Did Judy Garland have her mom killed?

Caught her bit part while watching "Pigskin Parade" early this morning/late last night and wound up looking at her wikipedia entry and saw this...\ \ "Garland''s personal and professional achievements during this time were marred by the actions of her mother, Ethel. In May 1952, at the height of Garland''s comeback, Ethel was featured in a Los Angeles Mirror story in which she revealed that while Garland was making a small fortune at the Palace, Ethel was working a desk job at Douglas Aircraft Company for $61 a week.[55] Garland and Ethel had been estranged for years, with Garland characterizing her mother as "no good for anything except to create chaos and fear" and accusing her of mismanaging and misappropriating Garland''s salary from the earliest days of her career.[56] Garland''s sister Virginia denied this, stating "Mama never took a dime from Judy."[57] On January 5, 1953, Ethel was found dead in the Douglas Aircraft parking lot.[58]"\ \ Was the mom found dead of MURDER or suicide or just dropped dead or what?

• She had a fatal heart attack. \ \ I''ve always felt she was scapegoated. The psychiatry of the time pinned blame for most problems on the patients'' mothers. Judy herself said psychiatry really screwed her up. She started going early on at the urging of Joe Mankiewicz, who had her starry-eyed.

• It''s not as if Judy could have not had Ethel killed, rather she felt 61$ a week at DAC was punishment enough.\ \ Judy (with a pencil and a phone) could get anything accomplished.

  Kitty

• except getting clean, sober & stable\ \ Garland must be the world''s most praised suicidal/homicidal oversexed nutjob.

• Must drive you nuts, r3.

• Well if she had a fatal heart attack why didn''t it say that in wikipedia.\ \ Just a strange way to write an entry.

  OP

• Suzy did it with an orbitoclast.

  Liza

• [quote] Ethel then died in January 1953 of a heart attack, leaving Judy devastated and guilty about not reconciling with her mother before her untimely demise.\ \ There is more information available than provided at Wiki, OP.

• She died of a heart attack. No murder. %0D\ %0D\ Judy Garland had a good relationship with her mother...until she started psychoanalysis. After that, she got it into her head that her mother was responsible for ALL of her problems. Well, her and Louis Mayer/MGM. And later on, Sid Luft. Garland herself created the myth of Judy Garland, the ultimate, blameless victim. %0D\ %0D\ When she first starting having financial difficulties she said it was her mother''s fault; Ethel had squandered all the money her poor, hard-working daughter had made through blood, sweat and tears. Actually when Ethel was in charge of her finances she was conservative and prudent with her daughter''s money. It wasn''t until Judy came of age and got control of her funds that her money drained away. After severing ties with Ethel, Judy blamed Sid Luft for her financial woes. When Garland died she was $4 million dollars in debt. She was married to Mickey Deans at the time. I wonder if she blamed HIM for the financial hole she''d dug for herself.

• Jesus, does that mean Liza and Lorna were responsible for their mother''s debts and had to pay them off?

• [quote] Despite numerous concert and television appearances in the 1960s, Garland remained constantly in debt. This was due in part to then-manager David Begelman embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from his clients, with Garland chief among them. Begelman even went so far as to claim a Cadilac, presented to Garland for an appearance on "The Jack Paar Program" (1962) as his own.\ \ [quote] She experienced financial difficulties in the 1960s due to her overspending, periods of unemployment, owing of back taxes and embezzlement of funds by her business manager.\ \ [quote] Judy lost millions of dollars due to her husband''s strong gambling addiction.\ \ Tip of the iceberg...

  Judy was grifted

• Hmmm...Judy''s older sister, Suzy, died a drug-addicted "suicide" in 1964...

• [quote] My mother had a marvelous talent for mishandling money - mine. When I was put under stock contract at Metro and had a steady income for the first time, we lived in a four-unit apartment building. I suggested to Mother that we buy it as an investment and rent the other three apartments. She hit me in the mouth and invested the money in a nickel mine in Needles, California, that has never been found. We never got a nickel back.

• Judy Garland had many people killed: Carole Lombard, FDR, Mussolini, Carole Landis, Virginia Woolf... you did NOT want to piss her off.

• I told you she was hardcore!

• You make a mockery of me [r11]. I am so embarrassed!

  What''ll I do?

• An example of what Judy could do with a phone and a pencil at link.\ \ Gerold Frank tells it better.

  http://books.google.com/books?id=jLmp4MF3UK4C&pg=PA52&lpg=PA52&dq=judy+garland+j+edgar+denver+sid+luft&source=bl&ots=fwzsh7eUW3&sig=ED4AvFd1aVGOEIHV_RKPpGawW4c&hl=en&ei=seX6TNDvE43KnAetha3JCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBcQ6AEwAA#v=onepag

• "Garland must be the world''s most praised suicidal/homicidal oversexed nutjob."%0D\ %0D\ No, Marilyn Monroe is the world''s most praised suicial/homicidal oversexed nutjob.

