Biography for
Judy Garland
Height:
4' 11 1/2"
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Mini biography
She
immediately attracted attention in such films as Pigskin Parade (1936), Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938), and Broadway Melody of 1938, The (1938), but she didn't truly become a star until she was cast in Wizard of Oz, The
(1939). Her performance as Dorothy won her a special Juvenile Oscar, and it was this role, of course, that gave her her most famous song, "Over the Rainbow." She then appeared in a long string of classic MGM
musicals, including Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), Easter Parade (1948), and several with her friend, Mickey Rooney. Unfortunately, it was the same studio that made her a star that unwittingly made her a drug addict,
giving her sleeping pills and barbituates to keep her energy level high and her weight level down. She soon couldn't live without these "wonder drugs." She also couldn't seem to live without a man, as she went
through several affairs, often with older men, and by 1950 had been married twice, to bandleader David Rose and director Vincente Minnelli. She had a daughter, Liza Minnelli, with Vincente. All during this time, her
drug intake had increased dramatically, and this led to increasingly erratic behavior and failure to show up on time at the studio. MGM eventually couldn't take it any more, and her contract terminated in 1950. She
divorced Minnelli the following year and married producer Sidney Luft. Luft, the father of her daughter Lorna Luft and son Joseph Luft, took it upon himself to orchestrate her comeback, with a series of very successful
concert tours. He also produced the film A Star is Born (1954), in which many feel she gave her greatest performance. By now she was concentrating on her career as a singer, which was winning her many more legions of
fans. She continued touring throughout the 50's and 60's, appearing in three more films and starting her own television variety show in 1963, which had to be canceled after one season because the competition,
"Bonanza, " was too strong. She divorced Luft and married actor Mark Herron; she divorced him when she found out he was gay, and married disco manager Mickey Deans. Throughout this time, however, she still
continued her dependency on prescription drugs, and finally the inevitable happened: on the night of June 22, 1969, she overdosed on barbiturates and died. Thousands mourned the world over. It was a sad way to end, but
she has left a great legacy: her many films and recordings, as well as her children. Liza and Lorna are now singers as well, carrying on the family tradition.
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Mini biography
"That Old Man River keeps rolling along" was one of the many songs that Judy Garland recorded. She
was born in the Upper Mississippi River town of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, where the Judy Garland Museum takes up an entire floor of the old grade school. A block away is the site of the home where Garland spent the first
five years of her life. That spot is now occupied by a multiplex cinema in the town's only shopping center. Garland's father operated the only movie theater in Grand Rapids until he moved the family to California in
1927. Garland made her stage debut at that Grand Rapids theater with her two older sisters. In 1934 the Gumm Sisters performed in Chicago during the World's Fair there. That is where Frances Gumm was advised to change
her name to Judy Garland. Her voice got her into movies when she was 13 and kept her in demand for stage and television performances after her film career was over. The Judy Garland in the later movies was much slimmer
than the teen-ager who co-starred with Mickey Rooney and who played Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz". The final display in The Judy Garland Museum blames the pills she started taking in the 1940s to achieve the
streamlined figure Hollywood wanted her to have for her early death.
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IMDb mini-biography by
Dale O'Connor <daleoc@worldnet.att.net>
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Spouse
'Mickey Deans' (15 March 1969 - 22 June 1969) (her death)
Mark Herron (12 June 1964 - 1967) (divorced)
Sidney Luft (1952 - 1965) (divorced); 1 daughter Lorna, 1 son Joey
Vincente Minnelli (1945 - 1951) (divorced); 1 daughter Liza
David Rose (I) (1941 - 1945) (divorced)
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Trivia
Judy Garland and her image was considered an icon in the gay community
in the 1950's and 1960's. Her death and the loss of that emotional icon in 1969 has been thought to be a contributing factor to the feeling of the passing of an era that helped spark the Stonewall Riots that began the
militant gay rights movement.
Sister of Mary Jane Gumm and Virginia Gumm.
Mother of Liza Minnelli and Lorna Luft.
She married Mark Herron on June 12th 1964, although her divorce from Sid Luft was
not settled. They were married in the Mandarin by a Buddhist priest, and the validity of this marriage is not clear.
Her record "Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall" from 1961 garnered 5 Grammy Awards and
remained at the top of Billboards charts for two months.
(1939) Awarded a special Academy Award for "Best Juvinile Performance of the Year"
She is left handed
Originally screen-tested
and signed to play in "Valley of the Dolls"; ultimately replaced by Susan Hayward
Judy's death was casude by an "incautious self-overdosage of Seconal" which had raised the barbiturate level
in her body beyond its tolerance. Judy Garland's funeral was held 27 June 1969 in Manhattan at the Frank E. Campgell funeral home at Madison Avenue and Eighty-first Street. Twenty-two thousand people filed past Judy's
open coffin over a twenty-four hour period. Judy's ex-husband, Vincent Minnelli did not attend Judy's funeral. James Mason delivered the eulogy at Judy's funeral. Judy's body had been stored in a temporary crypt for
over one year. The reason for this is that no one had come forward to pay the expense of moving Judy to a permanent resting spot at Ferncliff Cemetary in Ardsley, New York. Liza has the impression that Judy's last
husband, Mickey Deans has made the necessary arrangments but Deans claimed to have no money. Liza then took on the task of raising the funds to have Judy properly buried. Mother of Joseph "Joey" Luft. Judy's
death was caused by an "incautious self-overdosage of Seconal" which had raised the barbiturate level in her body beyond its tolerance. E. Campbell funeral home at Madison Avenue and Eighty-first Street.
