Judy Garland on Judy Garland (48 page)

JG:
Well, I've got to go and do a movie first in London. I'm leaving in a few days. As a matter of fact, I'm making another album on Thursday night.

WBW:
This Thursday?

JG:
Yes. Before I go. For Capitol. And then I'm off to London. I imagine I'll be there three or four months. It takes that time to make a picture.

WBW:
You just completed a film out on the coast, too.

JG:
Yeah, yeah. That was a straight, nonsinging part, you know.

WBW:
You mentioned the name Roger Edens earlier, Judy. Am I correct, is my intelligence correct, didn't you do your original audition for Roger Edens? Or wasn't he in on your original audition at M-G-M?

JG:
He was at M-G-M, yes. Mm-hm.

WBW:
And you did “Zing! Went the Strings, [of My Heart]” was it?

JG:
Well, I didn't audition for him. He was, at the time, just a pianist. He had been Ethel Merman's accompanist here in New York, and then he came out to Metro and nobody paid much attention to him. And he got sort of dragged in to hear this little girl—many years ago, need I say—sing.
[Laughs.]
He accompanied me because my mother, you see, who used to accompany, was ill and couldn't be there. So he came in to accompany. I was about twelve and from then on we've been working together.

WBW:
Was the tune “Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart”?

JG:
Yes.

[Plays “Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart.”]

WBW:
If you're within the sound of WNEW Radio tonight, you're in great luck. Our guest in the
Make Believe Ballroom,
Miss Judy Garland, and we're playing some of the tunes from the Carnegie Hall concert of one year ago. The album title:
Judy at Carnegie Hall.
We'll get back to chatting with Judy and some more excerpts from that album after this word.

[Station break.]

WBW:
You're with WNEW in New York, AM and FM, in the
Make Believe Ballroom.
Our guest, Miss Judy Garland. Judy, you mentioned earlier going to England to do another movie. It's seems you have conquered just about every field of communication available. Do you have any frustrations as a performer? Anything you'd like to do that you haven't done?

JG:
Well, I've never done a play on Broadway, and I've thought of that. I don't know, really, whether I'm geared for that every-night thing. I think I would like it, though, if it had good music and a good story. It's rather tempting. That's the only thing I haven't done. I finally conquered my
[laughs]
fear of television, and I do adore television now.

WBW:
The special you did recently with Frank [Sinatra] and Dean [Martin] was just great.

JG:
Did you like it?

WBW:
Yes. Norman Jewison.

JG:
Yes. He's terribly good, by the way. He's just marvelous.

WBW:
Speaking about talented people who surround you, the young man who conducts for you, Mort Lindsey.

JG:
Yes.

WBW:
I'm a big fan of Mort's. I've known him for a long time, and he does wondrous things, I think, for you.

JG:
Oh, he's
marvelous.
He's just marvelous, and we got him sort of on a
fluke,
actually.

WBW:
How so?

JG:
Well, when I came from London I was supposed to work, do concerts at one of the hotels in the Catskills, and the conductor came down to New York to rehearse my music. And the music is quite difficult to play. You know, Nelson Riddle and millions of high trumpet notes and bongos and all those things. And he just said that he didn't think that he wanted to take the responsibility. So I forget whether it was David Begelman or Freddie Fields picked up the phone and called Mort Lindsey. Luckily he was home. He, I think, was about to take a year off, wasn't he, just to write music? He wasn't going to conduct anymore. He wanted to write. So we finagled him to come to the rehearsal, and he rehearsed the whole show with the band and I don't think it took any longer than two hours and we did the concert and we've been—

WBW:
He's been with you ever since.

JG:
Yes. I think he's absolutely marvelous.

WBW:
This tune “Chicago” that we're going to hear now, whose arrangement is this? Do you know offhand?

JG:
You mean the orchestration?

WBW:
Yeah.

JG:
Or the vocal arrangement?

WBW:
The vocal arrangement.

JG:
Well, it's Roger Edens' vocal arrangement and it's … let me see … I don't know. I think my brother-in-law, Jack Cathcart, made the orchestration to “Chicago.”

WBW:
Alright, here then, again, in staid old Carnegie Hall, exactly one year ago, Judy Garland and a tribute to Chicago.

[Plays “Chicago.”]

