Judy Garland on Judy Garland (14 page)

“The number is right out in front of the house,” Judy started to say and then remembered that it wasn't! The house had been newly painted and the number had not been replaced. Whereupon she gave him explicit directions for reaching the home.

“The more I thought about it, the more I decided I hadn't better take any chances,” she told us. “We had a loudspeaker system in the house with a microphone I use while practicing for my radio show, so I turned that on and hung it out the window broadcasting ‘Judy Garland lives here! This is the house where Judy Garland lives!'”

Just in case that didn't do the trick, she sent her two older sisters, Sue and Jimmie, out to the curb with fresh white bedsheets to flag him down!

“He found the house all right,” she said comfortably, “and we had a wonderful time. Gee, it was wonderful!”

A long sigh was choked off by enthusiasm for the chicken pot pie and chocolate sundae (with whipped cream, nuts and cherry) which lay on the table before her. For once she had time to relish every mouthful; her scenes in
Strike Up the Band
with Mickey Rooney were finished for the day and she had two full hours before rehearsal for her weekly radio show.

Technically speaking, the Pickfair date with Bob Stack wasn't her first grown-up date, if you mean being out unchaperoned with a man. When she was a sprout of fifteen, the venerable (all of twenty, at least!) Johnny Downs had taken her to an evening movie and a chocolate malt at the drugstore afterwards. On that memorable occasion, she remembers, she wore a navy blue gingham dress with blue bobby sox and flat-heeled
shoes. It didn't really count, however, because she was sure Johnny looked on her as a baby and was just being nice.

There were no more dates in the Downs-Stack hiatus. “Nobody asked me,” she explained with disarming honesty.

She isn't troubled with that nowadays. She has all the dates she wants and invitations for a lot she doesn't want. With those dates came the problem of how to handle them graciously and in good taste, the same as it does for thousands upon thousands of young girls like her. Whom to date with and how often. Where to go and what to wear. What to do and how late to stay out.

She has solved the problems with the right answers, apparently, for she has the admiration of her elders and the respect of the young people her own age. That's a triumph in itself. But if you expect she's going to mount a platform and start giving out advice to others, you are greatly mistaken.

“I think it's pretty silly for a seventeen-year-old to try to preach about
anything,”
she said. “All I know is what
I
like and what has worked for
me.”

Judy catalogues her dates as “special” and “average.” A “special” takes place maybe once in six weeks or so. An “average” happens once or twice a week when she's not working on a picture. Most of the time, however, she says the “bunch” get together and do something. The “bunch” includes Mickey Rooney, Bob Stack, Jackie Cooper, Jimmy Cathcart, Forrest Tucker, Bob Shaw, Jack Hopkins, Bonita Granville, Linda Darnell, Helen Parrish, Betty Jane Graham and Patty McCarty.

“What's a ‘special' like?” we asked.

“Well, let's take an example,” she said. “Bob took me to dinner and to see Katharine Cornell in the play
No Time for Comedy.
I'd call that a ‘special.' It was on a Saturday night and we had dinner a little earlier than usual because we were going to the theater and I hate to be late. So he called for me about 6:30 or so. As usual, I started getting ready early, because it seems to make things last longer, don't you think? I had a new evening dress, which made it an ‘extra special,' and Bob sent me a lovely corsage to wear. He wore his tuxedo and looked very handsome.

“He called for me in his own car and came in and talked to mother for a few minutes. Then we went to the Tail o' the Cock restaurant for dinner
and had a tomato juice cocktail. That was to make it extra festive, sort of. I told him what I liked on the menu and he ordered the dinner. We talked about our hobbies and pictures we had seen and so on. Then it was time to go to the theater. We had wonderful seats down front and during intermission we went to the lobby to talk to friends.

