Judy Garland on Judy Garland (3 page)

What makes this collection unique and distinguishes it from the plethora of Garland biographies is that it places Judy in the role of storyteller. And what a great storyteller she was! True, a number of the stories herein have undertones of pathos, but many are decorated with witty bits of Judy's own brand of comedy. “You'll find that there's an awful lot of baggy-pants comedy in me,” she declared in her 1966 tapes, later explaining, “I'm not the daughter of tragedy. [Judy Garland] wasn't her name. Her name was Ethel.” Whether telling a story about her mother, Ethel (“the real life Wicked Witch of the West”), or being dismissed by M-G-M (“Leo the Lion bit me!”), Judy found ways to deal with even the most painful memories through the guise of humor. “I hope to
Christ
this comes out funny,” she said of her planned book. “Otherwise it's really going to make Tchaikovsky sound like the Beatles!”

First Lady of Comedy Lucille Ball called Judy “the funniest lady in Hollywood,” and Judy proved it again and again over the years through her spontaneous wisecracks and long, twisted tales. Speaking of tales, the task of separating fact from fiction is one of the challenges found in the process of untangling Judy's story. Such an undertaking requires filtering through many years of myths, half-truths, and some out-and-out lies. Stories tracing back to the studio should always be approached with some level of suspicion. Although a number of wonderful (and verifiable) truths are present, such tidbits may be hidden amongst other exaggerated anecdotes. It's important that readers navigate the information with care and an awareness of what is sometimes referred to as the “Hollywood hallucination.”

M-G-M always boasted “more stars than there are in the heavens,” and the biggest and best studio was, naturally, home to biggest and best marketing mouthpiece. Heading the studio's publicity department in its heyday was Howard Strickling, who—due to his reputation in the fine art of scandal dodging and cover-ups—held the title of Hollywood's leading “fixer.” He was in close contact with all the major reporters, columnists, and fan magazine editors who, prior to publication, would often submit their features to Strickling's Culver City team for approval. When she
arrived at M-G-M in 1935, young Judy had no real scandal to dodge or cover-up to make. Born Frances Ethel Gumm some 13 years earlier, she'd only been “Judy Garland” for a year or so.

With the success of
The Wizard of Oz
came public demand for more Judy, and Howard Strickling wasted no time fashioning a detailed biography for the popular youngster. As was customary in his department, the media magnate embellished Judy's story like an ornate and extravagant production number from a Metro musical. Her official studio biography,
The Life Story of Judy Garland
(dated 1940), was a 22-page mimeographed document with contents ranging from petty to preposterous:

• “The young star of today, idol of thousands, [once] faced the problem of conjuring a dinner for four out of two eggs and a moldy loaf of bread.”
  
• “[At home,] Judy not only has her own room, but rooms—a suite of three…. Hidden somewhere in the recess of these three rooms are a secret closet and passage, known to Judy alone. These rooms are Judy's sanctuary.”
  
• “She claims that when she is twenty-five, she will leave the screen, marry, settle down and have at least six children and do her own cooking.”
  
• “Still says her prayers at the foot of her bed … never does she go to bed before she takes her setting-up exercises. Worries about being fat but consoles herself that it is only ‘baby' fat and that she's bound to be thin the older she gets. So she keeps right on eating chocolate cake, ice cream with fudge sauce, spaghetti, and chili. She hates salads, but loves candy bars.”
  

No M-G-M star could be average or ordinary. That is, unless that happened to be the slant the studio wanted to employ. “When a studio puts you under contract, its publicity department starts turning out news copy about you that you read with astonishment,” Judy explained in a feature for
Cosmopolitan.
“You think, can this be me they're talking about? They don't really manufacture untruths, but they play up whatever makes interesting reading, and then a columnist adds his own little embellishments
and another adds to that until there's a whole body of so-called ‘facts' floating around—almost like another you—that simply isn't real. It isn't a lie, but it isn't real, either…. You can't very well go around denying the stories your studio releases when it is doing everything it can to make you a star, and sometimes you get to doubting your actual personality.”
*

It's important to note that Judy's arrival at M-G-M coincided with the untimely death of her father, and from that day she seemed to take on the persona and embrace the life prescribed for her by the studio. The death of Frank Gumm signaled the death of Frances Gumm. “I don't associate Frances Gumm with me—she's a girl I can read about the way other people do,” Judy proclaimed in the aforementioned
Cosmo
piece. “I, Judy Garland, was born when I was twelve years old.”

Biographer Christopher Finch, author of
Rainbow: The Stormy Life of Judy Garland,
described young Judy as an adolescent girl trying to cope with the loss of her father and in turn buying the stories sold to her by those in control:

Hollywood destroyed Judy Garland's childhood by trivializing it into oblivion, a process that started the day Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's publicity department first turned its attention on her. She lacked the stability and security to resist the relentless erosion of fact and, eventually, she came to believe many of the myths invented for her…. She was just beginning her new life at M-G-M, and the aims of the studio and the aims of her subconscious coincided. M-G-M invented a surrogate childhood for her to escape to, thus destroying any hopes she might have had of finding roots and stability. The pills and the morphine and the rest of the junk would eventually finish the job—blurring whatever survived the fictionalizing process—but, to all intents and purposes, the truth was buried the day her father died. Eventually the happy times and all of the successes were obliterated, to be replaced by a catalogue of comic disasters.

