The other day here, I reported on the Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters' luncheon in honor of Mickey Rooney. As I mentioned, Mr. Rooney gave a very nice speech but it included an anecdote of questionable veracity. As recounted, he was a busy kid actor when he happened to wander into an office at the movie studio and met a man named Walt Disney. Mr. Disney was about to launch a new cartoon character, Mortimer Mouse. In Mr. Rooney's telling, Walt decided to rename the character with the name of his youthful visitor. Cute story…but as Wade Sampson notes in this article, the tale doesn't stand up to much fact-checking. The dates are wrong, the details are amiss, the chronology does not match other, more credible accounts.
On the other hand, we who research show biz history often have to deal with quotes or reported quotes like this because human beings sometimes humor people or say things they don't precisely mean, especially in casual conversations. If you plow through books and old magazines that mention Jimmy Durante, you'll find at least a dozen newspapermen, authors, cartoonists or fellow performers who claim they came up with his nickname, 'The Schnozzola." And almost every one has a probably-true quote from Jimmy saying, "Yep…that's the guy who gave me that name."
Well, why not? Jimmy probably figured it didn't hurt and it made those people happy. Dean Martin did the same thing when someone claimed — as many did — to have been the person who introduced him to Jerry Lewis. He didn't remember who really had, so he figured it was easier to just give everyone the credit.
Maybe Mickey did walk in one day in 1928 when Walt was fiddling with drawings of the character he had already decided to name Mickey Mouse. Rooney's name then was Joe Yule Jr. but he was starring in the Mickey McGuire comedies and folks around the studio probably called him Mickey. Walt could easily have said, "I'm naming my new character after you," just to bring a smile to a young face. I mean, he wasn't talking to a reporter for posterity. He was talking to an eight year old boy…and the eight year old boy just happened to go on to be a major star and to remember the conversation. The details of the story as Rooney tells it are almost certainly askew but it wouldn't surprise me if there's some scrap of truth in this one…not that Walt named The Mouse after him but that he told Rooney he did.