Judy Garland--Fifty Years Since Her Death, part 2

Link to previous thread.

She was racist against "little people." She called them "midgets" One of them asked her out and she said brazenly "I couldn't tell them I didn't want to go out with him because he was a midget, so I said 'my mother wouldn't allow it'."

Reposting the Mike Douglas show from the last thread.

Great show and hilarious commercials

In response to self righteous R595 from the prior thread who hates the Mel Torme book and makes up shit to support his case that everyone else does too. Opinion is fine, fabricating quotes isn't.

Lena Horne never disputed anything written about her in the Torme book, ever. Neither did Liza comment about the book - at the time, it's doubtful that she ever read any part of it. No one said anything because it was an open secret that Judy was a total mess for years and almost impossible to work with.

Lena Horne did mention Judy in her 1965 autobiography when talking about the black star Florence Mills:

"Florence Mills, I like to think, must have been like Judy Garland, a waif they could cry over and pity sometimes, perhaps feel a little superior to, but kindly toward."

r2, everyone called them midgets in 1939. In fact, many of the munchkins came from a singing group called The Singer Midgets. And if you were fifteen, would you date a middle-aged midget who asked you out? Of course not.

Everything Mel Torme said about Judy has been backed up by the dozens of books that have been written about her since, including The Gerold Frank biography, which was authorized by Sid Luft, Liza, and Lorna in the mid-70s, when many of the people Judy knew and worked with in Hollywood were still alive and in possession of their faculties.

I recently re-read Frank, and while he does discuss Judy's problems, he's quite reticent about her final couple of years, which are covered in just a chapter or two of what is otherwise an exhaustively detailed book. I suppose her reality was so grim at that point that he couldn't go into detail without upsetting her family. Perhaps that's also why there is only one passing mention of the POSSIBILITY that Frank Gumm was gay, and no reveals at all about Vincente Minnelli's or Mark Herron's gay-leaning bisexuality. Gerald Clark's later biography Get Happy is much dishier. I'd also recommend Lorna's memoir and Stevie Phillips', for those wanting the real dirt on late-stage crazy Judy.

Mike Douglas did one of those lengthy multi-part interviews for the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences project and he speaks candidly about having Judy on the show that day. It is quite detailed and sad.

Great interview, R8. Thanks for sharing it.

Cool, R8. I always thought Mike wore an oversized rug on his show, the one above looks almost real.

Yes thanks for that interview R8. Mike taking credit for Motown was a bit much but what he said and wouldn't say about Judy was enlightening. He clearly stated that she was in a very bad way the day she appeared on his show and that her dress was unbecoming. He remembers her singing of Over The Rainbow as being "like an angel." She sang it more like a lullaby, she's very wan and distracted. I thought she never sang that song on TV? She was a pretty hazy angel, but she hit the notes. She looks fucking awful. She was between gay husbands.

Hard to believe she's only 46 there.

It actually is a very nice performance--she sings it like a jazz lullaby.

I'm glad the thread has continued. The life of Judy Garland is an endlessly fascinating subject, like Marilyn Monroe's.

Just to respond to someone in the last thread- Mel Torme may have been a huge asshole, but he's entirely sympathetic to Judy Garland in his book. The Lena Horne incident you mention- he says she got annoyed by Judy not showing up to rehearse, and she said said, out of Judy's earshot. When Judy finally showed up, the two ladies were friendly but there is a tinge of tension in the air, as you can actually see when you watch the broadcast. Torme could've invented a whole fight between them, but didn't.

There is really nothing sensational about the book. Judy comes off like someone struggling with addiction. A regular person dealing with a common phenomenon. The only "sensational" story in the book was Torme going to her house at 4am, and Glenn Ford showing up later to get her.

For sure, Mel Torme comes off arrogant and insecure at times, but that's certainly no shock given his profession. He may have been an asshole, but I really don't get the sense that he's a liar.

I would urge anyone fan who wants to know more about who Judy was to get this book.

From Rex Reed's 1971 books of reviews, Big Screen Little Screen. Reed was known to exaggerate, but this sounds about right.

1968

When Judy appears anywhere, the world holds its breath with fear and dread, but the lady usually sees herself through the mire with her unfailing sense of humor. The Dick Cavett Show was an unmitigated disaster. She showed up looking like she'd be demolished by a garbage truck. They're still talking backstage at the Cavett fracas about the way she behaved and the way she looked - they worked with her for three hours and she finally ended up wearing one of the talent coordinator's dresses, but it didn't help much.

And I still can't get over the way she sounded. She warbled a few loathsome choruses of an alleged song called The Jap Jap Jappys (I think she made it up on the spot) in a voice that that sounded remarkably like Betty Hutton's when she had well-publicized corns on her vocal cords. Cavett just let her talk and she got in some good ones.

Here it is:

Her voice was never the same after her 64 overdose: She was intubated and it damaged her vocal chords. She also took tons of Ritalin, which dries the throat. It's amazing she had any voice at all by 68.

Lorna should have been nominated for an Oscar for Grease 2. I think if she had a solo in it, she would have.

Why didn't she have a bigger career? She was gorgeous, she could sing, she could act, and she was funny.

As she admitted in her own memoir, Lorna was deeply scarred by her teenage years with Judy and then by Judy's death. She spent the 70s doing coke and partying her ass off. By the time she sobered up in the early 80s, she was over 30 and her real chance at a big career had passed.

Thank you, Lorna (R17)

I was molested.

I was alive when Tormé's book was published. I remember quite clearly it being controversial and people who knew Judy and people who are portrayed in the book disputing its veracity. Like the book if you will, but again, take it with a grain of salt. Tormé was trying to sell books. I don't doubt that some of it is true. But I doubt that ALL of it is true.

Our little friend, R595! How old were you, darling, two? Again you got it wrong. Very wrong. If you think you have a case, PRODUCE SOME LINKS to support it. Otherwise, your argument is bullshit.

Btw, these books do not produce big bucks unless they're made into a movie. This was not. NONE of the interviewers (Merv Griffin, Johnny Carson, Cavett, Joe Franklin! etc) interpreted Torme's book as a hit job on Garland when he did them to publicize his book in 1970. All of them knew what a fucking mess she was and appreciated his story. Torme was very kind in his book if you've read any of the other accounts of her behavior at the time. It wasn't done for money - it didn't make any, and wouldn't have regardless. In 1970, there were dozens of publications per month.

