Judy Garland, original name Frances Ethel Gumm, was an American singer and actress whose exceptional talents and vulnerabilities combined to make her one of the most enduringly popular Hollywood icons of the 20th century.
Background
Garland was born Frances Ethel Gumm on June 10, 1922, in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. She was the youngest child of Ethel Marion (née Milne) and Francis Avent "Frank" Gumm. Her parents were vaudevillians who settled in Grand Rapids to run a movie theater that featured vaudeville acts. She was named after both of her parents and baptized at a local Episcopal church.
"Baby" (as she was called by her parents and sisters) shared her family's flair for song and dance. Her first appearance came at the age of two-and-a-half, when she joined her older sisters Mary Jane "Suzy/Suzanne" Gumm and Dorothy Virginia "Jimmie" Gumm on the stage of her father's movie theater during a Christmas show and sang a chorus of "Jingle Bells". The Gumm Sisters performed there for the next few years, accompanied by their mother on piano.
The family relocated to Lancaster, California, in June 1926, following rumors that her father had made sexual advances towards male ushers. Frank purchased and operated another theater in Lancaster, and Ethel began managing her daughters and working to get them into motion pictures.
Education
Garland attended Hollywood High School and later graduated from University High School.
In 1935 the head of MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) was induced to hear her sing. Enthused, he signed her to a contract. There was some uncertainty at the studio on how to utilize her talents. A year passed before she made her first MGM film, a two reeler. Her first appearance in a feature did not come until 1937, when she was loaned to Twentieth Century-Fox. That same year at an MGM party for its star Clark Gable she was a hit singing a specialty number, "Dear Mr. Gable" adapted from the well-known standard "You Made Me Love You." As a result she and the song were incorporated into the 1937 feature Broadway Melody of 1938. Again she earned accolades.
MGM quickly put Garland into more films, each spotlighting her in song. In her next film—Thoroughbreds Don't Cry (1937)—she was cast with Mickey Rooney, with whom she subsequently appeared in eight films. MGM paired them in some of the Andy Hardy films, a series starring Rooney as an "average" American teenager. The duo was also winning in movies of the "c'mon kids, let's put on a show" type, including Babes in Arms (1939), Strike Up The Band (1940), Babes on Broadway (1941), and Girl Crazy (1943). Her most memorable film role (and the one which catapulted her to stardom) came in 1939 with The Wizard of Oz. She won a special Oscar as "best juvenile performer of the year." The film also provided her with the song ("Over the Rainbow") with which she was identified until her death.
During the 1940s she graced a number of outstanding musicals, including Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), The Harvey Girls (1946), and Easter Parade (1948). She was superb in a non-singing role in The Clock, a sentimental drama about a young girl and a serviceman on leave.
Once an admirable trouper, she became during the 1940s a problem artist. The filming of In the Good Old Summertime (1949) was repeatedly delayed, as was Summer Stock (1950). A pattern had been set which would increasingly debilitate her. She was replaced in a number of films and finally was fired by MGM in 1950.
Garland undertook a highly successful concert tour in 1961, which was capped by an enthusiastically received concert at Carnegie Hall: the live recording of that event sold over two million copies. That same year she won an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress for her dramatic performance in the film Judgment at Nuremberg. She had another non-singing role in the British film A Child Is Waiting (1963). Her last film role was in another British film, I Could Go On Singing (1963). Garland had made an auspicious television debut in 1955 on the Ford Star Jubilee and had done well in other guest appearances. Unfortunately, her long awaited television weekly series did not fare well, and CBS cancelled the variety show after one season (1963-1964).
Garland continued working until her death at age 47 by accidental barbiturate overdose. Her funeral in New York City drew 22,000 mourners.
Garland was baptized and raised an Episcopalian. Her godfather, who was quite wealthy, even established an Episcopalian church in Grand Rapids because there wasn’t one at the time.
Garland’s parents were both devout, however her father was well-known to have been gay and his sexual advances toward young, male parishioners in Grand Rapids are considered to be the reason the family relocated to California. Furthermore, Garland’s maternal grandfather was a vocal agnostic and was known to broadcast his non-belief.
