Judy Garland on Judy Garland (17 page)

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The event Judy referenced here was the “Eighth Annual Los Angeles Evening Express ‘Better Babies' Exposition” held at Paramount Studios on March 4, 1930. Judy was seven years old at the time and reportedly won second place in her age division.

*
The official debut of the Gumm Sisters occurred on December 26, 1924, with the girls performing “When My Sugar Walks Down the Street” on the stage of their father's New Grand Theatre. Frances was scheduled to sing one verse and a chorus of “Jingle Bells,” but the solo quickly became an event when she refused to leave the stage, fueled by the approving roar of the audience. Incidentally, the number of choruses of “Jingle Bells” seemed to grow with every retelling by Judy of this momentous occasion! Her first review was published several days later in the Grand Rapids
Herald-Review:
“The work of Frances, the two-year-old baby, was a genuine surprise. The little girl spoke and sang so as to be heard by everyone in the house and she joined in the dancing both alone and with her older sisters. The audience expressed their appreciation of the work of all three girls by vigorous applause.”

Well, as I said in
Part 1
of MY LIFE, you may imagine my embarrassment, me answering Mickey's love note, my first love note, too, with words copied right out of a movie heroine's mouth! I guess that was the first time in my life, speaking of firsts, I was ever acutely embarrassed, so embarrassed I wanted to die. And, of course, being young, I thought I would, most any moment. But Mickey is a very understanding boy, as boys go. After about two days, he didn't hold it against me anymore.

As a matter of fact, Mickey was the first boy I ever let kiss me without slapping him down. It was a birthday party kiss, only a kind of a kid kiss, but still—gosh, though, when I remember how we used to talk at Lawlor's Professional School, about how we'd be big stars on the stage someday and about how rich and famous and glamorous we would be—well, that's what's so amazing that we wound up together like this! Anyway, Mickey is my best pal. He always was, even when he teased me, he always will be, even if I do have to listen to him rave about other girls.

Right about now, along comes my first big break! Both my sisters got married, as girls will, and although I worked hard at school, was on the baseball, volleyball and basketball teams, had a lot of friends now, who didn't snoot me, still and all, I was lonely. I missed the girls. I missed the days when we were all in the theater together, so warm and cozy. Daddy
sensed the way I felt. So he sent Mother and me to Lake Tahoe for a little vacation. I really do owe my break to Daddy. Because if he hadn't been thoughtful, if he hadn't sent us on that vacation—when I think—!

Well, so one night we were sitting around the campfire and I sang for the bunch. As Fate would have it, a talent scout was among the guests. He told Mother he wanted to take me to the M-G-M studios. He said I should be in the movies. Well, it was just like his words were dynamite. They blasted Mother and me right out of that hotel and onto the train and home. I kept saying, “Oh, he'll forget it—oh, he didn't mean it—oh, they won't want to see me!” but between us, in my bones I felt this is IT! It was what you call a premonition. I believe in premonitions.

And why not? For the call came. My first studio call! It just so happened that Mother wasn't home, so Daddy took me to the studio. It was the first time he'd ever done anything in a business way with us girls. He'd always left the bookings and interviews and such to Mother. I'm glad, now, that he did go with me. I like to feel he brought me luck.

Well, we got to the studio and went into the casting office and there they stopped me, dead in my tracks! They said “No Babies Today!” I told them I was Judy Garland (they looked blank). I told them I had been sent for (they let me in).

I sang for half a dozen people. And finally I was sent to Mr. Mayer's office. I sang everything I knew for him, every song I'd ever heard in my life. Like always, you couldn't stop me! When I had exhausted my repertoire, and myself,
and
Mr. Mayer, he asked me if I could sing “Eli, Eli.” I said yes, and proceeded to wail my head off. When I got all through, Mr. Mayer didn't say one word, good or bad. He didn't smile or he didn't frown or
anything.
He just said, “Thank you very much,” and I walked out. And I thought, another false alarm!