• [quote]No, Marilyn Monroe is the world''s most praised suicial/homicidal oversexed nutjob.%0D\ %0D\ No, that would be Dawson.

• Judy could barely get herself out of bed and to work on time. Staging a murder and getting away with it would have been her equivalent of grocery shopping - impossible.

• Judy could motivate when it came to getting to the grocery, [r19], I assure you.

• Marilyn was many things, but she wasn''t homicidal. Just stop it.\ \ Judy was hardly oversexed. She was just typically loose when stoned.\ \ Dawson is not a nutjob. Dawson gives nutjobs.

• Ok did they kill the mom and sister as a warning to her about her debts?

• What become of her new straw hat that should have come to me? Somebody pinched it; and what I say is, them as pinched it done her in.

• I heard Judy Garland''s mother was horrible and she hen pecked Judy Garland%E2%80%99s gay father who she just adored. Even Lorna Luft''s movie shows Judy being manipulated and mistreated by her mother.\ \ \ Also, Natalie Wood''s mother was considered the devil incarnate. I think Susie Lee said Natalie''s mother was plain evil. However the queen of evil mother''s was Margaret O%E2%80%99Brien%E2%80%99s stage mother.

• As Ethel hit the pavement, Judy was heard shouting, "It was mine. The medal was mine!"

• here''s google archive on judy''s mom. interesting stuff

  http://www.google.com/archivesearch?q=judy garland''s mother&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

• WHET Susie Lee?

• R24 Lorna never knew Judy''s mother. Lorna''s just adhering to the John Fricke-led gay mafia spin on Garland''s life because that''s where the money and ratings are.

• Lorna authors her book sounding like she is six years old.

  Sickening

• She poisoned her with Cream...of H-Wheat!

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osYZPx2A8v4

• yes r9 Liza paid off all her mom''s debts.

• So one sister also died of drugs, didnt she have another sister also?

• R17, Judy''s promiscuity is partially hidden because she slept with many more women than Marilyn did.

• Judy''s other sister (name escapes me) moved to Texas and died of natural causes in the 1980s or early 1990s. She was married with kids and apparently normal. Lorna writes about visiting her in her book. They were at some club or something and Judy''s sister, then an elderly woman, got up and sang and Lorna wrote that she got chills because it was like hearing her mother. %0D\ %0D\ Liza did pay off Judy''s debts, to the tune of 2 or 3 million dollars after her mom died. Remember, in the early 1970s 2-3 mil was a king''s ransom, worth much more than it is now. Liza was under no legal obligation to do it (children are not required by law to pay their parents'' debts and back taxes) but she did it to honor her mother''s memory. I''ve always admired Liza for that. A lot of people would have said "fuck it" and never repaid old debts they were not responsible for when the original party was dead.

• Here we go!

  Elaine

• Run, Judy, Run!! %0D\ %0D\ The cops are on to you!!!

• [quote]except getting clean, sober & stable%0D\ %0D\ Garland must be the world''s most praised suicidal/homicidal oversexed nutjob.%0D\ %0D\ LOL!

• R34, that''s Gimmy (Virginia). The other one - Suzy - was a bi-polar, drug addicted psycho like Judy.

• [quote]Well if she had a fatal heart attack why didn''t it say that in wikipedia. Just a strange way to write an entry.\ \ Because, dear one, Wikipedia is written by a few thousand self-proclaimed experts who are nothing of the sort.

• Another Hollywood death, another Hollywood cover-up...

• R34, that is interesting about her older sister. Would be cool if there was a pic of her, then we could get a idea of what Judy would''ve looked like had she survived.

• Gay rights are women''s rights.\ \ Stop the violence against women on DataLounge.

• Use of the word "frau" is rampant all over DL, and it is meant to abuse, belittle, objectify, mock, disempower, threaten, and demonize women.\ \ Your contempt for women is killing queer teens.

• Are you for real ya cunt?

• Just finished reading Get Happy and so am bumping the thread. Which one should I start next? And will reading more than one Garland bio get me a free caftan?

  PPSM

• It wasn't such a bad salary. I made $70 a week in 1973.

• R45- read "Judy" by Gerold Frank. I think Frank had complete cooperation from family members. Another interesting one, but a bit lurid, is the bio by David Shipman, "Judy Garland: The Secret life of an American Legend." This one really focuses on her downward spiral into drugs. I think the most balanced biography is "Rainbow" by Christopher Finch. I thought Anne Edwards "Judy Garland" was the weakest.

  I've read em all.

• She had JFK killed too because he stopped taking her calls. Murderous woman.

