Taking Pass on Politics

27

The death of Mickey Rooney last week got Michael Levine reminiscing.

Levine, a Hollywood publicist, said that in 1988 he was working in an advisory role for the Ronald Reagan administration (via producer A.C. Lyles, who was a friend of Reagan’s and Rooney’s). One day, Rooney contacted Levine, saying he’d heard that Levine was doing some work for the White House. Rooney said he wanted to get Levine’s counsel because Rooney was planning to do something. Something big.

“What’s that?” asked Levine.

Rooney responded: “I want to run for president.” As Levine recalls, Rooney wanted to know if Levine thought it was a good idea and if he had a chance of getting endorsements, that kind of thing.

Not knowing what to say, Levine said he’d think about it and get back to Rooney.

Soon thereafter, Levine bumped into Jack Kemp, the former quarterback and congressman who was running for president that year. Levine asked: “If Rooney endorses you for president, will you give Rooney a signed football?” Kemp readily agreed.

Levine then went back to Rooney and told him that it wouldn’t be a good idea for him to run for president. He suggested Rooney endorse Kemp. He’d not only get a signed football, but maybe Kemp, if he did win, would give Rooney an ambassadorship or even make him a Cabinet secretary. That way, Rooney would be set up for a future in politics, if he wanted it.

Rooney agreed and Levine, now 60, said he arranged for the football exchange at the Beverly Hilton hotel.

But of course, Kemp didn’t win. Rooney got no ambassador post. And that, apparently, was the end of Rooney’s presidential aspirations.

Fair-Weather Friends

Mike Wallace and his wife, Clair, lived in South Pasadena years ago, but spent the past five years in New York and Amsterdam. Last summer, he said they both had an itch to come back west.

Talk about good timing. They moved back in July and missed one of the East Coast’s harshest winters in decades.

“It couldn’t have been a better winter to come back,” said Wallace, 46, who now leads the new South Pasadena office of Cleveland sustainability consulting firm BrownFlynn. “I’m from Akron, Ohio. I had enough winter growing up there.”

Other than skipping the harsh winter, Wallace said there’s another benefit of having moved back in the summer: getting to remind relatives back east about the California climate.

“My wife and I have family all through New Jersey and New York, and they’re always checking in, asking how we’re doing,” he said. “We tell them, ‘Oh, you know, shorts and T-shirts again.’ At this point, they’ve stopped asking.”

Staff reporter James Rufus Koren contributed to this column. Page 3 is compiled by editor Charles Crumpley. He can be reached at [email protected].