Gossip Friday: Coming in Third

From December 1940:

Mickey Rooney, the cigar smoking toughie of Mickey McGuire two-reelers 15 years ago, has been voted the nation’s foremost box office attraction for the second consecutive year, the Motion Picture Herald reported yesterday.

The tousled, 20-year-old Rooney won the Herald theater poll by an overwhelming vote over 200 actors and actresses–the handsomest leading men and the prettiest girls of the motion picture industry. 

This year he carried young Judy Garland with him from relative obscurity in 1939 to the No. 10 moneymaker. The Garland parade began early in 1940, when she and Rooney were cast in “Babes in Arms.” The film was such a smash hit countrywide that the stars were cast immediately in “Strike Up the Band.”

The movie magazine polled operators of more than 12,000 theaters. Rooney received 4,380 votes.

Spencer Tracy, who was in fifth place in 1938 and third last year, was the second choice for 1940, largely because of the success of “Edison the Man.”

Clark Gable was voted the third most popular star and is the only actor to be one of the top 10 since the poll was started in 1932. He rose from fourth place last year on the strength of his performance in “Gone with the Wind” and “Boom Town.”