Two of Garland’s five husbands were Jewish, indicating that she didn’t feel obligated to marry within the Episcopalian faith–or even Christianity for that matter. And when she spoke of God and religion, (which was quite rare) she seemed apprehensive. You can listen here to her being interviewed on the topic. When asked if she was a religious girl, after a long pause, she said:
"I’m not a fanatically religious… do you mean, do I believe in God? Of course I believe in God."
Politics
Garland was a life-long and relatively active Democrat. During her lifetime, she was a member of the Hollywood Democratic committee, and a financial, as well as moral, supporter of various causes, including the Civil Rights movement. She donated money to the campaigns of Democratic presidential candidates Franklin D. Roosevelt, Adlai Stevenson II, John F. Kennedy, and Robert F. Kennedy, and Progressive candidate Henry A. Wallace.
Views
Quotations:
"Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else."
"For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul."
"I've always taken 'The Wizard of Oz' very seriously, you know. I believe in the idea of the rainbow. And I've spent my entire life trying to get over 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."
"We cast away priceless time in dreams, born of imagination, fed upon illusion, and put to death by reality."
"I can live without money, but I cannot live without love."
"If I am a legend, then why am I so lonely?"
"How strange when an illusion dies. It's as though you've lost a child."
"I was born at the age of twelve on an MGM lot."
"I've never looked through a keyhole without finding someone was looking back."
Personality
Judy was terribly scared of thunder. This fear stayed with her throughout most of her life. Garland was one of Hollywood's hardest-working performers during the 1940s. However, studio employees recall that Garland had a tendency to be quite intense, headstrong and volatile; Judy Garland: The Secret Life of an American Legend author David Shipman claims that several individuals were frustrated with Garland's "narcissism" and "growing instability", while millions of fans found her public demeanor and psychological state to be "fragile", appearing neurotic in interviews.
Despite profound professional success, Garland struggled in her personal life from an early age. The pressures of adolescent stardom affected her physical and mental health from the time she was a teenager; her self-image was influenced and constantly criticized by film executives who believed that she was physically unattractive. Those same executives manipulated her onscreen physical appearance. Into her adulthood, she was plagued by alcohol and substance abuse, as well as financial instability; she often owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes. Her life-long addiction to drugs and alcohol ultimately led to her death in London from a barbiturate overdose.
Interests
Politicians
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Adlai Stevenson II, John F. Kennedy, and Robert F. Kennedy, and Progressive candidate Henry A. Wallace.
Sport & Clubs
She loved sports.
In her spare time, Judy was known to enjoy baseball, swimming, horseback riding and golf.
Connections
Garland's personal life, however, was less successful. She married music arranger David Rose in 1941, but that marriage ended long before the 1945 divorce.
That same year she married director Vincente Minnelli, who guided Garland in some of her most notable films, including The Pirate (1948). Daughter Liza Minnelli (later a star in her own right) was born in 1946. This second marriage also faltered and was over well before the 1951 divorce. All during the 1940s she was plagued by a lack of self-confidence, strained by incessant work, hampered by weight problems. She became heavily dependent on pills and in the the end broke down, her first known suicide attempt coming in 1950.
Sidney Luft, a dynamic promoter who later became her third husband (1952), started Garland on a career on concert stages. She was a smashing success at the Palladium in London, at the Palace Theatre in New York City, and elsewhere. The magnificent film A Star Is Born (1954) capped her comeback, and she earned an Oscar nomination. But faltering health, increasing drug dependency, and alcohol abuse led to nervous breakdowns, suicide attempts, and recurrent breakups with Luft, by whom she had two children, Lorna (1952) and Joseph (1955). The Lufts finally divorced (1965) after years of legal wrangling.
Garland's personal and professional life continued to be a series of ups and downs, marked by faltering performances, comebacks, lawsuits, hospitalizations, and suicide attempts. After divorcing Luft she married Mark Herron, a younger, inconsequential actor with whom she had travelled for some time; the marriage lasted only months.
Judy married her fifth and final husband, nightclub manager Mickey Deans, at Chelsea Register Office, London, on March 15, 1969, her divorce from Herron having been finalized on February 11.