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Case file s465 · Hollywood and TV · 2014
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2014
Mickey Rooney: Mickey Rooney still
Mickey Rooney. Studio publicity still. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.
Died
April 6, 2014
Place
Los Angeles, California · United States
Field
Film actor · Film and television on the timeline
Legal tradition
California conservatorship and probate law · Common law
Historical event
Rooney's 2011 testimony on elder abuse to the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging
Member of
Republican Party (Wikidata)
Hollywood and TVNowNorth AmericaUnited States

Mickey Rooney worked 90 years and left an $18,000 estate to one stepson

Mickey Rooney began in his parents' vaudeville act and had the longest career of any Hollywood star. In February 2011 a Los Angeles judge ordered his stepson Chris Aber and Aber's wife, Christina, to stay 100 yards away. Rooney's lawyers alleged that Aber bullied him, withheld food and medicine, and told him only that he was broke. A court then gave permanent control of Rooney's money to a conservator, lawyer Michael Augustine. A month later Rooney told the Senate Special Committee on Aging: "I felt trapped, scared, used and frustrated." In October 2013 Augustine settled with the Abers for a $2.9 million judgment that he called uncollectible. Chris Aber had filed for bankruptcy a year earlier, and the Abers admitted no wrongdoing. Augustine said he had evidence of $8 million taken over the years. Rooney separated from his wife of more than 30 years, Jan, in 2012. On March 11, 2014, he signed a will leaving everything to stepson Mark Rooney, who cared for him in his last two years. The will intentionally omitted his eight surviving biological children and his wife. Court papers valued his personal property at $18,000. Jan Rooney filed objections, and a lawyer for his children also contested the will. A threatened fight over his remains was averted, and he was buried at Hollywood Forever Cemetery†.

What the law took from it

A conservatorship can stop the bleeding, but it cannot recover money that a family member has already spent.

Family version vs. the record

Chris Aber said, "They couldn't prove one thing I did wrong," and that his brother Mark had been selling Rooney's possessions on eBay. The conservator called the Abers "thieves" and pointed to a $2.9 million judgment the Abers acknowledged in the settlement. Both accounts: and the court-ordered conservatorship:

The Hollywood ReporterBBC
Sources
  1. CNNPress
  2. The Hollywood ReporterPress
  3. BBCPress

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “Mickey Rooney worked 90 years and left an $18,000 estate to one stepson,” story s465, https://www.celebrity.estate/mickey-rooney-2014, updated 30 October 2026.

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Where this case sits

Hollywood and TVNowNorth AmericaCommon lawUnited States