Interred at Ferncliff Cemetery, Hartsdale, New York, USA.
Judy heard the same phrase in two movies: For me and my gal and Easter Parade. In both, her love interest (played by Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire,
respectively) says this: "Why didn't you tell me I was in love with you?"
The day Judy Garland died, there was a tornado in Kansas.
Liza Minnelli said that Judy planned on calling her autobiography "Ho-Hum".
Her portrayal of Dorothy in Wizard of Oz, The (1939) was the inspiration for the character of Mary Ann on "Gilligan's
Island" (1964). (From Kansas, pigtails, lived on a farm with an aunt and uncle...)
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Personal quotes
"What I
remember most is how she used to love to laugh. She was full of laughter. And pep." - Jack Haley (I)
"When she is in good form, there is nobody that can touch her." - Bing Crosby
REPORTER:
"I understand you have a very large gay following Miss Garland." JUDY: "I sing to people!"
"That little girl's vocal chords are her heartstrings." - The Wizard of Oz (1939) producer
Mervyn LeRoy
In the 'Born in a trunk' sequence in _Star is born, A (1954)_ she sings "So I can't quite be called overnight sensation", which is more or less self-biographic.
"How strange when an illusion dies. It's as though you've lost a child."
"Uncomplicated girls can't act." - Joe Pasternak, who produced four of Judy's films in the 1940s.
"There wasn't a thing that gal couldn't do - except look after herself." - Bing Crosby
"Well, we have a whole new year ahead of us. And wouldn't it be wonderful if we could all be a little more
gentle with each other, and a little more loving, have a little more empathy, and maybe - next year at this time - we'd like each other a little more."
"When I'm home I always try to catch The Judy
Garland Show - has she been singing! It's just beautiful the way she's been singing." - Ella Fitzgerald
"I love Judy Garland, but if a reporter were coming to my home, I wouldn't have her music
playing. A gay man loving Judy would be like a black person watching a minstrel show." - John Waters
"Without her, my first few weeks at MGM would have been more miserable than they were." -Gene
Kelly
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Salary
Wizard of Oz, The (1939) $500/week
Biography from Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia:
Actress,
singer. (b. June 10, 1922, Grand Rapids, Mich., as Frances Gumm; d. June 22, 1969.) A furious, excessive talent and a true "victim" (if ever there was one) of the Hollywood studio system, Garland began her
performing career at the age of three. While she and two older sisters were performing as the "Gumm Sisters Kiddie Act," showman George Jessel suggested the change of stage name to Garland; a few years later
MGM boss Louis B. Mayer signed her to a contract after a personal audition. Her ability to steal hearts was revealed in Broadway Melody of 1938 in which she trilled "You Made Me Love You" to a photo of Clark
Gable. Her distinctive voice and disarming sincerity made a big impression, and a year later she starred in the classic-to-be The Wizard of Oz for which she won a special juvenile Oscar.
Garland's initial teaming
with fellow teen star Mickey Rooney was in Thoroughbreds Don't Cry (1937), and they went on to work together in a series of MGM musicals-including Babes in Arms (1939), Strike Up the Band (1940), Babes on Broadway
(1941), and Girl Crazy (1943)-to which they both brought an ever-pleasing charm and perkiness. She starred in For Me and My Gal (1942), which introduced movie audiences to Gene Kelly. All was not sweetness and light
behind the scenes, however; Garland, like so many child stars, did not enjoy good relations with her driven stage mother, and even worse, her grueling schedule at the studio led to a dependency on pep and sleeping pills
that was to dog her for the rest of her life and eventually end it.
Over the course of 28 years she was married five times-in 1945 to director Vincente Minnelli, with whom she had daughter Liza in 1946-and was
involved in many well-publicized lawsuits, breakdowns, and suicide attempts. But it took quite a while before her spectacular unhappiness actually showed itself onscreen. In such period musicals as Meet Me in St. Louis
(1944) and The Pirate (1948)-both directed by Minnelli-and Easter Parade (1948), as well as dramas like Minnelli's The Clock (1945), she was never anything less than charming.
After hitting rock bottom in the
early 1950s after Summer Stock (1950)-that year she was even replaced as the star of Annie Get Your Gun-Garland bounced back, all vibrant and vulnerable, as aspiring actress Vicki Lester in Cukor's 1954 remake of A Star
Is Born a hand-tailored comeback vehicle she produced with thenhusband Sid Luft. It earned her an Oscar nomination, but sadly, there were no follow-ups. She was excellent in later straight dramatic roles in Judgment at
Nuremberg (1961 also Oscar-nominated) and A Child Is Waiting (1963), but the singing sequences in her last film, I Could Go On Singing (also 1963), show the emotionally turbulent performing style she developed in her
adult years, a style that apparently corresponded perfectly to her own state of inner turmoil. Garland's final years were spent going from disappointment to disappointment: losing film roles, helplessly turning in
shoddy live performances, marrying one younger man and divorcing him six months later, and so on. A "comeback" TV variety show gave her one last burst of glory in 1963-64, but though she recorded tracks and
filmed costume tests for Valley of the Dolls she had to be replaced by Susan Hayward when shooting began. An accidental overdose of sleeping pills took her life in 1969; her Wizard of Oz costar Ray Bolger commented
sadly: "She just plain wore out."
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