I'm saying that in 1970, publishing a book that was truthful about Judy Garland may have in and of itself been seen as a betrayal. Not only of Judy, but of the "code of show business," which at the time was still a pretty closed community.

Reading the book, I just don't know where the "lies" would be. If he wanted to make things up, he certainly could've made up some more sensational stuff that would've sold more books for him. Nothing rings false, and nothing seems libelous.

It could be that some people have a different view of events. For example, it was generally accepted at the time that it was CBS head Jim Aubrey who fired George Schlatter. Later, Torme hears it was Judy herself who had him fired. What actually happened is likely lost to history. But I don't believe there are instances where Mel Torme is knowingly telling a lie.

From what I recall reading Judy at one point found out Mel Torme had been double dipping and paying himself two separate salaries from The Judy Garland Show budget.

The deal with CBS was Judy got $150,000 per episode to produce the show AND pay herself. This was an enormous sum at the time. Generally they tried to bring the show in at $100,000 and Judy was paid the $50,000 remainder. To Judy, Torme's secret second salary was seen as him stealing directly from her (which it was) and she soured on him thereafter.

How would Mel Torme have the power to draw two salaries from the show without them knowing about it? He was hired to write special material, and then found that Judy wanted him always on stage to supervise her singing segments. That wasn't part of what he was hired to do, but he went along with it. He eventually refused, and was fired with about four episodes to go.

Maybe he was ripping them off, but I'd be curious to see where that charge came from.

Correct, R25, Torme wasn't handwriting payroll checks or stealing cash from a drawer.

R23, okay...mmm...to a point. Judy's state of always being broke, unreliable, not showing up, and her antics that lead to hospitalizations, public drunkenness, stomach being pumped - this was all public knowledge.

The fact that Judy got so many second chances in the 50s and 60s is a testament to her talent. She started the behavioral issues on-set around the time of Meet Me in St. Louis, and they only got worse after her breakdown in 1947. After that she was never really reliable: In the 50s, she could show up and be brilliant or not show up at all. By the 60s, a sinister 3rd choice had been added: Showing up blitzed out of her mind, an embarrassment to herself and everyone else. This became doubly true after the 64 Hong Kong overdose. Possibly she would have started that behavior even earlier, but Sid Luft more or less kept her in line. Once she jettisoned him and took up with weaker personalities like Mark Herron and Tom Green, there was no controlling her.

[quote]How would Mel Torme have the power to draw two salaries from the show without them knowing about it?

Jesus Christ it was 55 years ago, what do I look like, a forensic accountant? By being dishonest and sneaky!

It could have been 70 years ago. You're no accountant. He drew two salaries because one was for his musical arrangements and it was in his contract that he would perform a certain number of times on the show too. A guest star fee. Mel could sing a bit.

So drunk speedy Judy with the black line inside her lips fired him when she was trying to salvage a buck in the last few episodes. Mel was not gonna sing no more on her show and Mort Lindsay arranged her concert episodes so ixnay on the special material. I'm making all this up but it's closely true. Mel Torme wrote a nasty book about a newly dead star, someone with whom he was not intimately acquainted. But she was one of the greatest stars and they had worked closely for 9 months for the few hours a week she showed up to rehearse. He didn't reveal a tenth of what he knew about her - but it was still a dick move. This WAS honestly before my time. But I think he also spent half the book talking shit about his ex wife in a dirty nasty misogynist and hateful way. So he didn't come off good. No matter the truth about Judy. Then all the MGM stars who were not yet 50 had books to write in the coming decades and they all had to speak on Judy. Most were too careful, speaking of Judy's troubled genius but not much about her wild need for DRUGS and CHAOS. Because lots of them were familiar with the drugs. People loved what they remembered of her, the best of her. That's sort of human nature if you don't have to live with the full blown monster and addict. Judy did alright. A lot of people who knew her quite well loved her deeply. But they had to get out of her life long before she died. So many sad tales about her. Mental illness doesn't get better as my friend always says. Y'all need some good treatment, quiet your life, cut out drugs and booze and have a plan of action for the more dramatic days. It takes discipline and routine and regular emotion to cope with mental illness and control drug addiction. Truth with yourself and understanding support. Not the life that Garland wanted or that she ever led for longer than a few - probably never. There are quotes from those closest to her that she never admitted to having a problem with Speed or barbiturates, never mind what else entered her veins in her last years. And it did. Injection drugs are the best. Ask some of Judy's air B&B crash friends or Mickey Deans. Her raiding of anyone's drugs or any kind was well known for the last 25 years of her life. She wasn't picky but she needed Benzedrine and later, Ritalin. Judy got quiet in the last few years when she had a real supplier. Ritalin can get most people up, but she never appeared awake again. She ventured further into the poppy field.

Mel Torme was a bit too much of a frog face dick to get away with pulling the curtain up on Garland though - so soon after her death. Didn't he keep referring to his wife as Snow White or something like that? He comes across as a jerk. People can say the most unkind or unflattering things about anyone, but when it's done in hatred or vengeance, everyone can tell. It was Judy's show. She drove them all fucking seething NUTS. No doubt. But she delivered some undeniable moments of never before seen television. Just by herself. He could spew hate just because she was a messy woman and he saw them all the same. He did. Even way back then - so he enlightened no one. Garland had a lot of good will. Much of it blindly silly. But the talent doesn't lie and her hard work to please is there for all to see.

Whitney's death was met with the same emotions. We knew her troubles, but we loved her talent and turned away from her last attempts to share it. Wishing her to live and just feel better. Her voice as a big as the sea was never coming back.

Well, you're making this charge. Where did it come from? Who said he was stealing? He had a contract for 26 episodes, and he was dismissed with 4 episodes to go with no cause. Because CBS and Judy Garland were in violation of their contract with him, Mel Torme had a court put the payment from those 4 shows he was due in escrow.

Months later, Judy showed up to give her deposition. There had been a running joke on the show itself about "how did a little old lady get her own network show?" Well, when Torme saw her, he thought "she actually does look like a little old lady now." And he got the sense that there would be no more comebacks for her. I believe this was after the 1964 OD that everyone says ruined her voice for good . He confered with his lawyer, and he dropped his lawsuit. He was never paid the money that was due him.

