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Mickey Rooney has been a fixture on the big screen since the silent era. But mention the word retirement, and be prepared for a mild tongue-lashing.

"Retire? Why?" the 87-year-old says. "Why is it everyone wants me to retire? Who cares about age? I don't need to retire."

And thus the venerable star of Hollywood Golden Age classics such as "Boys Town," "Babes in Arms" and "National Velvet" soldiers on, recently appearing alongside Ben Stiller in "Night at the Museum." He also keeps in shape by cutting the rug onstage, and Greensboro fans can catch his song-and-dance routine when he and wife Jan Chamberlin hit the Carolina Theatre on Saturday .

The event, which also will feature tales of Rooney's early days in Tinseltown, is part of the venue's 80th anniversary celebration. To mark Rooney's appearance, the theater will host a screening tonight of "National Velvet."

Best known for playing the teenaged title character in the Andy Hardy film series in the 1930s and 1940s, Rooney has spent more than eight decades in the film business and has several upcoming projects, including "Harmony Ranch." That film, which has yet to be released, was partly filmed in and around Winston-Salem and stars Rooney as a horse rancher who tries to help out a troubled youth.

In a telephone interview from Atlantic City, N.J., where he recently finished a week's worth of stage shows with his wife, he comes across as spirited, if a little curmudgeonly, scoffing at the notion that he should sit back, collect a pension and relax.

"When I ask Mickey about retirement he just says, 'nooooo,'" Chamberlin said on the telephone from their hotel. "He's one of those people who doesn't like to sit still. When we get home, after a few days he starts asking, 'Where are we going today? Let's get out of the house.'"

In the background, Rooney could be heard dismissing the idea of settling down.

Born Joe Yule Jr., he made his stage debut at the age of 1 as part of his parents' touring vaudeville act, and his screen debut as "a midget," in the 1926 silent film "Not to be Trusted." He would go on to star in a series of 60 shorts based on comic-strip character Mickey McGuire. Beginning in 1937, the Andy Hardy films would catapult him into stardom, and from 1939 to 1941, he was the top male box-office draw in America.

During his heyday, stars — especially child stars — were held to a strict code of behavior in public. Today's young stars — like Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan — seem more likely to make headlines for run-ins with the law and exposing themselves. Rooney, who admits he had a reputation as a troublemaker in his youth, said he has nothing but sympathy for such troubled performers.

"I really don't care to comment on them, other than to say we feel very sorry for them," he said. "We're all human beings, nobody's perfect."

Rooney prides himself on staying involved with family-friendly projects. In recent years he has starred in a number of straight-to-video movies, though younger audiences probably know him best from the 2006 hit "Night at the Museum." Rooney played Gus, one of three retired guards who place Stiller in charge of security at a museum where the exhibits come to life at night. The guards later conspire to rob the place as a way of paying for their retirement.

Rooney said he especially enjoyed working with fellow old-timer Dick Van Dyke.

"On the set, we did a lot of songs, shared a lot of memories," he said. "And it was a family picture, so it was a lot of fun."

And of course, his wife said, he looks forward to doing more films in the future.

"He's like a kid, he'll run circles around me," she said. "He'll get up at the crack of dawn, and just keep going and going and going. Somebody asked, 'So what do you put in his Metamucil?'"

Contact Robert C. Lopez at 691-5091 or robert.lopez@news-record.com