Judy Garland on Judy Garland (37 page)
Read Judy Garland on Judy Garland Online
Authors: Randy L. Schmidt
“Why should I buy five ice cream sodas?” we might ask hopefully.
“Because I want to think of you having a big binge in an ice cream parlor tomorrow and getting out of this child-infested madhouse.''
Pretty silly, isn't it? Of course. But you don't know what it does for us that you're silly. Silly with us. It means you are still silly about us.
And one more little thing, perhaps the same thing as gift-giving. Or perhaps even more important. Showing that you want to be alone with us. At a party saying: “C'mon out into the kitchen with me while I mix them some drinksâthey'll get along by themselves,” meaning the guests of course. And they will; and you'll find us such a flashing hostess when we come back from that four-minute exclusive excursion with you that you'll wonder what got into us.
Or, at a picnic in the country, saying: “You kids stay here. Mother and I are going for a walk alone for a while.” And then taking our hand. Just a little walk. Just a few minutes. Just to show us we're not all mother, all helpmate.
We lose our identities quickly in what we're doing, we women. And you give it back to us when you show us that we're basically your sweetheartânot just the mother of your children or your economic collaborator. The kids will never have seen such a motherly mother in their whole lives as we will be when we get back from that little walk.
You see the point? We become unsure, get nervous about our real meaning, unless you affirm it to us. And this brings me to the problem of arguing and fighting.
Nobody (who knows) will say that an occasional brisk encounter, verbally of course, will do any harm to either of the combatants. In fact, it's a specific for certain forms of material doldrums. Minor discords are like flat stones: they can pile up. Or like a fog: they accumulate. And a good
tiff can be like a breath of cool breeze to a valley mist, blowing it away, clearing the atmosphere. So don't be afraid of a fight with us. We're not made of glass.
But when we must have an argument with each other, don't yell at us. Not unless we become
utterly
impossible and you simply can't help it. We suspect a yeller. And it isn't because the loud voice frightens us. It's that we know at once, someplace deep inside, that your voice-raising means weakness. That somehow, we have scared
you
and by raising your voice, you are admitting it.
Do you know how to stop a yelling woman? Just be silent until we are. Because we're being absurd and childish, and we know it. If you don't share our childishness, you'll win the argument every time that it has any importance at all. For of course, we want you to win it. That noise you heard just before you made us giggle at ourselves with your well-timed silence was a tiny, tiny thunderclap in an infinitesimal teapot.
So, you see, you have the Indian sign on us. But never doubt it. Just remember the beautiful passage from Ruth that always brings tears to a woman's eyes. Remember? “Whither thou goest, there will I go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people and thy God my God.” We weep at it because it is such a beautiful description of woman as a follower. And therefore, you and you alone must be the leader. If you are not, nothing else really mattersânot money, not brains, not beauty. No, not anything.
On
A Star is Born
“I'm a little tired of being the patsy for the production delays on this picture. It's easy to blame every production delay on the star. This was the story of my life at Metro, especially when I was a child actress. When some problem came up that they couldn't lick, the delay, no matter what caused it, was always blamed on the star. Whoever was responsible figured that the star could get by without a bawling-out, they couldn'tâ¦. I caused three days delay in one yearâand it was illness, not temperament.”
âTo James Bacon, Associated Press, February 17, 1955
On Television
“Oh, dear, this television is a monster. I'll be lucky if I live through it. I'm in a daze most of the time. That four-eyed color camera just throws me. They tell me to look right in the lens, but I don't know which one. I guess it's the little hole on topâ¦.It's a new mediumâanother form of show business. I've wanted to try it, to reach a new kind of audience.”
âTo Associated Press, September 19, 1955
On the London Palladium
“Standing in the wings, waiting to go on, I became paralyzed. My knees knocked together and I walked on like a stiff-legged toy soldier. After a while, without knowing how it had happened, I found myself, not standing on the stage, but sitting on it. It was said I tripped over a wire or a loose board. That's not true. I didn't fall at all, really, I just collapsed. The fall happened after I had sung two or three numbers. I was trying to take a bow. I just went âUgh' and sat down. I sat there and thought, âDamn this.' I looked up at Sid, who was hanging out of a box, screaming, âYou're great, baby, you're great.' Somehow I got back on my feet, lurched back to the wings. I remember thinking, âThat's it. Judy falls on her can and that's the end of the great comeback.' I was ready to quit, but my old friend Kay Thompson was waiting at the side of the stage. She screamed, âGet back there. They love you.' Then she gave me a hug and a shove that carried me back almost to center stage. Instead of giving me the bird, those wonderful British people clasped me to their hearts. I unlocked, and everything I wanted to do came surging out. All the bad years went. It was like being reborn. It was like being given a new life to start all over again.”
âTo Joe Hyams,
Photoplay,
January 1957
On the 1955 Academy Awards
On a March night in 1955 when the Academy Awards were given out, everyone in Hollywood seemed to think it was a race between Grace Kelly for
The Country Girl
and me for
A Star Is Born.
Like just about everybody else, I wanted an Oscar and I wanted it badly.
Of course I knew there was a good chance I wouldn't win, and anyway an event that meant a lot more to me was coming up in my life. I was going to have a baby. According to the radio and television people, any woman can have a baby, but only one woman a year can win the top Oscar. So the National Broadcast Company conducted a full-scale invasion of my hospital room.
Outside my window they built a platform big enough to launch a rocket. It was three stories high, and the idea was for the cameras to shoot through the window the minute I learned I'd won.
Then, just twenty-four hours before deadline, Joe was born. There I was, weak and exhausted after the battle to bring him into the world. He was very frail, and the doctors were giving him only a 50-50 chance of survival.