It sounds like the book may have been a way of recouping the lost income from those 4 episodes. There is a certain justice to that.

Jesus, R28, you must read a lot of comic books.

Torme was unofficially replaced before he got fired by a piano bar grifter named Bobby Cole. Garland picked him up with promises...he left his wife and followed her west.

After her divorce from Mark Herron, Judy established a pattern of picking up young men, dazzling them for a bit, then dumping them when she got bored and they became broke and exhausted. I wonder if it was the legend that attracted them, her noted charm, or some other indefinable quality? By 1965, it certainly wasn't her looks.

R33, it was promised money, employment and the status of being close to a celebrity. That's even though these people would have to be living under a rock to not know she was drug addicted alcoholic. What they knew wasn't remotely close to what they were going to deal with.

R15 Judy Garland is a totally unprofessional mess, showing up on TV so fucked up, but she is REALLY REALLY funny and very entertaining. It's difficult no to love her.

Judy must have been the world's most amusing companion for about an hour. After that, she was probably exhausting.

Her appearances on Jack Paar showed her to be an astounding raconteur. With a delicious side of cattiness and pettiness directed at targets like Marlene Dietrich and Deanna Durbin. She could've been wonderful with her own television show, just not in 1963. She was ahead of her time in that regard. She had a great sort of world weary Irish wit, and was pretty quick. Without the drugs and drink she would have been a formidable wordsmith.

I'm sorry, she delivers "I don't mean this... HARSHLY, however..." with such delicious timing and subtle vitriol- just outstanding.

Judy might have done better with a half-hour TV show--just enough time between commercials for a couple of guests, a couple of songs, a fun skit or two, then done.

Are there any examples of Judy singing/belting without using much vibrato?

Ha! Ha! Ha!

I'll say!

R37 I would MUCH rather listen to Judy tell a story than sing.

I don't enjoy her singing, but she is an amazing storyteller.

She really could've been one of the the great superstars of the 1960s. Look at her excellent performance in Judgement at Nuremberg. Or many of her fantastic numbers on her own show like Rock-a-Bye Your Baby or The Man That Got Away- she sings those brilliantly even though she's half in the bag. And these great talk show appearances. But for the drugs and drink she could absolutely done Mame, or Gypsy, or even Dolly towards the end.

But, it wasn't to be. She couldn't quit the substances.

R40 As Sammy used to say, if this don't turn you on, you ain't go no switches!

R41 what's up? What are you doing? What does that mean?

Judy could have done "Mame or Gypsy or even Dolly?" Even NOT drunk or stoned she would have been totally wrong for those roles.

I can see her playing a sweet, impish Dolly. More in the Carol Channing mold than the Streisand one. Gypsy and Mame would have been bigger stretches.

R37, that was 1962. They tried to recreate it, but it was yesterday's reheated meatloaf. In other words - NO/GOOD.

"She really could've been one of the the great superstars of the 1960s."

I can tell the above sentence was not written by someone who actually LIVED in the 1960s.

R49 What? Her show was 1963-64.

Darling, R51, her Jack Paar appearance was before the CBS show.

R48 with a good director, she could have been a sensational Madame Rose in Gypsy.

Again, look at Judgement and Nuremberg. She's shockingly good in that.

Judy could never have pulled off Madame Rose. Brash, forceful and intimidating were not her strong suit. Sweet, wistful, vulnerable...that was her screen persona and she knew it. That was why she couldn't pull off Helen Lawson in "Valley of the Dolls." The director kept telling her to play it "bitchier" and she could NOT do it. It was against everything that had worked for her during her screen career, and she couldn't bring herself to play a role like that the way it should be played. The closest she got to bitchy was in "I Could Go On Singing", in a scene where she essentially plays herself, telling Dirk Bogarde: "You think you can make me sing? Do you think you can - do you think George can make me sing? or Ida? You can get me there, sure, but can you make me sing? I sing for myself. I sing when I want to, whenever I want to, just for me. I sing for my own pleasure. Whenever I want - do you understand that?" She goes on: "I can't be spread so thin, I'm just one person. I don't want to be rolled out like a pastry so everybody can get a nice big bite of me. I'm just me. I belong to myself. I can do whatever I damn well please with myself and nobody can ask any questions."

^That dialogue is cringe inducing. Garland was a monster in life, I'm sure she could play Mama Rose. It's not exactly Lady MacBeth. And the score was right for her voice. When she had a voice.

You're crazy r55. That dialogue is the truest Judy ever was on film describing her own life and self candidly and defiantly. It's the most honest and compelling scene in the film and both Judy and Dirk Bogarde are excellent in it.

Judy may have been the worse for wear after her show ended but often was still wonderfully vibrant and in pretty good voice, and at very least still compelling interpreting a song. The Harold Arlen tribute in the fall of 1968 bootleg from Lincoln Center has Judy singing four Arlen songs in a row sounding wonderful with only eight months to live.

It's so funny. I can understand people following a thread and responding to a thread about a person they like. I can even understand a person putting in his two cents that doesn't like the person the thread is about.

What I don't understand is someone following a thread about a person they don't like to tell people who do like her over and over that they're wrong. Why waste your time like that? What is that mentality?

I 100% believe she would have made the best Madame Rose we’d have seen. Firstly, Gypsy was filmed during a timeframe Judy was on top form. She’d done Carnegie Hall and Judgement at Nuremberg.

Secondly (and most importantly) Judy would have effectively been playing her own mother. It’s a part she would have totally understood. I’ve always believed the true understanding of having a mother like Rose, would have brought something powerful to her performance.

R58, I agree that Judy's experiences with her mother could have added a real resonance to her Mama Rose, IF she could have taken it psychologically. She was always deeply conflicted about her mother, resenting her own stolen childhood but also feeling tremendous guilt for not helping her mother out in Ethel's final years. Ethel died in a parking lot while hustling to her 1 dollar an hour job at Douglas Aircraft: She had high blood pressure and diabetes and probably shouldn't have been working at all. Judy had enough money in the early '50s that she could have taken care of her mother, but she was so angry at her that she wouldn't. After Ethel's death, she was haunted by nightmares of her mother for years--possibly the rest of her life.