When I got home and told Mom where I had been, she gave one loud, piercing scream, and said, “You
didn't
go to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer looking like THAT?” I said I did and I think she would have fainted, had she been the fainting kind. But three days later, the phone rang. I was told to come to Metro and sign my contract. I was just thirteen then. And it was the biggest day in our lives. I remember how, that evening, Mom and Daddy and I just stayed at home. We didn't even have one of our usual
celebrations. We didn't need ice cream and store cake to make
that
evening a party! We were too happy to celebrate. I'm glad we were like that, that night, just the three of us, alone. For it wasn't to be the three of us, much longer.

Of course I went around in a daze, thinking, What will my first day be like? Will I play love scenes with Clark Gable? Who will I meet? Will everyone realize I'm a movie star? Where will I go first?

Guess where I
did
go first, for Pete's sake? Right
to school
! Much to my rage and disgust
and
amazement (I've always just detested school) that's where I went! It helped a lot to have Mickey there. “Hi,
you
again!” that's the way we greeted each other. And Deanna Durbin was there, Gene Reynolds, Terry Kilburn, quite a few of the kids. But especially, of course, it was fun to be with Mickey again. I remember how, that first day, he took me on a tour of the studio lot.

On our tour we saw Myrna Loy, Joan Crawford, Bob Young—and
Clark Gable!
Mickey practically had to support my tottering footsteps after I saw Mr. Gable. I remember him saying, “Gosh, dames are awful silly!” just because I acted up over Mr. Gable, and who wouldn't?

But to jump ahead a little (I told you I wouldn't be able to write a proper autobiography) my first real beau was Jackie Cooper. My first real crush. The first time I ever counted daisy petals and read poetry and sang sad songs with a “meaningful” look in my eyes was over Jackie Cooper. I had to maneuver ways to get to see him. And I did. Just the way I maneuvered with Galen Rice, when I was
very
young. Like I found out that Jackie was going to a party at Edith Fellows' house. Now, I hadn't seen or talked to Edith for
ages.
But I soon fixed that! I called her on the phone and was just too chummy for words. And I talked and I talked. Every time it looked as though we'd just have to hang up, I'd think of something else I just had to tell her. I talked until I am sure she invited me to her party just to shut me up.

Well, Jackie took me home from the party! It took me all evening to work that, lots of songs and sad eyes and such acting as I have
never
done on the screen! And boy, when he took me out to his car and I saw it was a chauffeur-driven car, did I ever feel like Lady Vere de Vere! Whoops, I thought, this is the life, a boy with a car and a chauffeur. We got home and,
Jackie being a perfect gentleman, he escorted me in. What was my horror to walk into the living room and find my Mother and Dad
down on the floor,
counting the nickels and dimes which were Dad's box-office “take” for the evening! Jackie said, in a whisper, “What do your folks do, run a slot machine?” I was SO mortified.

My first grief came soon after I'd signed my movie contract. It was my Dad's leaving us. Something I never thought could happen, something I know would never have happened, for any lesser reason than Death. He had meningitis. He went away in three days. One of the things that hurts now is knowing that if it had happened to him a little later, he might have been saved. Because now sulfanilamide is a cure for meningitis. But then, there was nothing they could do for him, they didn't know what to do. I had thought I was heartbroken many times before that. Now I knew what heartbreak
really
feels like. It makes you grow up, a thing like that, a loss that's deep and forever.

I did my first broadcast the night Daddy went to the hospital. We didn't know, of course, that he was anything like as ill as he was. It was on KHJ, Big Brother Ken's Program, and I recited “Boots” and sang “Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart.”
*
I didn't have any mic fright at all. I never have any fright, mic or camera or stage. Anything that's entertaining, anything that's
theater
makes me feel right at home.