As I lay there in bed, the door burst open and in came a flock of TV technicians. I already had a television set in my room, but they dragged in two more huge ones. When I asked why two sets, I was told that I would have to talk back and forth with Bob Hope, who was master of ceremonies at the awards, and they couldn't take a chance on one of the sets not working properly. Then they strung wires all around the room, put a microphone under the sheets and frightened the poor nurses almost to death by saying, “If you pull up the Venetian blinds before they say âJudy Garland,' we'll kill you.”
Outside the window I could see the cameramen on the tower getting ready to focus on me in bed. Then someone turned on the TV set and Bob Hope came on. We listened to the whole ceremony, the excitement building up. Then Bob announced the winning actress. It was Grace Kelly.
I didn't have the time to be disappointed, I was so fascinated by the reactions of the men. They got mad at me for losing and started lugging all their stuff out of the room. They didn't even say good night.
âTo
McCall's,
April 1957
On Concert Venues
“I'm a little nervous about the great honor of appearing at the Met, but I've been dreaming about it since I was a little girl. There is no firm line anymore between popular and classical performers. Classical artists like Helen Traubel, Lily Pons, Patrice Munsel and Lauritz Melchior have all made good in TV and nightclubs. Now I think it's time some of the popular entertainers turned the tables and seek new audiences, too. Nat (King) Cole and Frank Sinatra could be great successes in concert halls. This is a big step for me, and harder than nightclubs in a way. But appearing in concert halls has one advantage. You only do one show.”
âTo Vernon Scott, United Press International, March 25, 1959
THE 1960s
JUDY GARLAND FAR FROM HOME
ART BUCHWALD |
October 2, 1960
Judy recorded and performed concerts around Europe for much of 1960, taking up residence in London, where she and the family spent Christmas before returning to New York City on New Year's Eve. Humorist Art Buchwald, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and columnist, interviewed Judy by phone from France for his syndicated column.
PARISâAmong the Hollywood stars who have moved to Europe is Judy Garland, who has taken up residence in London. Miss Garland's press agent asked us if we would like to interview her by telephone and we said we would like to. It was the first interview ever done across the English Channel with Judy Garland.
It went like this:
“Hello, Judy? How are you?”
“I'm fine.”
“What are you wearing?”
“A red dressing gown. I'm going to have a cup of tea.”
“What else?”
“Cucumber sandwiches.”
“No, I mean what else are you wearing?”
“White slippers.”
“Is your hair up or down?”
“Down. How are you, dear?”
“I'm fine. I'm wearing a black tie and a ⦔
“What else?”
“Nothing else. I'm not going to have any tea.”
There was a pause. Apparently, she was eating a cucumber sandwich. We asked her: “What happened? Why did you leave Hollywood?”
“Well, you see I've been there for so many years and I like it very much, but I decided it would be nice to live in Englandâyou know, because I wanted the children to go to school in Europe and I'd like to be around with them.
“Liza, my 14-year-old one, is having trouble, though. The educational system in Southern California is behind the English schooling systemâit's even behind the New York schooling system, and Liza has to have tutoring before an English school will take her.”
“What are you going to do over here?”
“I'm going to do concerts and probably make a film or two.”
“That will take a year or so?”
“Over a year. I don't know how long I'll stay. It's funnyâthe papers in America have been writing a lot of mean things about me moving over. They seem to think that I'm a traitor or something.”
“They'll soon be calling you a runaway movie star.”
“Yes, and they sound very angry, but they shouldn't be. After all, I'm going back there.”
“They say most Hollywood movie stars who take up residence in England are not driven home by bad publicity but because there is no central heating.”
“We're staying in Carol Reed's house. He doesn't have central heating, but there are stoves in every room. It's real nice and warm.
“Eddie Fisher and Elizabeth Taylor are still looking for a house over here. As a matter of fact, they looked at this one before we did, but they looked at it on a dreary, rainy morning and none of the heaters were on, so they turned it down. When Eddie came over the other day all the heaters were on, and he was mad as hell he didn't take it when he had a chance.”
“Do you miss your Hollywood friends?”
“Yes, I miss them, but I have friends over here.”
“You'll miss the elections.”
“I have an absentee ballot, so I'm going to vote.”
“Kennedy?”
“Natch.”
“Would you go out campaigning for him if you were in the United States?”
“Oh yes. But it probably wouldn't have meant anything one way or another.”
“Maybe you could make a record over there.”
“That's an idea. Something like âEven in Kensington I think of Kennedy.'”
“Are you renting your house in Hollywood?”
“Yes. But I let my staff go. This European trip gave me a good excuse to fire them. I didn't have the nerve to do it before. I think it was good to get away just to give me a chance to get rid of all of them.”
“How's the English staff?”
“Very nice, very English. They belong to Carol Reed. The cook is wonderful.”
“How's the butler?”
“There is no butler.”
“No butler? No wonder Eddie Fisher didn't want the house.”
On Tragedy
“People think of me as a neurotic kid, full of fits and depressions, biting my fingernails to the bone, living under an eternal shadow of illness and collapse. Why do people insist on seeing an aura of tragedy around me always? My life isn't tragic at all. I laugh a lot these days. At myself, too. Lord, if I couldn't laugh at myself I don't think I'd be alive.”
âTo journalist Herbert Kretzmer, 1960
On Birthdays
“I don't remember having any birthdays as a child. My mother was always afraid the studio would decide I was too old to play child parts. So we just ignored them.”
âTo George and Helen Matthews,
Redbook,
August 1960