Playing Ethel could have been a species of exorcism, or it could have sent her right over the edge into another breakdown. A toss-up.

What is the best Judy Garland biography? Your recommendations, please!

R46 That was something one of our old DL board regulars, Judy "Pills" Garland, used to say.

I heard a Youtube audio interview with a sober and candid Judy from the mid 50s where she describes her relationship with Ethel, and said it became "impossible" after Liza's birth and during her mental health issues of the late 40s, as Ethel had become "completely neurotic". Judy said Ethel kept telling her she had a defective brain and that she needed a lobotomy. It was quite sad to hear her describe it and from assessments of Ethel from others who knew her, rather believable.

R62, are you not aware that Judy was prone to grossly exaggerating how she told everything especially when it came to her mother?

R63 was there, apparently!

Ethel Gumm was NOT Madame Rose. She was ambitious for her daughter but she was not monstrous. In fact, she tried to make MGM give Judy an easier time of it. Having to get up in the morning for 5:00 calls was difficult for Judy so Ethel tried to get the studio to cut her a little slack and let her come in later than that. But movie making in those days was an assembly line; they were cranked out as quickly as possible and no way was MGM going to throw a kink into the movie making process in order to let one of its teenage stars get more sleep. Contrary to Judy's later ravings, Ethel Gumm was NOT in cahoots with L. B. Mayer to make her life as miserable as possible. Ethel was not fond of Mayer and did not align herself with him against Judy. She really was on Judy's side. I feel very sorry for Ethel Gumm. She's been smeared and maligned as this reprehensible monster but people who knew her knew that wasn't the case.

R64, the better biographies of Judy Garland reveal that she told a lot of lies, especially when it came to her mother. Like most drug addicts, Judy had a skewed perception of reality.

The Gerold Frank bio from the 70s, called Judy, has excellent detail, but because it's essentially the family authorized bio there's a lot that's glossed over: Vincente Minnelli and Mark Herron's bisexuality, Judy's use of hard drugs in later years, and the total chaos of her life from 1967 to her death in 1969. Reading it in tandem with the gossipy, at-times shadily sourced Get Happy by Gerald Clarke is an interesting contrast in truth-seeking. I'd also throw in Lorna's memoir Me and My Shadows for a family perspective, and Stevie Phillips' Judy & Liza & Robert & Freddie & David & Sue & Me for a look into Judy's last years, as well as some interesting detail on Liza.

I was less impressed with Anne Edwards' Judy Garland: A Biography and David Shipman's The Secret Life of an American Legend. Also, though everyone makes much of Christopher Finch's Rainbow, I really thought the best thing about it was the many pictures.

Gerold Frank interviewed Judy's surviving sister, Jimmy, for his mid-70s bio of Judy, as well as several close family friends who knew Ethel well, and they all said that while Ethel was pushy and controlling, she really did love Judy--perhaps too much. Where she made her big mistake (unless you want to count putting Judy in pictures to begin with a mistake, which is debatable) was that Ethel never wanted to let Judy grow up and be her own person, because Ethel had no identity outside of being Judy Garland's mother. At one point in the late '40s she moved to Dallas to live near Jimmy and her second husband, as both had retired from show business and created a nice life in Dallas. Ethel made a nice life as well, but as soon as Judy started having well-publicized problems again, Ethel gave up her life in Dallas and went scurrying back to LA, even though Judy neither wanted or needed her help. She also talked to the tabloids about how much Judy was ignoring her, which further pissed off her daughter.

If Ethel had stayed in Dallas and kept her mouth shut to the press, Judy might have come around eventually and found a way to forgive her mother for selling her childhood. Ethel might also have lived longer.

Oh, come on. Ethel Gumm did NOT "sell out Judy's childhood." Judy Garland WANTED to be a star. It's not like she was in show business solely because her controlling mother pushed her into it.

Judy Garland, contrary to her screen person, was a willful, headstrong girl who didn't want anyone to get in the way of whatever she wanted to do. It was this tendency to rebel that caused her to get married at the age of 18 to David Rose, a nice but boring, man. She was in no way prepared to be a wife or run a household; she'd invite people over for dinner and the guests would arrive and she would be in bed, having forgotten all about them. She had no idea how to instruct servants or keep a household running; she was still basically a child. She could well have used Ethel's assistance. But she had to go her own way, which is what she did her entire life; do her own thing, behave however she wanted, and if anybody didn't like it that was too goddamn bad.

r45 still a lot of vibrato. Did she ever sing without it or use it minimally with any song?

Judy started performing publicly at age 2. By age 6, she was being dragged all over the West Coast to perform. By age 12, she was going halfway across the country to perform at the World's Fair. She signed with MGM at age 13, and right after that her father died. Mr. Mayer became her defacto father and, along with Ethel, ran Judy's life until she burned out and quit the studio at 28.

Of course Judy enjoyed performing. Of course she was headstrong and spoiled. But to say that she masterminded her own career when that career began before she was toilet-trained is ludicrous.

Judy's rush to marry David Rose had a number of causes. 1) Ethel had married Will Gilmore the year before, on the anniversary of Judy's beloved father's death no less, and Judy hated Gilmore and was desperate to get out of her mother's house; 2) The man she really loved, Artie Shaw, had eloped with her best frenemy, Lana Turner; 3) She wanted a life and a marriage of her own after an entire lifetime of doing what other people wanted her to do. She also wanted a child. After her mother and Mayer commanded her to abort Rose's baby, and Rose did nothing to support or defend her, the marriage was dead.

"Where she made her big mistake (unless you want to count putting Judy in pictures to begin with a mistake, which is debatable) "

PICTURES? Who under 95 called movies PICTURES???

And so what R72. She was all of 20 years old. Garland had countless opportunities to live a different life and make better choices. No one forces you to be a movie star and she had quite a few dramatic forks in the road. She never chose to improve herself or her family.

Now a great performer loves to perform and she was that for a long time. But we all suffer heartbreaks and drug binges and the wrong gay husbands in our youth. Garland just did the same thing over and over and over, while her mind, body, goodwill of those around her dissipated. A classic addict, but she was too smart to not do better. She chose her life and she is a legend.

We can all revisit early pains and they're painful. But Garland blamed everyone around her and seems to have never taken any responsibility. She loved the applause, but she had no respect for her own talent. She knew her vibrato was a problem by the way. It was a mile wide and she had little control over it. She would joke about it, in print and in concert.

