Loki Rourke

Mickey Rourke's remarkable comeback finds him nominated for a best actor Academy Award for his role in The Wrestler. But he'll have a heavy heart at this Sunday's Oscars -- Rourke's beloved Chihuahua, Loki, died early Tuesday morning. He was 18. Rourke told Barbara Walters in an interview for her annual Oscar special that his dogs are ''everything'' to him. He even thanked his dogs -- ''the ones who are here and the ones who aren't here anymore, because sometimes when a man's alone, all you got is your dog'' -- in his Golden Globes acceptance speech last month. Before Loki's death, Rourke had four Chihuahuas. He's had as many as 12 throughout his life. TMZ.com caught up with Rourke Tuesday night on his way out of dinner at the Waverly Inn in New York. He said Loki died about 5 a.m., and that he still didn't have the words to express how he was feeling. Rourke hosted a weekly karaoke night at RokBar in Miami Beach last year called Loki Karaoke to bring awareness to PETA Miami. The 52-year-old actor told Walters that his performance as aging professional wrestler Randy ''the Ram'' Robinson represents the best work of his career. ''It's the hardest movie I ever made, and it's the best movie I ever made,'' Rourke told Walters in an interview to air on her ABC Oscar-night special. Rourke -- who rose to fame in the '80s for his work in films including 9 ½ Weeks, Diner, Rumble Fish and Angel Heart, but whose popularity dropped off afterward -- told Walters that ``the dogs were there when no one else was there.'' ''I sort of self-destructed,'' he said. ``The wife had left, the career was over, the money was not an ounce.'' When he was at rock bottom, he said he realized, 'I don't have kids. The dogs became everything to me. The dog was looking at me going, `Who's going to take care of me?' '' Asked if he could have imagined a year ago that he'd be nominated for an Academy Award, Rourke said, ``Put it this way: I always, I always felt if I could get back in the game, I'd have a hope. I mean, I always had a hope that I would. But it's not always in your hands. It's always, there's the material, there's the director. It's all gotta sort of come together at the right time.'' Rourke said he relished the chance to take a leading role and credits director Darren Aronofsky for giving him a chance. ''I'd ruined my career, and that's all anybody would take the chance on me, would be a week here, a day here, three days there,'' he said. ``What I want to do is, I just want to do the best, the best work that I can, that I got in me. And that's what Darren [Aronofsky] brought out of me. I want to be able to take that same work ethic to the next film.''