney is tugging at his sparse head hairs.

He looks down into a dessert specially made for him by the chef of the Signature Room restaurant in the John Hancock building. A scoop or two of ice cream plopped in the middle of a yellow and white swirl, like the kind a hypnotist spins. It's a crazed yellow brick road.

Rooney digs in. The swirl is pulling him in, and he's off talking about "The Wizard of Oz" again. Looking into the dish, he chants to no one in particular.

"There's no place like home, there's no place like home, Auntie Em . . ."
 

Copyright 1998 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.