Listen to Streisand or Gaga or Celine and young Whitney to hear how vibrato is beautifully used. It should polish off a high note to perfection or slightly embellish select notes in a musical phrase. She's hated here but Beyonce has a beautiful use of vibrato too. (Nothing to do with melisma) Garland couldn't hold a note without an incessant wobbly vibrato unless she shouted. And she did often take a running shout toward the climactic notes of her songs. It's why her voice is not much appreciated today. The rich tone gorgeous, resonance and incredible power were all there, but she sounds like Al Fucking Jolson singing into a (oscillating) fan.

I am one of many who much prefer Garland's low key interpretations over her big belted finishes. She was wonderfully musical with beautiful timing and phrasing.

R74, you and I are essentially in agreement. I am under no illusions about Judy's personality: She was a spoiled, willful, self-destructive junkie. But the damage done to her before the age of 18 was very real, and Ethel, however good her intentions, was the prime mover in Judy's career for her entire childhood and adolescence. MGM made her a star, but it also ruined her self-esteem, worked her to death, and introduced her to the drugs that would be her dark companions for the rest of her life.

Without Ethel pushing Judy towards movies, she would have been an ordinary plump girl with an ordinary life, who just happened to have a lovely singing voice she used in the church choir or something. Perhaps Judy would still have had mental health issues--depression seemed to run in her father's family, and having a gay dad who kept hitting on the local high school boys meant her childhood would never have been a picnic. She might not have been happy, but at least she would have had more control over the kind of person she grew up to be--MGM gave her no control, and her mother is the one who push push pushed her towards MGM.

In other words, I think Judy was more sinned against than sinning for a long time. Later on she COULD have made better choices, but most people don't change their ways much once they hit adulthood. Those with substance abuse and mental health issues almost never do.

Judy Garland was in likelihood bi-polar. She was a person of extremes; extremes when it came to food, drugs, alcohol, love, sex. Liza Minnelli said this about her: " If she was happy, she wasn’t just happy. She was ecstatic. And when she was sad, she was sadder than anyone. There were no middles. I was used only to screaming attacks or excessive love bouts, rivers of money or no money at all, seeing my mother constantly or not seeing her for weeks.” All this sounds exactly like the behavior of someone with bi-polar disorder.

Not to mention, R76, Judy could stay up for days without sleep - on a manic high.

I hope you all know that MGM (and likely all of the movie studios) had all their actors on pills (speed) to keep them within weight restrictions, and other pills for everything in between. Don't go all off on how Judy was a mere teenager, many of them were 20-25, very young.

Judy's manic highs were Benzedrine induced. Stop pretending she didn't get high on her "medication."

She was very unlikely to be bi-polar. Borderline is more like it. Her constant wrist slitting and throat slashing and mewling over a new man to later sue him - the dressing room tear ups and refusing to take the stage or come to set were far more indicative of a personality disorder than manic depressive illness. She did have postpartum - not for 20 years.

Bi-polar has become a bit too trendy of a diagnosis. It's not that common. BPD is a wastebasket term but Cluster B Personality Disorder fits Garland to a histrionic, borderline, narcissistic T. She was also a junkie of course. Speed freak.

She was an artist, no doubt. She made it work for her on stage.

Oh, for God's sake, Judy wasn't "borderline." Marilyn Monroe was said to be a borderline personality in one of her biographies, but everything about Judy's behavior pointed to bi-polar disorder. All of these symptoms of bi-polar disorder sound just like Judy Garland:

Mood: mood swings, sadness, elevated mood, anger, anxiety, apathy, apprehension, euphoria, general discontent, guilt, hopelessness, loss of interest, or loss of interest or pleasure in activities Behavioral: irritability, risk taking behaviors, disorganized behavior, aggression, agitation, crying, excess desire for sex, hyperactivity, impulsivity, restlessness, or self-harm.

Cognitive: unwanted thoughts, delusion, lack of concentration, racing thoughts, slowness in activity, or false belief of superiority.

Psychological: depression, manic episode, agitated depression, or paranoia.

Weight: weight gain or weight loss.

Sleep: difficulty falling asleep or excess sleepiness.

Also common: fatigue or rapid and frenzied speaking.

Some of us know more about mental health disorders than wikipedia R80. It's unlikely that Garland was bipolar. Neither is Catherine Zeta Jones for that matter. In her case it's euphemistic.

Perhaps you have little understanding of the modern criteria of mental health classifications. Previously they've expanded manic depression to include doing coke when your dog dies. And labelled shopping and gambling as addictions, instead of compulsive disorders. A lot is about insurance and trends. Garland was not manic depressive. That's a ridiculous layman assertion.

There is a reason why cluster personality disorders were created and reclassified. Garland was a mess, but the chemical component was self induced. Personality disorders are more nurture over nature. She manifested BPD, Narcissism and Histrionic Disorders. Cluster Fuck # B.

Regardless she suffered. And made sure others watched.

Frank's biography says that Judy started the pills when she was a teenager at MGM; Clarke's bio says Ethel started her on the pills as a child so that she could keep performing. Either way, taking uppers and downers when the brain was still developing, whether she was 10 or 16, would have caused profound effects Judy started abusing drugs so young that it's hard to know which came first: the drugs or the manic depression. Overwork, intense pressure, intense fame, and ready access to drugs: She was really a perfect storm of dysfunction.

" Garland was not manic depressive. "

Were you her psychiatrist? I didn't think so. You seem to think you know her diagnosis, but you sure as hell don't. You don't know any more about her than anybody else. You seem very pompous and insufferable, a real ass.

Even Judy's actual psychiatrists couldn't seem to figure out what was wrong with her, as she'd tell them outrageous lies in an attempt to elicit the sympathy she so desperately needed.

I personally think her mania and depression were a result of an unstable childhood combined with early fame, insane overwork, and drug addiction. But Judy does seem to be an eternal mystery, which is why we're still talking about her a half-century after her death.

Garland wasn't manic depressive. She was a drug addict with a number of personality disorders and very bad coping skills that nonetheless actually got her a lot of what she wanted. Her psychotic episodes were all drug induced. Do you know what psychosis is R83? Not a single one of those close to her saw her as mentally ill, just an unstable, raging sloth, who hugged too hard and had a nice way with an aside. She was increasingly erratic woman with big dark pupils, a skeletal/fat body and track marks. Don't flatter her as being bipolar.

