Judy Garland on Judy Garland (67 page)

HV:
Judy, when you're not performing, when you're private …

JG:
Yes?

HV:
What do you do?

JG:
I just look messy. [All
laugh.]

HV:
Is that a fact? I wouldn't believe that!

JG:
I make
hats!

HV:
Oh, you do? Let's hear a little about that!

JG:
Well, I
do.
I make hats. I made this hat.

HV:
You have a very beautiful broad-rimmed, black hat with a silver lining on …

MD:
That's mine! You have the wrong one on!
[Judy laughs.]

HV:
Do you
really
make hats?

JG:
Yes, I really do make hats. I love to make hats, I like to design anything. I would love to have a chance sometime to learn to paint porcelain. You know, I don't know how to do that. I'd like to
learn.
And I'd like to do some interior decorating. In fact, I designed the dress I wore onstage at the concert you saw.

HV:
Oh, yes. Do you do that always, yourself?

JG:
No, I haven't had enough time. That was the first dress I have really had time to execute and design.

HV:
Yes. Mickey, how is it to be married to a world-famous lady of the show business?

MD:
I've never been married to a world-famous lady. I married a girl named Gladys.

JG:
[
Laughs.]
He always calls me Gladys …

MD:
That's her nickname from me. We say, “Gladys?” you know, and she calls me George. We sound very ridiculous to each other, calling each other this, and it's funny that way, you know. That is fun.

HV:
But Mickey, don't you ever get a little jealous—I mean in the
real
sense jealous—when you see all the attention that your wife gets from other males?

MD:
Well, I try to make sure that there are not too many around. Well, except the staff.
[Laughs.]
Of course, I'd get jealous. I love her very much,
but … I want my wife to be admired as a woman, not just as a celebrity. The greatest fun we've had over here, I think, was going out one night and with my usual conservative dress that I wear … Judy's teasing me in back of me. That's why you can't see what's she's doing!
[Laughs.]
So a nice guy came over—a clean-cut looking boy—and asked my wife to dance. And since he was nice about it, I sort of gave him the look about it like, “take off.” But they were so nice, the people sitting around us, that I thought they were sort of acting as a security guard, in a sense, without realizing it themselves. I said, “Would you like to come to the concert?” and arranged for the tickets. And he thanked me so much. And then he finally said to me, “What concert?” This was Saturday.
[Laughs.]
And he said “What concert?” And I said, “Well, my wife is a singer. “ And he didn't know. Judy wasn't aware of this. And he was quite sincere! It wasn't a put-on. He didn't know! And then he was very embarrassed. He'd just picked up on a very, very, very pretty woman sitting there.

HV:
[To
Judy.
] What do you think about it?

JG:
I was very
proud!

HV:
Yes, I can understand that, because here, a young kid who apparently didn't know you, know your name or anything …

JG:
I didn't know that he didn't know me until Mickey told me after we got home.

HV:
In other words, you were appraised as a woman, and as an anonymous woman, when he asked you to dance?

JG:
Yes! It was
lovely!
It's always nice for a woman to feel pretty or … yes, certainly!

On June 22, 1969, Judy Garland died in her London home of an accidental overdose of sleeping pills. She was forty-seven. Her passing made international front-page headlines and, in what
Variety
called her “last standing ovation,” more than twenty-two thousand mourners and curiosity seekers filed past the glass-covered coffin at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home on Manhattan's Madison Avenue. “She was the most sympathetic, the funniest, the sharpest, and the most stimulating woman I ever knew,” recalled James Mason, Judy's costar from
A Star is Born,
in his eulogy delivered June 27. “I traveled in her orbit only for a while, but it was an exciting while and one during which it seemed that the joys in her life outbalanced the miseries.”

The joys in Judy's life certainly outbalanced the miseries, and in assessing her legacy, it's important to note that the successes outbalanced the failures. Today, the definition of Judy's greatness lies in her body of work, one that has essentially gone unsurpassed by any of her contemporaries and would rival that of any artist of her magnitude in the years since. Judy worked almost nonstop for forty-five of her forty-seven years in a career that traversed nearly every avenue in the entertainment industry. Aptly named “Miss Show Business,” she made thirty-two feature films, hosted four television specials, taped a twenty-six-episode series, made countless TV guest appearances, recorded nearly one hundred singles and more than a dozen albums, appeared on hundreds of radio shows, and made upward of 1,500 live appearances.

The Judy Garland Show.
Carnegie Hall.
A Star is Born.
The Palace. The Palladium.
Easter Parade. Meet Me in St. Louis.
Looking back over a career encompassing these highlights alone would qualify an entertainer for legend status. But then there is
The Wizard of Oz.
Declared by the Library of Congress to be “the most watched film ever,” it is
Oz
that elevates Judy from “legend” to a realm of immortality, for when Dorothy entered that glorious Technicolor wonderland and set ruby-slippered foot down the Yellow Brick Road, she took with her legions of young people and gained an eternal audience of the young at heart.

