Garland, the star of many classic musical films, was known for her tremendous talent and troubled life. The daughter of vaudeville professionals, she started her stage career as a child. Garland was called "Baby Gumm" and sang "Jingle Bells" at her first public performance at the age of two and a half. With her two older sisters, Garland soon began performing as part of the Gumm Sisters. In , the Gumm family moved to California where Garland and her sisters studied acting and dancing.
They played numerous gigs that their mother, Ethel, had arranged for them as their manager and agent. In the late s, the Gumm sisters also appeared in several short films.
Traveling with their mother, the sisters played at a theater with comedian George Jessel, who reportedly suggested they become the Garland sisters. Garland shed her nickname "Baby" in favor of a more mature and vibrant Judy.
The following year, she would become a solo act, signing a movie contract with MGM at the age of It was on a radio broadcast that November, however, that Garland debuted one of the songs most closely associated with her, "Zing!
Went the Strings of My Heart. Despite her personal anguish, Garland continued on her path to film stardom. One of her first feature film roles was in Pigskin Parade The two proved to be a popular pairing, and they co-starred in several more Andy Hardy films.
Not only was she working a lot, but Garland was also under pressure from the studio about her looks and her weight. She was given amphetamines to boost her energy and control her weight.
Unfortunately, Garland would soon become reliant on this medication, along with needing other substances to help her sleep. Drug problems would plague her throughout her career. In , Garland scored one of her greatest on-screen successes with The Wizard of Oz , which showcased her singing talents as well as her acting abilities.
Garland received a special Academy Award for her portrayal of Dorothy, the girl from Kansas transported to Oz. Garland married for the first time at the age of She was born into a family of vaudeville players. Judy was signed with MGM at the age of Judy made several films with Mickey Rooney, but it was her role as Dorothy in "Oz" that made her famous. She won an honorary Oscar as an outstanding screen juvenile. Too much work Garland shone in numerous movie performances. Between and , she would tally close to three hundred national radio appearances as well, During World War II, she made several major cross-country tours to entertain stateside servicemen and women.
All of this came in addition to her motion picture commitments: twenty-eight feature films in fourteen years. Such a schedule led to illness and total exhaustion. In , M-G-M dissolved her contract. Her four-week booking was extended to nineteen weeks. She drew the largest audience in TV history to that date for a special program. She also returned to The Palace for seventeen weeks, breaking her own box office records.
Doctors told her that she could never work again. Offered the lead role in The Three Faces of Eve , but turned down the role because the storyline bore too many resemblances to her own personal life. The role was then given to Joanne Woodward who went on to win the Best Actress Oscar for her performance.
The only witnesses present at her Las Vegas wedding to David Rose in were her mother and stepfather. During this marriage she was forced to undergo an abortion at the insistence of MGM studio head Louis B.
Mayer who feared that pregnancy would hurt her good-girl image. The event reportedly left her traumatized for the rest of her life. Garland filed for divorce from Dave Rose on May 5, on the grounds of incompatibility. In a performance of "Come Rain Or Come Shine" on her variety show on CBS TV, though forgetting some of the words and seemingly "out of sync" with the orchestra she still managed to give a quite powerful and memorable performance.
Louis She performed with her sisters at the World's Fair in Chicago, in the Old Mexico Club on the infamous midway, where Sally Rand was the main attraction. They sold out every night. The club closed unexpectedly during their third week when their liquor license expired.
She also served as the grand marshal in a parade for the Fair's "Children's Day" in early Frances Gumm changed her name to Judy Garland during a performance at the Oriental Theater on their last day in Chicago, partly at the advice of George Jessel , who was emcee. She closed the show with "Over The Rainbow," still in tramp make-up. She initially refused to appear in Meet Me in St. Louis because was tired of playing virginal teenage characters. She later relented after much persuasion.
She met Vincente Minnelli on set, and her performance was also one of her most famous during her MGM years. She thought that Bremer couldn't act and repeatedly tried to have her fired from the film, but to no avail.
She replaced June Allyson in Royal Wedding after she became pregnant. When she failed to show up on set, Jane Powell replaced her. A close friend was Katharine Hepburn , with whom she would regularly stay during her most serious bouts of depression in order to recover. Despite numerous concert and television appearances in the s, she remained constantly in debt. Her then-manager David Begelman embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from Garland and his other clients. Returned to work nine months after giving birth to her daughter Liza Minnelli in order to film The Pirate Despite popular belief that Shirley Temple was the first choice for the role of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz , Garland was cast in the role even before pre-production had begun.
As early as February both "Variety" and columnist Louella Parsons announced that she was cast in the role of Dorothy. It was this process that led to her addiction. She was a very active member of the Hollywood Democratic Committee and donated her time and money to many liberal causes such as the Civil Rights Movement and political candidates including Franklin D.
Kennedy , and Robert F. Kennedy for most of her adult life. James Mason delivered the eulogy. More than 20, spectators filed by Garland's casket. In her biography, Garland's friend, June Allyson wrote that Garland had wanted a white casket for her funeral, and for everything else to be in yellow and white.
No white coffin was immediately available, so the funeral home painted a coffin white. In January , her body was removed from the mausoleum at Ferncliff Cemetery in New York and sent to Los Angeles, where she was placed in a private family crypt at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
Garlands children bought a large family crypt to ensure they would be laid to rest with their mother; there was no room for that at Ferncliff. She was laid to rest in the same cemetery as her childhood friend and costar Mickey Rooney. Both were born and raised in the state of New York. Both were born and raised in the state of Tennessee. According to daughter Lorna Luft , Garland had made 39 films, appeared on over radio shows and about 57 concerts by the time she was In most biographies about her, Garland's height has been stated as 4'11".
According to various MGM press releases and memories from colleagues including June Allyson and Esther Williams, Garland was more than likely closer to 5'3". Presented with a special Academy Award in for her outstanding performances as a screen juvenile.
Had a stepson: John Michael Luft b. September 18, with ex-husband, Sidney Luft. During the COVID Pandemic, every Solid Gold radio station throughout the United States played her rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" due to in part to the fact that was the most requested song by listeners both young and old.
I sing to people! How strange when an illusion dies. It's as though you've lost a child. 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.
They'd give us pep-up pills to keep us on our feet long after we were exhausted. Then they'd take us to the studio hospital and knock us cold with sleeping pills. Then after four hours they'd wake us up and give us the pep-up pills again so we could work another 72 hours in a row.
I started to feel like a wind-up toy from FAO Schwarz. Hollywood is a strange place if you're in trouble. Everybody thinks it's contagious.
I wanted to believe and I tried my damndest to believe in the rainbow that I tried to get over and couldn't. So what? Lots of people can't As for my feelings toward "Over the Rainbow", it's become part of my life. It is so symbolic of all my dreams and wishes that I'm sure that's why people sometimes get tears in their eyes when they hear it. In the silence of night I have often wished for just a few words of love from one man, rather than the applause of thousands of people.
My mother had a marvelous talent for mishandling money - mine.
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