Some modern morons refer to themselves as unipolar, because they're never happy enough to be manic and never get laid or go shopping. It's clinical nonsense.

Garland was not manic depressive. Or Bipolar.

Marilyn Monroe suffered a mental illness. I won't try to diagnose her. Her psychosis was real. It was most likely schizophrenia.

Personality disorders are real too, but not until they're diagnosed by a professional and recognized by the afflicted. Garland never once blamed speed and barbiturates for her problems. She saw them as the solution.

Wasn't Marilyn Monroe's mother schizophrenic? The disease has a strong genetic component.

Judy's depression may have been genetic--she had an aunt who committed suicide by drowning herself, and her older sister Suzy also committed suicide. But without the pressures of fame and a broken family life, Judy might never have become a homeless drug addict at the end of her life. She also wouldn't have become a musical genius: Her talent was honed at an early age by incessant performing and MGM's training. But she might have been content. The rest of us would have been denied her talents, though, if Frances Gumm had become a plump,contented housewife in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.

R85 has absolutely NO idea WHAT Judy Garland's problem was because he never knew her and was never one of her doctors. Therefore his declaration that "Garland wasn't manic depressive. She was a drug addict with a number of personality disorders" is pure speculation, nothing more.

WHAT upsets YOU so R87?

I'd say you're the one who's upset, R88. Maybe you should take some pills.

Where did all this "Judy was using HARD DRUGS (heroin) at the end!" and "track marks" come from? Speed users all get old really fast, and I've read every Judy Garland bio ever printed, and none really mention heroin, nor was it found in her system at her death. I think people love to prognosticate and create facts which others dutifully repeat. I've not seen real evidence Jdy was shooting up heroin.

Amphetamine abuse rewires your brain, and is very tough to quit, especially if you don't really want to. To some degree I do think Judy became accustomed to the chaos. In the last couple years of her life, I read a couple of gay friends offered the temporarily homeless Judy to come stay with them, and rest and regain her strength. She accepted yet within a week was dying to get back to her crazy homelessness because she was bored!

I know Judy created lots of stories and exaggerated but not until she was older, especially in the 1960s. In the mid 50s interview I listened to she even muttered "All that Benzedrine!" when the interviewer asked about working with Busby Berkeley! Still, she was very restrained and didn't bad-mouth anyone except Ethel, yet not in a cruel way there either.

"The Ethel Gumm Revisionist Trolls" are a bit much. By 1943, even before Judy turned twenty-one, Ethel was barred from the MGM lot for good. By then everyone including Mayer had seen her in action. I'm sure she tried, but masterminding her daughter's life was her only reason for living. After siding with the studio and taking Judy to get an abortion she didn't want, her relationship with her daughter was destroyed. Apparently all she did was fight with her second husband Will Gilmore with whom she'd been having an affair while Frank Gumm was still alive, and they divorced after a short marriage. She does seem like a fascinating character though.

Judy belting could sometimes go over the top......

But sometimes, it was GLORIOUS up there.

Gerald Clarke's book mentions Judy using heroin, though that book is shadily sourced in places. Even Gerold Frank, who wrote the family authorized bio, talks about Judy taking heavy-duty opiates like Demerol when she could get them (this was in the 60s,when she was really starting to go downhill). Judy's go-to downer was Seconal, but it certainly wasn't the only drug she abused.

The official story in Gerold Frank is that Ethel was barred from the MGM lot for insisting that the studio go easier on her daughter--this was at the height of the Busby Berkeley craziness. But that could have been a family revision. It's telling that all of her daughters married as soon as they could and got out from under Ethel's control. She may have loved her daughters, but she could never quit pushing them--especially Judy.

Judy was TEXT BOOK bi-polar. Why are some of you so afraid of this condition? Depressions that drive someone to attempt suicide are not simply ways to get attention.

Judy has NO mental illness and was not a drug addict!

I was raped.

R96 - what is supposed to be funny about that? What is the basis for the joke there? What's the premise? Is it supposed to be funny to keep repeating it? Because literally no one laughs at it. Is it that she's a sort of B-lister who wrote about being raped in her autobiography? I still don't get why that's funny.

I heavily suspect that you're not a funny person, and that you should stop attempting to make jokes. It's not working. Really.

PattiFan raped me.

And anyway, the dumb twat at R96 got the joke W R O N G.

It was "I was molested."

It IS true that Mayer barred Ethel Gumm from the lot because she complained about how hard Judy was being worked. As for all her daughters marrying young and leaving the nest...well, I think that was just the normal way of things. All young girls want to get away from their mothers and lead their own lives. They all wanted to be married and be independent; I don't think it was a concerted effort to "get away" from Ethel, except maybe in Judy's case. Ethel had been her manager all her life and had always made major decisions for her; now SHE wanted to make all her decisions, even though she was only 18. But Judy was always a poor decision maker. When she went broke the first time she liked to say that it was because Ethel had squandered her money, but the fact was that when Ethel was in charge of her finances she did very well. It was only after Judy took charge that her financial situation went haywire. She tended to let unscrupulous men tend to her money matters. And of course that led to disaster.

[quote]That's even though these people would have to be living under a rock to not know she was drug addicted alcoholic.

Outside of the business, most people did not know the extent of Judy Garland's drug problems until the last year or two when her performances became more erratic (the infamous Baltimore show being one)

It was a different era. The news wasn't entertainment, tabloid driven. There were scandal rags, but it wasn't something that average people sought out, and those who did read it would never think of sharing it in public.

How old are you R101, darling? We knew TONS of shit about JG. Everyone knew she was - drug and alcohol depended, looked like a person 20 years older than her real age, was unreliable. and that her voice sounded like shit.

According to her bios, the public knew about Judy's problems from the late 40s on, when her problems with MGM became acute and she started self-harming. JUDY GARLAND CUTS THROAT was a major headline, even though she only knicked it out of frustration for being fired from Annie Get Your Gun.