Judy's split from M-G-M on September 29, 1950, proved in many ways to be her emancipation proclamation. She was finally free to speak her mind and formulate an identity apart from that created for her by the studio. In the succeeding years she made enormous efforts to triumph over the media's concentration on and exploitation of her personal struggles. It should be noted that, comparatively, the same media paid far less attention to her successes. But Judy had her say, as evidenced in this collection. She wrote a number of essays for various publications and sat for countless print, radio, and television interviews during the post-MG-M era, particularly in the 1960s. These and the other autobiographical efforts made throughout what was to be the final chapter of her life are proof Judy wanted her story told, and wanted it told in her own words.

Aside from the occasional notating of blatant factual errors, I have elected to keep these interviews and encounters complete, intact, and uninterrupted, presenting them for the sake of presentation and preservation. I feel they all play an important role in Judy's telling of her story. Intentional stylized capitalization, creative wordplay, and other trendy literary devices used by various authors remain intact. Simple misspellings (especially names of well-known individuals, titles of films and songs, etc.) have been silently corrected. Editor's notes within a piece are indicated within brackets or as footnotes at the end of each page.

Interview transcriptions new to this volume were personally transcribed as accurately as possible, with only minor editing for readability. “You must get used to the fact—and I think that it should be written straight away—I don't talk well,” Judy admitted in tapes recorded during the summer of 1966. “I don't finish any of my words lots of times because my mind goes faster and I stammer a lot.” In an effort to smoothly adapt spoken word to print, I have omitted the excessive use of “um” and “uh,” repeated words, and similarly unnecessary utterings by Judy and those who interviewed her. More substantial omissions are indicated with ellipses in brackets, while ellipses without brackets indicate hesitations or pauses. Most interviews are transcribed and presented in their entirety (or as much as survives on source recordings).

This book makes every attempt to present a thorough and detailed telling of Judy's story, but a collection such as this is not intended to cover the full breadth of such a complex life and illustrious career. Hers is a story that has been told many times and in many ways, in some cases by fine writers and Garland authorities. Those seeking additional reading and perspective are encouraged to review the Suggested Reading section of this book. Also, several pieces considered for inclusion but ultimately omitted for a variety of reasons include “The Real Me” by Judy, as told to Joe Hyams, which appeared in the April 1957 issue of
McCall's
. It was a virtual retelling of “My Story” from
Cosmopolitan
in 1951. Also, due to permission issues, 1964's “Judy Garland's Own Story: There'll Always Be an Encore” and 1967's “The Plot Against Judy Garland” (both features for
McCall's
) are absent from this volume, but recommended reads. Brief excerpts from these and other important pieces are included throughout the book and as “Judy Gems” between items.

My introduction to Judy Garland came in the spring of 1979. Just shy of my fourth birthday, I was indoctrinated into the Garland cult by way of the annual broadcast/event of
The Wizard of Oz,
like most fans of my generation. By the age of six I was aware of Judy Garland apart from Dorothy Gale, and I began exploring her other films, recordings, and fascinating career in entertainment. For years I collected feverishly, attended fan events, and even became curator of my own Over the Rainbow Museum and Sales Co. in a small building behind our house on my family's farm. Yes, I was
that
kid! As an adult, my interest ebbed and flowed (usually due to life events and various school/work obligations), but it never waned.

I have always found it difficult to put into words my gravitation toward the Garland phenomena. It's an inexplicable pull that only Judy has come close to identifying:

I have a machine in my throat that gets into many people's ears and affects them….There's something about my voice that makes them see all the sadness and humor they've experienced. It makes them know they aren't too different; they aren't apart. That's the
only reason I can give for people's liking to hear me sing, because I'm not that fine a singer. Sometimes my vibrato is too fast or too slow, although I've got good pitch. I have good diction, and I read a song much more than I sing it.

I try to bring the audience's own drama—tears and laughter they know about—to them. I try to match my lifelong experiences with theirs, and they match their own sadness and happiness to mine. I think that's it. Both men and women connect me with Dorothy in
The Wizard of Oz,
and they have a protective attitude toward me, which is rather sweet.
*

Whether rooted in the protectiveness she referred to all those years ago, or perhaps some other characteristic yet to be determined, I am thrilled to have this opportunity to give Judy Garland the voice she always desired, and to present her story in her own words through this book full of the humor, the tears, the fun, the emotion, and the love she promised. “I'm going to talk in my own words,” she assured us. “And tell the truth. So here goes.”

*
Cerf was referencing
ACT ONE: An Autobiography
by Moss Hart, the playwright's best seller published in 1959 by Random House. The book spent 22 weeks at number one and remained on the
New York Times
list for nearly a year.

*
From “Judy: She's Broken Through the Dark Clouds at Last. Ahead—the Rainbow,” Jane Ardmore,
The American Weekly,
October 1, 1961.

*
From Bennett Cerf's 1967–68 interviews for the Oral History Research Office at Columbia University.

*
From “When You've Lived the Life I've Lived … ,” Ivor Davis, (London)
Daily Express,
March 11, 1967.

†
From an interview with the Asbury Park Press, June 26, 1968.

*
Judy Garland, as told to Michael Drury,
“My
Story,”
Cosmopolitan,
January 1951 (this feature appears in its entirety later in this book).

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