Well, my first screen appearance, as I am
afraid
some people will recall, was a short called
Every Sunday,
which Deanna and I made together. Deanna sang opera. I sang swing. We both would like to forget that sorry little shortie—but I am putting down all of the first things in my life, I can't skip that, much as I should like to. Then I made my first full-length picture,
Pigskin Parade.
I should also like to have amnesia when I recall
that
! I was loaned to 20th Century Fox for that picture and it was in that I saw myself, for the first time, on the screen. I can't TELL you! I was so disappointed I nearly blubbered out loud. I'd imagined the screen would sort of “magic” me. Well, I never got over it, I hated it so badly! I'd expected to see a Glamour Girl, as I say, and there I was, freckled, fat, with a snub nose, just little old kick-the-can
Baby Gumm!
And I tried so hard, I
acted so forced—ohhh, it was revolting! It didn't help a bit that Mom and the director and lots of people said I was good.

But I get over things pretty quickly. Someone once told me I have a “volatile element” in me, whatever that means. Anyway, I started to work very hard. The studio began “grooming” me, I learned how to walk, how to carry myself better, I got to know the other players on the lot. And I began to work with Mrs. Rose Carter, who was engaged by the studio as my private tutor.

For the first time in my life, schoolwork became a pleasure. For instance, I had never been able to do geometry; it was plain nightmare to me. Well, Mrs. Carter found out how I love art, drawing and all, and she explained that geometry is nothing but a series of drawings worked out in figures instead of colors. I soon discovered I could solve angles, no matter how intricate. Then, thanks to Mrs. Carter, I learned to appreciate Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Verdi. Now I have a collection of 2,500 records, including the classics and swing. It was Mrs. Carter who put me wise to the fact that modern fiction is pale compared with history. She encouraged me not only to love art but to
do
something about it, to sketch and a print and draw. That first year, on Mother's Day, my gift to Mom was a portrait of Dad that I made from an old tintype.

It's skipping way ahead to tell you about my graduation—anyway, last June, right after I was eighteen, I went into my dressing room (which was also my schoolroom) one day and there was Mrs. Carter, packing away books and portfolios and things, like mad.

“What are you doing, Rose?” I asked.

“Doing!” said Rose. “Why, I'm getting rid of these pesky schoolbooks! Isn't this a sight your eyes have been sore to see? Don't you realize you are through with them forever?”

And then, of all things, I began to cry! If anyone had ever told me I'd cry at the sight of some vanishing schoolbooks I'd have committed them to the loony bin. But I just blubbered, “I'm sorry I'm through and—but—well, if I
have
to be through, I want to graduate with a—with a
class.
I want to be like other girls my age, at my graduation, anyway!”

So, I did graduate with other girls, like other girls. On June 26th, 1940, I was a member of the graduating class of University High School. And I
wasn't one speck different from any of the other 249 girls! I wore a plain blue organdy dress, like they all did, and carried a bouquet of sweetheart roses, just like the others. The flowers were provided by the school and I've got one of them pressed in my scrapbook. I almost missed my place in line, too, because Mother sent me a lovely corsage of mystery gardenias and Mickey sent me a cluster of
orchids
and I had to dash into the audience and explain to Mom that I
loved
the corsages but I just
couldn't
wear them. “I can't be different from the other girls, Mom,” I said, “Please don't be hurt, but that's the way it is.” Mom understood, like always. I wouldn't even let Mickey come to my graduation. I certainly
would
be “different,” for Pete's sake, if I'd had Mickey Rooney at my graduation! And I wouldn't have any cameramen there, or anything—and it was all wonderful.

But now I have to go back three years, just a little hop, to the lots of first things that began to happen then. The first time I met Mr. Gable, in particular! Well, the way it happened, I was in Roger Edens's office on day (Roger is a musical coach at the studio, and my instructor) and I begged him to let me sing “Drums in My Heart” which he had arranged for Ethel Merman. He told me I was too young and unsophisticated to sing a song like that. Now, I have a quick, fiery temper and you know how a girl
hates
to be told she is “unsophisticated,” not to mention “young,” migosh! So I just stormed out of his office and then cooled off,
right
off, like always and came meekly back again. And Roger suggested that we compose a song just for me. He said, “Now, what or whom, would you like to sing about?” And I said, quick like, “Mr. Gable!” And Roger looked as if he was trying not to laugh and so then we made up the song, “Dear Mr. Gable.”