The big Busby Berkeley finale of "Girl Crazy" was the first part of movie filmed and it is an elaborate, over-the-top production number which is in the final version of the film, and it is indeed quite thrilling. This was the first time Judy, hyper stimulated on Benzedrine yet exhausted, collapsed on set at the studio. It is depicted in the "Me and My Shadows" tv movie based on Lorna's book. This was in January or February of 1943, and was likely the event which Ethel was responding to which got her banned.

Judy had just completed "Presenting Lily Mars", had begun "Girl Crazy", and was then called back to shoot a whole different massive production number for "Lily Mars" (Broadway Rhythm w/dancing partner Chuck Walters) which replaced the rejected and never-seen finale "Paging Mr. Greenbacks", and squeezed into all that shot her "The Joint is Really Jumping Down at Carnegie Hall" number for "Thousands Cheer" before returning to "Girl Crazy" all "rested"! Even her fellow actors were stunned she was even able to keep up and execute so much new material, music and choreography.

If you're looking for the start of her troubles, one might find it in early 1943, in the months before Judy's twenty-first birthday. It's troubling to think of really.

She was having issues before that though, but she was still young enough to be able to function. When she had her affair with Joe Mankiewicz around that time, he convinced her to start seeing a shrink to sort out her head. Mayer and Ethel flipped out, and eventually Judy got bored with seeing Dr. Simmel, but Mankiewicz's instincts were right. Karl Menninger, a noted psychiatrist and the first one to work with Judy, recommended that she take a year off and spend some time in a good clinic, but MGM wouldn't hear of giving one of its top stars a hiatus of that length. In 1949, when things were really dire, the studio actually offered to give her a year off with pay if she went to a clinic, but at that point she hated and feared the men in suits and wouldn't take the offer.

One wonders what would have happened if she had gotten that time off in 1943.

R9 what made the situation with the guy from the fan club sad was that Lorna had to deal with that mess at such an early age. The fan club guy is implying that someone is spreading rumors about Judy having a lesbian affair. He won't confirm it, so Judy puts 12 year old Lorna on the phone to ask him. It's a sad situation that a small girl had to deal with that. And, meanwhile, the guy is secretly taping the entire conversation.

Lorna said in her memoir that her early life in Holmby Hills was idyllic. She and her brother had their own wing of the house and lovely nannies to look after them, and they never heard her parents' fights. Once Judy and Sid split for good, things started to go downhill fast, particularly after the cancellation of Judy's TV show.

I've been called heartless for saying this, but I still maintain that if Judy had died in Hong Kong in 1964, Lorna would have been far less fucked up. Tough as she was, Lorna had a nervous breakdown at 15 from caring for her mother and had to go live with her father (Joe had already fled). Though pretty and talented, she wasted her twenties partying because she spent her formative years looking after Mama. Without that trauma, Lorna might have had a much bigger career.

Lorna definitely had the 70s blonde thing going for her. IDK if she could have become a film star like Liza, but I could totally see her on 70s TV in a starring role.

Why didn't Sid and Vincente simply step in and demand custody? It clearly wasn't a secret that she had major issues, and the kids apparently stayed with famous friends for periods of time. Would the courts have honestly ruled in favor of her?

Several biographies of Garland state that she had lesbian affairs. In Gerald Clarke's sleazefest biography "Get Happy" he quotes Judy as saying in explanation for her lesbian affairs: "when you've eaten everything in the world there is to eat you've got to find new things." He goes on the say that women were but a mere "side dish" on Judy's sexual plate; men were always the main course. She was rumored to have had an affair with Betty Asher, a "studio spy" at MGM; Asher, an unstable sort, eventually committed suicide. And towards the end of her life Judy was said to have pathetically had an affair with a female fan who was helping her financially. I think Judy probably used sex as a tension reliever and if a woman made herself available to her, she probably thought "why not?"

[quote]Liza Minnelli said this about her: " If she was happy, she wasn’t just happy. She was ecstatic. And when she was sad, she was sadder than anyone. There were no middles. I was used only to screaming attacks or excessive love bouts, rivers of money or no money at all, seeing my mother constantly or not seeing her for weeks.”

Oh, Liza, you didn't see Mama for "weeks on end" because you ignored her calls.

Sid did want custody, but by the time he and Judy finally divorced the kids were old enough to have a say in the matter, and they chose to stay with their mother. According to Lorna, they felt she needed them more. TOO much, probably, and both eventually had to flee to Sid to get away from Judy's craziness. By then, the damage had already been done to them. Perhaps the courts should have ignored the children's wishes, but Judy was famous and famously vulnerable and charming and she got her way, to everyone's detriment.

As to why Vincente never stepped in, I'm not sure about that. He really should have.

[quote]As to why Vincente never stepped in, I'm not sure about that. He really should have.

I wanted to, but it's difficult to get fucked by chorus boys when Joey is in the next room in drag singing, "Am I Blue?"

R106 I feel sorry for any celebrity having to deal with creepy fans like that.

Pardon me for saying this, but I always found Lorna phony and self aggrandizing in the 1970s.

I saw her on a Kup's Show around 1974. Lorna was very serious and pretentious. She described her singing voice when asked. She said, "It's not like my mother's, it's not like Liza's, It's not like Barbra's." OY

R114, Judy Garland never had to deal with fans like that - she's DEAD

There's a very entertaining book, "The Making of the Wizard of Oz", by Aljean Harmetz. It goes into detail about the tortuous making of that film and how much suffering Margaret Hamilton, Jack Haley, Ray Bolger and Bert Lahr went through during the course of their roles (Judy Garland got off relatively easy by comparison). Although not a biography of Garland it made some astute observations about her, and how over the years she morphed from a happy, easy to work with young girl into the unprofessional, drug addicted train wreck she later became. It said of her:

In the fall of 1938 she was sixteen years old. The other actors later remembered her as "enchanting" , "cheery and bright and a joy to be around." She was, according to Margaret Hamilton, "one of the happiest people I'd ever seen." "Judy was as light hearted a person as I ever met in my life," says Jack Haley. "She always wanted to hear something funny so she could laugh." Even screenwriter Noel Langley, who was hardly one to put a charitable interpretation on things, found Garland "absolutely enchanting. Her manners were perfect, far better than anyone else's there. She always called you Mister."