“The play was out by eleven o'clock, and we were hungry again (seems like we're
always
hungry!) so we drove to a hamburger stand. I've been to swank, sophisticated places like Ciro's, just to see what they are like, but we have more fun at a hamburger drive-in. It was about midnight when we got home. Mother was still up, so Bob came in to say good night to her. Otherwise he would have left me at the door. So that's what a ‘special's' like.”

Judy said she realized it was a more expensive evening than many young people could afford. Bob, working in pictures, naturally has more money to spend. But the same sort of a date could be carried out on less expensive lines and with just as much fun.

“You might skip the dinner, for instance,” she explained. “Or you could have dinner at some place like the Cocoanut Grove where there is dancing for the evening.”

An “average” date would be like the one she had last Wednesday with Mickey Rooney, she said. Mickey called up about quarter to seven.

“What are you doing?” he opened the conversation.

“Nothing in particular,” said Judy.

“Okay, let's go for a show. I'll pick you up in fifteen minutes. And say, got anything to eat at your house?”

At seven he breezed in, greeted Mrs. Garland, and made a beeline for the kitchen where Judy had rustled him a fried egg sandwich. While he was wolfing that sandwich they checked the theater ads and found a movie they wanted to see. Then out they dashed, climbed into his station wagon, and off for the show. On the way they stopped to buy a bag of jawbreakers, licorice drops and bubble gum. At the theater they found seats in their favorite spot, the front row center, and stayed for both features of a double bill. After that came a milkshake in a sweet shop across the street where they dropped a few nickels in the “jukebox” (phonograph record machine). Then home.

“Where,” Judy said, “Mickey opens the door, shoves me in, yells good night and is half way to his car again before I have time to catch my breath.”

Mrs. Ethel Garland, Judy's mother, never attempts to dictate about Judy's dates. As result, Judy talks them over with her freely and often asks advice. Mrs. Garland, however, does insist on one thing; that she meet the young man before Judy goes out with him. That's fine with Judy because, she says, she's always so proud to have her friends see what a wonderful mother she has.

“I think the most important thing about a date is to know the boy and what he's really like,” Judy said. “That's just common sense, because otherwise you might get yourself in a jam. It hasn't happened to me, but I know girls who went out with some boys they did not really know and they took them to some sort of a cocktail place and started drinking. The girls were frightened and didn't know what to do. They wanted to go home and the boys wouldn't take them.”

We asked Judy what she would do in a spot like that. She gave a direct and very wise answer.

“I'd telephone Mother to come get me,” she said.

She thought it was a bad idea to date too much, to go out every night, Judy said. It gives a girl a reputation of “go-er” and makes her seem a little cheap and shallow.

“There are so many things that are fun to do at home if you only wake up to it,” she said. “Play the piano, sing and dance, make candy, play games of all kinds. And I think it's silly to think it has to be boys, boys, boys all the time! Two girls can have grand fun together. You can play night tennis on the public courts, go bowling, practice driving on a golf driving range and all sorts of things. It seems to me it is important that other girls like you as well as boys. I know I wouldn't be proud of the fact other girls didn't like me, and that's what happens a lot of times to go-ers.”

Judy said she didn't have any “rules” for behavior on dates, but there were a few things she tried to do and tried to avoid.

“I try to have poise,” she told us, and then started to laugh because, as she said, you certainly couldn't call it poise the way she broadcast out the window and waved sheets in front of her house that night of the Pickfair date. But anyway, poise was important. Or maybe it was better to call it
behaving in a ladylike manner. No loud talking, or giggling, or boisterous actions that would call attention to herself. She said she thought it embarrassed boys and made them uncomfortable.

“Of course, that doesn't mean I don't laugh at their jokes,” she added seriously. “That's just smart, even if they're not very funny. The dumbest girl can seem smart if she keeps the conversation focused on the boy's interests, or at least keeps it steered on the one subject she knows most about.”

It's just common decency to show regard for the condition of a date's pocketbook, she went on. In other words, she doesn't suggest doing things or going places she knows is more than the boy can afford, even though it is what she wants to do.