In Judy's lifetime, she often repeated that it was the audience that nurtured and sustained her. Today is no different. Decades have passed, generations come and gone, but it remains the audience that nurtures and sustains the memory of Judy Garland. “During the bad days, I'm sure I would have perished without those wonderful audiences,” she once pondered. “Without
that
and a sense of humor, I would have died. Even with my work and an active funny bone, I think there's something peculiar about me that I haven't died. It doesn't make much sense, but I just refused to die. When my number is up, I want a new one, and right now, my life is just beginning.”
*

*
Judy Garland, “Judy Garland's Own Story: There'll Always Be an Encore,”
McCall's,
February 1964.

The following books were instrumental during the research for this collection and are recommended to anyone wishing to further explore the details of the life and career of Judy Garland. Certain selections are out of print but still in circulation and available at local libraries or online.

Clarke, Gerald.
Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland.
New York: Random House, 2000.

Coleman, Emily R.
The Complete Judy Garland: The Ultimate Guide to Her Career in Films, Records, Concerts, Radio, and Television, 1935–1969.
New York: HarperCollins, 1990.

Finch, Christopher.
Rainbow: The Stormy Life of Judy Garland.
New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1975.

Frank, Gerold.
Judy.
New York: HarperCollins, 1975.

Fricke, John.
Judy: A Legendary Film Career.
Philadelphia: Running Press, 2011.

——Judy Garland: World's Greatest Entertainer.
New York: Henry Holt, 1992.

Fricke, John and Lorna Luft.
Judy Garland: A Portrait in Art & Anecdote.
New York: Bulfinch Press, 2003.

Sanders, Coyne Steven.
Rainbow's End: The Judy Garland Show.
New York: William Morrow,1990.

Schechter, Scott.
Judy Garland: The Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Legend.
New York: Cooper Square Press, 2002.

Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders, and I gratefully acknowledge the help of all who gave permission for material to appear in this book. If an error or omission has been made, please bring it to the attention of the publisher. Nearly all of the pieces gathered from a variety of Hollywood fan magazines and other periodicals published prior to 1964 are now in the public domain. Except as noted, the images presented in this book—vintage photographs, magazine covers, and other memorabilia—are from the editor's personal collection.

“I've Been to the Land of Oz,” by Judy Garland as told to Gladys Hall, reprinted by permission of John K. Ball and the Estate of Gladys Hall.

“Beginning Judy Garland's Gay Life Story,” by Judy Garland as told to Gladys Hall, reprinted by permission of John K. Ball and the Estate of Gladys Hall.

“Judy Garland's Gay Life Story,” by Judy Garland as told to Gladys Hall, reprinted by permission of John K. Ball and the Estate of Gladys Hall.

“My Story” by Judy Garland, as told to Michael Drury, reprinted by permission of Hearst Magazines.

“Judy Garland's Magic Word” by Liza Wilson, reprinted by permission of Hearst Magazines.

“JUDY,” by James Goode, reprinted by permission of Damon Goode and the Estate of James Goode.

“A
Redbook
Dialogue: Noël Coward and Judy Garland,” Noël Coward material © NC Aventales AG 1961 by permission of Alan Brodie Representation Ltd.,
www.alanbrodie.com
.

“JUDY,” by Jack Hamilton, reprinted by permission of James L. Snyder and the Estates of Charles Russell Snyder and Jack Hamilton.

Radio Interview by William B. Williams, transcribed with permission of Jeffrey B. Williams and the Estate of William B. Williams.

“Judy's Story of the Show That Failed” by Vernon Scott,
TV Guide Magazine
article courtesy of TV Guide Magazine, LLC ©1964.

“TV Interview” by Laurier LaPierre, from
This Hour Has Seven Days,
transcribed with permission of Harvey Slack and the Estate of Laurier LaPierre.

TV Interview by Gypsy Rose Lee, transcribed with permission of Erik L. Preminger, © Gypsy Rose Lee, Erik L. Preminger.

TV Interview by Barbara Walters, transcribed with permission of NBC Universal Archives.

TV Interview by Dick Cavett, transcribed with permission of Dick Cavett and Daphne Productions.

“Over the Rainbow and Into the Valley Goes Our Judy” by John Gruen, reprinted by permission of the author.

“The Private Agony and the Joy of Judy Garland” by Clive Hirschhorn, reprinted by permission of the author.

Radio Interview by Hans Vangkilde, transcribed with permission of Grethe Vangkilde and Philip Trier Jacobsen / DR Danish Broadcasting Corp.