Yet, during the last years of her life Garland appeared on the Jack Paar show and spoke bitterly of the Munchkins as "drunks who got smashed every night." Her bitterness extended to Haley, Bolger and Lahr...they had upstaged her, pushed her out of the way, shoved her into the background. Jack Haley, watching the Paar program, sat bewildered in front of his television set, whispering "It's untrue. It's untrue." "How could you upstage anybody?", he asks. "For Christ's sake, we were linked arm and arm all the time."

Long before her death, Judy Garland found it necessary to invent and reinvent her past, shaping its facts to suit her needs and anxieties. "She lied a lot", according to people who knew her. The lies gave her the same kind of relief , although not nearly as much relief, as liquor and what she called her "happy pills."

Yes, Gerold Frank debunked that Oz poor-Judy-pushed in the background rumor, too. She had a persecution complex a mile wide, particularly in her later years. It's why her stories about Ethel should be taken with a big grain of salt.

That upstaging during OZ thing made it into the Me and My Shadows TV show. The director telling the men to stop upstaging Judy, "ya big hams!"

It's still hilarious though "HOLD IT! You thrrreee dirty HAMS! Let that little girl in there!"

at 26:00

Judy getting pissed off that she is associated with gay men, to the point of calling the person who said it a dyke.

Most fans, R122, interpret that interview as Judy embracing her gay male fans, lol

R120 yeah that was great. You can see Paar lean in and hold his hand up just before she gets to that part- I think the original uncensored story must have been "dirty bastards" or "sons-of-bitches" but Judy knew how to clean it up for television.

R123: She is not embracing her gay fans. She is saying, "How could you call my darling fans QUEENS? What a horrible thing to say! That was just some diesel dyke who said that!"

I heard that midgets on the set of the Wizard of Oz were assholes. They did drugs and hired hooker.

[quote]I heard that midgets on the set of the Wizard of Oz were assholes. They did drugs and hired hooker.

Did they enjoy Joan?

Actually, the sordid behavior of the Munchkins was highly exaggerated, in no small part due to the stories Judy told. A few of them were hellraisers, but not many.

Judy was a LYIN' LITTLE BITCH!

NO, R125. It's really How could you call my darling fans QUEERS? Queens was the nice word

Yeah, Judy was being an asshole to her gay fans. But, in fairness, she was a junkie. And it was the '60s.

^ Excuses excuses

She made all the little people put on black face while she got drunk and sang "Mammy"

Mary Martin said, after they fired Judy, she came back to the set and turned everyone on the movie lot against her. She said, Judy was telling everyone about poor Larry's illegitimate status, who Martin says was late legitimate.

Martin said "doing that movie totally turned me off against movie making"

r108

Lorna was the original choice for Gloria Stivic on "All In The Family," but she insisted on having an and/as credit and was dropped.

There is NO MYSTERY on why Judy Garland was so fucked up.

Simply put she was a very talented little girl. From the earliest memory she would perform for anyone and everyone. And she was so good, everyone "ooohed and awwwed" around her constantly. The more they did this the more she performed and the more attention she got.

She then morphed into an attention whore. "Look at me, look at me," and when they didn't she'd get upset. She never learned to share

Then her mother took her to Hollywood, where she performed and everyone "ooohed and awwed" over her and gave her money as well.

She loved all the attention and that set off a pattern where she turned into a spoiled brat if she wasn't getting it.

Garland never learned the basics of being a child so grew up into a spoiled adult.

She used drugs to cope with this but never could she get over not being the center of attention.

Judy was amazingly talented which only made the situation worse. If she had a few hard kicks early on before her success she'd have been OK.

Judy wasn't mentally ill, just never brought up right. Same thing for people like Michael Jackson who were never taught boundaries.

Interesting, R135. I can see her in that part. But what was she thinking, asking for an and/as credit? In 1971 she was 19 years old and only famous for being Judy Garland's daughter. That ego must have cost her some parts along the way.

Her biographies do talk about how much Judy was spoiled by her parents. BUT, she was also constantly overworked as a child and young adult and also made to feel terrible because she didn't look like Lana Turner. She could be both a spoiled brat AND a wronged woman: I think the combination is what makes her such a fascinating personality.

Howdy, JOAN (Crawford)! R136

I know most people here reject astrology but Judy has an interesting chart. Classic example of a Gemini.

"Her first prominent role as 'Dorothy' is so profound as a symbol of Gemini through her innocence, intelligence, and curiosity. Judy Garland's unique triple tier combo of Gemini Sun, Sagittarius Moon, Cancer Rising is seen through this fictional character. Dorothy is open with wide eyed wonderment, the girl next door (Gemini) but she is subconsciously drawn to life beyond the rainbow and because of this desire for expansion she is propelled to a far off land (Sagittarius Moon) where she is exploring new friends in a playful way (Gemini) but coming into contact with a new world view (Sag moon). But the overall storyline here is that she is lost and longs to go back to Kansas, “there’s no place like home.” And through this hero’s journey, she reawakens to her sensitive, caring nature (Cancer Rising), providing support for her new friends, and expands into her potential to more deeply understand and appreciate her very own sense of home within herself and her surroundings (Cancer Rising). The lost little girl in a far off land trying to find her way home. Gemini-Sagittarius-Cancer. This character is a metaphor for Judy Garland's entire life."

R140 There is nothing crazier than a hopped-up Judy Garland -- other than a stupid queen who believes in astrology!

If you really want to know what life was like with Garland starting from 1950, I highly recommend Sid Luft's posthumously published autobiography "Judy and I." He holds nothing back, including all her mental illness, drug use, shock therapy, and much more. But he paints a portrait of a much more complex woman than just that. He also says, by the way, that Tormé denigrates Judy in his book and that Judy's friend froze Tormé out after it was published. This has book has been made into a documentary for Showtime called Sid & Judy, which I saw here in LA last week. It's very good and includes some moments of absolutely thrilling singing. It shows once again that Garland is a legend for a very good reason.

Sid & Judy will air on Showtime in October.

"He also says, by the way, that Tormé denigrates Judy in his book and that Judy's friend froze Tormé out after it was published."

Yes, Judy's FRIEND. All the others were long gone due to her manipulating drug addict behavior.

I guess interest in this thread has disappeared.

Why would you say that, R145? I think people are still weighing in with their thoughts on the train wreck life of Judy Garland.

Judy hated Sid's mother, Leonora Luft.