“Sometimes when I'm having dinner with a boy, though, I wish he would order first,” she said plaintively. “That would give me an idea of how far I am supposed to go on prices.”

She thought it was important to be “regular,” which means not too feminine and not too independent. Boys have now outgrown a girl who is afraid of “ruining” her hair while she's in swimming, for instance, and they still won't stand for being bossed. She said she made it a point to express her appreciation for invitations and try to reciprocate whenever possible by having the date come to her house for an evening, or asking him to share free tickets when she got them. She tries to be a good dancer and always underdresses rather than overdresses for an occasion.

“If I know a boy doesn't have much money, I don't ask him if we are going to ‘dress,'” she said. “I just take it for granted that we are not, and say nothing about it.”

This modern freedom stuff is all right, Judy said, but she still lets her dates know she expects the old-fashioned courtesies like opening doors and things. If they neglect them at first, a half kidding remark like “After you, Alphonse” usually gets the idea over. When the courtesies are extended, however, she doesn't neglect to say “Thank you.”

“What about necking?” we asked. “We've heard it's quite a problem to seventeen-year-old girls these days, and the girl who won't permit little liberties stays home alone.”

“I don't believe in it,” Judy answered. “Maybe that used to be so, but I think most boys and girls have so many other interests today, they just don't think about that other stuff.”

Naturally, she admitted, she has had a good-night kiss stolen at the front door once in a while as has any girl. But it doesn't happen if she can help it. Either she kids the boy out of the idea or says a flat no. If it happens once, she forgets about it because it gives too much importance to the incident to make a fuss about it. If it happens the second time she crosses the date off her list and forgets about him as well as the kiss.

Now you know Judy Garland's guide book to dating. But here's something maybe you don't know: she may be famous and have a lot of money and fine clothes and scads of boys crazy about her, but it hasn't made her blasé. She gets just as excited about Saturday night as all the rest of us.

One of the more thorough and lengthy looks at Judy's early life story came in the form of this two-part “as told to” piece by Gladys Hall. It should be noted that the stylized (and often random) use of capitalization is not an error. It appears exactly as in the original manuscript.

I think First Things are Best Things! Wasn't it Robert Louis Stevenson who said that first sunsets, first loves, all the things we see for the first time, all the first experiences we have, are
always
best? Anyway,
I
think so. I know I'll always remember, most clearly and deeply and forever, the first things that have happened to me in my first eighteen years. The things that have happened to me in my first (and only) “Past,” you might say, since now that I am eighteen, I think I can be said to have a Past. So, I got to thinking that maybe I'd write my first Life Story my own self in my own way. My “own way” probably won't be the Proper Way, at all. The Proper Way to write an Autobiography, I mean. Because I'm just going to sort of talk out loud, or write out loud, to my mother, to my friends, to my fans. I'm just going to go on and on, sort of Revealing to them all the Important, First Things (important to
me,
that is) that have made up my Past.

Like, for instance, my first day on this earth, which is certainly the
first,
First Thing! Well, Mom, as
you
may remember, my first day on this
earth was the day of June 10, 1922—(I seem to remember that movie girls don't give the year of their birth—oh, well!)—and you may also recollect, Mom, that I first opened my eyes in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. You've got it down in my baby book that I weighed eight pounds when I was born and that my eyes were blue at birth and started to turn to brown when I was about five months old. You've also confessed to me that your first feeling about me was one of—terrible Disappointment! Because, having had two small daughters already, Suzanne and Virginia, naturally you and Daddy wanted some
novelty
in your children and just hoped and
prayed
that I would be a boy! You terribly wanted me to be a boy, you've said, you planned for me to be a boy, you even named me Francis Gumm, Jr., after Daddy. And not only did I turn out to be, NOT the answer to your prayers, but just another little girl, for Pete's sake. Also I was as red as an Indian, you said, and the reddest,
homeliest
baby anyone ever saw! You just made the best of it by changing the “i” to “e” and naming me Frances, anyway!