Mickey Rooney, who died Sunday at age 93, will be remembered by many as among the last of a long gone Hollywood era. An actor from the time he was a baby, he was a 
movie star in his teens, a frequent television performer in the early days of network drama and a character actor who in recent years was still performing . He was, very late in life, an outspoken advocate on an issue that’s increasingly commonplace yet still so little addressed. Rest in peace, Mickey Rooney, champion against elder abuse. Three years ago, at age 90, Rooney spoke before a Senate Special Committee on Aging on the abuse he said he suffered at the hands of his adult stepson Christopher Aber, and about the special vulnerability of older Americans to physical intimidation, financial exploitation and emotional mistreatment. Rooney claimed Aber withheld his mail, medication and food, and made him a “prisoner in his own home,” saying, “My money was stolen from me, by someone close. My money was taken and misused.”