Elaine Devry, fourth wife of Mickey Rooney, passes away at 93

Los Angeles [US]: ‘The Atomic Kid’ star Elaine Devry has passed away. She was the fourth wife of the late actor Mickey Rooney.

As per Variety, Elaine Devry breathed her last on September 20 at her home in Grants Pass, Oregon. She was 93.

Devry married Rooney in 1952 and a year later, she made her onscreen acting debut in the Rooney-starring comedy film ‘A Slight Case of Larceny’ and on an episode of the Ronald Reagan-hosted CBS anthology series ‘General Electric Theater’.

Devry also appeared in films such as ‘China Doll’, ‘Man-Trap’, ‘The Last Time I Saw Archie’, ‘Diary of a Madman’, ‘With Six You Get Eggroll’, and ‘Herbie Rides Again’.

She was widely appreciated for her role in the 1954 sci-fi comedy ‘The Atomic Kid’, directed by Leslie H. Martinson. She played nurse Audrey Nelson opposite Rooney’s Barnaby “Blix” Waterberry; she was billed as “Elaine Davis (Mrs. Mickey Rooney)” in the credits.

On the television side, Devry guested on such series as ‘Bourbon Street Beat’, ‘Bachelor Father’, ‘Perry Mason’, ‘Death Valley Days’, ‘Bonanza’, ‘I Dream of Jeannie’, ‘My Three Sons’, ‘Marcus Welby, M.D.’. Her final acting credits include an episode of ‘Beverly Hills Bordello’ and the 1999 film ‘Heart to Heart.com’.

Devry was born Thelma Elaine Mahnken on Jan. 10, 1930, in Compton, Calif. She married her high school boyfriend Dan Ducich in 1948, and the couple lived in Butte, Montana, until their divorce in 1952.

Devry returned to California that year and met Rooney at a driving range in Woodland Hills. The couple wed in November when she was 22 and he was 32, and eventually divorced in December 1958.

In 1975, she married actor Will J. White. The couple were married until White’s death on April 23, 1992.