• Read Lorna's book. When you think about it, Garland basically lived Gypsy. She'd have been a perfect Rose.

• I just found a really nice article from last year about Tommy Femia, who made a career out of playing Judy. If you haven't had a chance to see him perform, make a point to. He tours all over the place.

  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/nyregion/judy-garland-impersonator-tommy-femia-of-brooklyn.html%3Fpagewanted%3Dall%26_r%3D0%23commentsContainer

• Judy's mom was the epitome of a stage mother. I'm sure there was a lot of resentment. That's why Judy tried her best to give the kids a normal life. Liza said on the ACTORS STUDIO that Judy could always find humor in the worst situations, and had a way of making the most depressing experiences a blast.

• Judy was signed by MGM in 1935 at $100 a week. Of that money, Judy was forced to pay her mother Ethel $25 a week. This was a common arrangement for minors, which of course was at no additional cost to the studio. This continued up until Judy was no longer a minor, either at 18 years of age, but I believe it continued until 1943 when Judy turned 21 years old. The amount went up slightly over time I believe. Ethel and Frank Gumm didn't have a serious income ever really, and they lived on the road from the time they left Minnesota. They really didn't live anywhere for a whole year very often. I imagine Judy's MGM income was what supported the whole family at least in a major part. I have read many times over that Ethel did mismanage Judy's money. Sid Luft was a gambling addict, and David Begelman did steal from Judy during the greatest earning years of her career. Certainly Judy wasn't skilled at many tasks of daily living, but she was a life-long victim as far as other people stealing from her.

• OP/R5 expects better editing and documentation and more complete information from her Wikipedia posts!!!!!!!!!!!! Get on it right away!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dumbshit.

• "I heard Judy Garland's mother was horrible and she hen pecked Judy Garland’s gay father who she just adored. Even Lorna Luft's movie shows Judy being manipulated and mistreated by her mother" Lorna Luft never knew Ethel Gumm. When she was born, Judy refused to let Ethel see her grandchild. All Lorna Luft knew was what Judy told her and Judy was an incredible liar. Even Liza and Lorna admit that she frequently embellished the truth in order to tell a good story. That story she liked to tell about Ray Bolger, Jack Haley and Bert Lahr pushing her back as they were skipping down the yellow brick road and the director yelling "you three dirty hams, let that little girl in there!" was fiction. Judy's depiction of her mother as a monster who abused her, drained her financially, and got her hooked on drugs is not true. Judy LOVED to play the victim.

• "That's why Judy tried her best to give the kids a normal life" Are you kidding? Their lives were far from normal. In order to avoid paying hotel bills she would instruct them to put on as many layers of clothing as they could as they sneaked out of the various hotels they lived in. Supposedly she made it "fun"; pretty dysfunctional fun I'd say. And when she was flat broke there wouldn't even be any food in the house! Lorna, taking care of her mentally-challenged younger brother and her drug addicted mother, eventually had a nervous breakdown when she was barely into her teens. The children of Judy Garland did NOT lead "normal" lives.

• [quote]WHET Susie Lee? She choked to death on a piece of cak that was soaked in graxy, r27. Everyone thought that was so very, very clever that we gave her DL's first annual Helen Lawson Award. Naturally, we'll nominate you next time around.

• No. A ridiculous insinuation.

• "I have read many times over that Ethel did mismanage Judy's money." She didn't. But Judy kept saying she did, and a lot of her besotted fans believed her. Gerald Clarke, who wrote "Get Happy", is one of the most smitten Judy queens alive. He believes ALL the stories Judy told about her mother and he lays the blame for Judy drug addiction solely on the shoulders of poor maligned Ethel Gumm. The truth is that while Ethel Gumm was not a perfect mother and had a lot of ambition to make her girls into stars, she was not a monster who shoved pills down her baby daughter's throat and squandered her money.

• You Ethel defenders are curious. What do you base your assertions that Ethel was in fact a good mother and handled Judy's money wisely on exactly? Although Judy was prone to exaggeration in her storytelling, doesn't it make sense to believe that where there's smoke, there's fire? Judy certainly wouldn't be the first child star to have her money mismanaged by her parents.

• She sounds like every other serious drunk or doper I've ever met--their problems are always somebody else's fault .

• "You Ethel defenders are curious. What do you base your assertions that Ethel was in fact a good mother and handled Judy's money wisely on exactly?" Several well-researched biographies of Garland confirm that her tales of her mother squandering her money were bogus. When Judy got control of her finances was when the trouble began. None of her biographers have ever said that Ethel Gumm was a "good mother." She wasn't perfect but she was definitely not what Judy made her out to be. Judy Garland blamed everyone else for her troubles: her mother, Louis Mayer, MGM, Sid Luft. NOTHING was ever HER fault.

• Bump for more filmland matricide speculation....