Judy Garland on Judy Garland (26 page)

It wasn't, of course, completely idyllic. Nothing ever is. The second day they were in New York the cook and maid moved out, displeased over what neither Judy nor Vincente have the least idea. For five days after that they had no one to help them. They called every agency. Like a thousand other New Yorkers they would have packed and moved to a hotel if they could have gotten accommodations. Then, through an advertisement in the
Times
, they interviewed a maid. “I'm the luckiest person in the world,” Judy insists. “She's a wonderful woman, this maid! And the selfsame day she arrived I went downstairs and in the lobby was a woman waiting to see me. She's now our most magnificent cook, a Creole, and she has agreed to go back home with us!”

Also, in typical New York fashion, Judy and Vincente have weekended all summer in the country with friends and have also visited Nick Schenck at his Long Island villa, where the talk of pictures and the theater and actors and artists and writers is the talk both Judy and Vincente dearly love.

The very week they arrived, Nick Schenck took them shopping in Tiffany's.

“Metro wants to buy you a wedding present, Judy. Pick out something you like.”

Hesitantly, Judy chose a simple gold brooch.

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Mr. Schenck. “You must choose something much gayer.”

After considerably more hesitation, Judy selected a bracelet of square diamonds and emeralds and a companion pin that broke into two clips—all so beautiful that they left her breathless.

Then Mr. Schenck insisted that the groom choose a wedding present for himself. After some demurring, Vincente selected a handsome gold wristwatch as his gift from Leo, the Lion.

Speaking of weddings, Judy's mother, appropriately enough, gave them a clock. “Such a beautiful, old, rare clock—from England,” Judy explains. “It will sit on our bedroom mantel or bedside table. It strikes with beautiful chimes. And on either side of the face are porcelain figurines, a little boy and a peasant girl.

“It's the sort of thing you want to pass on in your family—to your children and their children ….”

She spoke of her prospective children several times. For in spite of a foolish newspaper item, she and Vincente have no idea of adopting a baby. “We expect,” she says, “to have a baby of our own someday. And another. And another. Until we have a good-sized family. For what could be more exciting than having children and watching them develop and grow and helping them on their way? That is something that would last for always.”

The party the Minnellis gave—one of a very few—was to honor Judy's sister [Jimmie] on her birthday and the eve of her opening at La Martinique. Unwilling to trade on the name Garland she is known professionally only as Miss Dorothy.
*

Many of the sixty-odd guests were Dorothy's friends, many more were Vincente's—so many were strangers to Judy. With sweet naturalness,
therefore, she made no attempt to introduce people or to call them by name. But she moved from group to group with simple friendship. Even if Judy hadn't been a famous star, eyes would have followed her the night of that party. For she was lovely in a pale blue brocade hostess gown with a tight bodice, low square neck, long sleeves, flaring peplum and wide trailing skirt.

At one end of the lantern-lit terrace stood the long buffet table. And in the center stood a chocolate cake, Dorothy Garland's favorite, ablaze with candles.

Throughout the party there was a fine musician at the piano. And the Merry Macs moved from group to group, serenading. Dorothy sang, too, while Judy stood half-hidden and applauded, if possible, even more enthusiastically than all the rest.

Finally Judy sang, too. “Embraceable You” came first. Then, with the Merry Macs as background, she sang “The Trolley Song.” And always her eyes sought Vincente and always her voice as well as her eyes turned warmer to answer his smile.

“Vincente forgets to be shy when he looks at Judy,” an old friend said. “Because he completely forgets himself. It's such a wonder he ever found her. Men like him—charming and gay and kind, with his elfin humor—are so likely to marry women who aren't able to share their interests. Judy looks up to him. You might almost say—if they weren't such friends—that she is terrifically impressed by him. So Vincente is stimulated. And they're both happy.”

Soon now, when Judy and Vincente return to California, they'll live in his house. “I like it so much I didn't want to go to a new place,” Judy says. “However, since it was a typical bachelor house and not large enough for two we bought the lots on either side. Now we're building on a little bath-dressing room for me. And when we can get priorities we'll put a dining room on the other side.”

The Minnelli house sits on top of a high hill midway between Beverly Hills and Hollywood. You travel winding roads to get there. But the view, looking out over trees and gardens and town and sea, is unbelievable. The house itself has the feeling of houses in Mediterranean countries. It's seashell pink outside and predominantly dark green inside. Vincente has
furnished it with the beautiful eighteenth century pieces he's collected for years. And it's done in bright colors and quilted chintzes and pale rugs, with lovely pictures, rare porcelains. It presents a quaintly dignified facade to the road. But on the other side terraces furnished and gardened luxuriantly lead to the badminton court which is a gathering place for the wittiest and the most brilliant and charming people in all Hollywood.

At night, at the Minnellis', when the lights come on in the town below and the stars come out overhead, you seem to be suspended between two skies. All of which bears out the prophecy of Judy's and Vincente's friends that even when the honeymoon is over they'll go right on living halfway to heaven.

*
Born Dorothy Virginia Gumm, Judy's sister “Jimmie” (also known as Virginia Garland) worked at M-G-M as a script clerk and appeared as an extra in several films. Abandoning the Garland moniker, Jimmie became “Miss Dorothy” (a stage name dating back to her days in vaudeville) when she embarked upon what was a short-lived run as a musical-comedy solo act in the mid-1940s. Judy and Vincente were in New York when Miss Dorothy opened at the La Martinique nightclub on July 4, 1945.

Judy shared her views on life, death, war, and spirituality in this piece written during the first half of 1945 while in production for
The Harvey Girls.

Here's Judy, herself—no frills, just a nice, honest girl speaking her mind on the really important things

When
Screenland
asked me, on the set of
The Harvey Girls,
to talk about what I believe about life, love, religion, happiness and immortality, I was flabbergasted by the immensity of the subjects covered. But after I caught my breath, I was glad that I was given this chance to express my ideas. Usually an actress is asked about nothing more vital than whether she prefers coffee with sugar or without, crystal ashtrays to silver ones or blondes to brunettes. I realize that this subject takes a great deal of thought, but I will try my best to put on paper what I believe.

Life?
I believe that happiness can be achieved if you don't get in your own way. You should always keep your sense of perspective, both about yourself and about things outside yourself.

I believe you should be critical of yourself but not overcritical. The latter inhibits you too much. You avoid realism and wrap yourself in a cloud of misery. If another person is in a bad mood, you think it's because of something you have done, when actually he or she may have had a quarrel with someone else and is not thinking of you at all. Or if you're in a bad
mood, you expect the whole world to share it, and take personal offense at everyone else who seems reasonably happy. You say to yourself, “Nobody cares how I feel.”

Such a perspective is completely distorted and selfish. Being over-critical of yourself brings it on. I remember between the ages of 14 to 20, I went through such a stage. I was particularly sensitive about my nose and teeth. My teeth didn't all grow at the same time. I thought I was snaggle-toothed, and often used to put my hands over my mouth to hide my teeth. I was like the girl in the ads who was afraid to smile.

Perhaps every girl goes through a period in adolescence when she is overcritical of her own looks. That viewpoint is just as bad as being too conceited. Actually it's a form of conceit and selfishness because it means you're concentrating too hard on something about yourself that isn't really terribly important.

An actress is apt to suffer from this oversensitiveness. The average girl can look at herself in a mirror, and by picking the angle, see what she wants to see. But in the movies, your face is magnified, every little defect shows up multiplied a thousand times. So being an actress is a terrific test of your ego. No matter how your face looks on the screen, however, you have to remember that people are going to judge you by your personality and the way you act, as much or more than by your looks.

Certainly the girl who isn't an actress is going to be judged more by her personality than by her looks. A boy once told me that when he goes to a dance he never tries to pick out the prettiest girl at the party or dance; he just picks out the one with the nicest smile.

Death?
I don't believe that dying is the end. There is too much preparation in life for something else.

Immortality?
I believe that there is such a thing as personal survival. I don't believe that there are golden streets in Heaven and that gingerbread grows on all the trees, but do believe that there is something afterwards. I find it hard to believe that there is such a place as hell in the afterlife.

Prayer?
Prayers are important, particularly in wartime, and a great comfort to people at all times. When I was little and said my prayers every night, I once got the idea that if I prayed for somebody else each night I would appear unselfish. So I asked for nice things for other people,
always adding, “But I don't need anything,” and hoping that I would get nice things as a bonus for my supposed unselfishness. Perhaps I shouldn't tell this on myself, but once I didn't get something which I wanted badly, and then I stopped praying for a while. Of course, I resumed my prayers again later. Now I don't say bedtime prayers, but pray at other times. I know now that some prayers are answered affirmatively by God and others are answered otherwise, because it's God's will, but however they may be answered, there is still comfort in the prayer.

Religion?
I believe that the real expression of your religious beliefs is shown in the daily pattern of your life, in what you contribute to your surroundings and what you take away without infringing on the rights of other people. I don't disapprove of people who make a habit of focusing all their thoughts on religious ideas, unless they let religion become an opiate with them and do harmful things to other people. No one should feel that because he goes to church every Sunday he can do cruel things which people are not ordinarily supposed to do and that God will overlook his bad behavior.

I like going to church at Christmas, Easter and when I'm not working, because it is peaceful there and a place of goodwill, where some of the nicest people in the community congregate. But real religion is in your mind and heart, and can't be judged by the number of times you go to church.

War?
You can drive yourself crazy trying to figure out why God allows wars. Once I heard a group of women discussing this and one of them (not myself) said, “How can there be a God when these terrible wars go on? How could He permit it? My own attitude toward war is fatalistic. I feel that human beings create the machines of destruction; we make the troubles that cause wars. True, people are dragged into war who have no control over it, but man, not God, is responsible. We haven't progressed far enough from Neanderthal man to permit all craving for violence to disappear. Some day in the future, when human beings are born without tonsils, which we probably don't need, and without appendices, which we certainly don't need, our physical brains may be developed to the point where all savagery has disappeared. But at the present time there is still something in man's nature which permits the violence of war.