WBW:
At exactly 7:00 P
M,
that's Miss Judy Garland, with us here at the
Make Believe Ballroom,
and we're re-creating that memorable concert of exactly one year ago. Judy, we're going to pause once more and check up
again on the very latest news and weather, and then more excitement with “Miss Show Business,” Miss Garland, here at the
Ballroom,
here at WNEW in New York, AM and FM.

[Station break.]

WBW:
In the
Ballroom
this Monday evening we are very pleased to welcome as our guest a young lady who a year ago was working very hard—a little later on tonight, it would have been [a year ago]. The concert started, I guess, about 8:30 that night, didn't it?

JG:
I think it started at 8:45.

WBW:
You had a lot of notables in the audience, among them Rock Hudson and Dore Schary. A lot of visiting celebrities and of course people who just love you. I wonder, Judy, in watching an audience react to you, have you figured out or do you take the time to figure out or
should
you figure out why you communicate so well with them and, let's say, some other performer may not? Have you figured out what it is?

JG:
No. I haven't a clue. I don't know what it is. Maybe it might be that I feel a genuine affection and love for people who pay money to come and sit and watch me sing. I have great respect and I also believe in never cheating an audience because they have been kind enough—

WBW:
They've spent their money and—

JG:
Yes. It might be that. Otherwise, I don't know. I really don't know. All I know is it's very nice.

WBW:
Speaking about that kind of thing, as far as performers are concerned, do you see any performers around today whom you particularly like? You know, newcomers coming up? As far as singing is concerned, for example, if you were locked in a room and had to listen to some albums, what albums would you choose? What singers? What performers?

JG:
Well, I think there are a lot of good singers, really. Very good singers. They're not newcomers. I'm too old now to know about all the newcomers
[laughs],
but I'm sure some of them are marvelous, I just haven't heard
them. But I do think that Tony Bennett is marvelous. Of course Frank Sinatra. I—

WBW:
May I interrupt you for a second? You say, “Of course Frank Sinatra.” Any singer you talk to says, “Of course Judy Garland” and “Of course Frank Sinatra.” Now, let me ask you. As far as Sinatra's concerned, what is it? The way he feels a lyric?

JG:
I don't know. I don't know. I can't answer you any more than you—than I could when you asked—

WBW:
I figured I could kind of trap you there and get the … [laughs]. As I say, I wonder sometimes because singers say, almost inevitably, you ask one hundred singers, ninety-nine of them will say, “Of course Judy,” and “Of course Frank.” I've wondered, in looking at Frank's work, what it is. Whether it's his lyric interpretation—

JG:
Well, I think it's his lyric interpretation and the quality of his voice. And also, he does cast an almost hypnotic spell, you know. He really does. You just don't look away when he's entertaining or singing, you just listen to what he has to say. I think Peggy Lee is a marvelous singer. I like the girl named Kay Starr. I think she's a wonderful, wonderful singer. [There are] many, many fine singers.

WBW:
I wonder, talking about singers of today now, the kind of background that a singer like you have had in working vaudeville, movies, television, I don't know that the singer of today can get that kind of background. A singer today, a youngster, can get a hit record and suddenly be put on a television show and have forty million people sit and watch in judgment.

JG:
Yeah, that's kind of rough on them, I think. Because I came from vaudeville, originally, and then went into movies, I was lucky enough to have had that kind of background. Therefore, I learned by trial and error, you know, how to entertain, how to sing, and so forth. It's rather a rough go on young kids now because they're—

WBW:
They don't have the basic training.

JG:
Yes, but if they're good they'll last. I have a theory that basic, good talent is not unfounded. Somebody always finds a person—young person or whoever—if they're
really
talented they'll be found. They'll find a way to be found.

WBW:
Speaking of talent, let's get to Judy in concert again and “That's Entertainment.”

[Plays “That's Entertainment.”]

WBW:
You're with WNEW in New York, AM and FM, [with] Miss Judy Garland, and we're re-creating as best we can some of the wonderful contagious excitement that attended Judy's Carnegie Hall concert one year ago. Judy, again, in reading in magazines like
Cosmopolitan, Redbook,
and in interviews, I know the great love you have for your children. Do they show any signs of becoming performers?

JG:
I'm afraid so. Yes.
[Both laugh.]

WBW:
Why “afraid so”?

JG:
Well, you know, I went along with the theory for a long time that they shouldn't be exposed to this—

WBW:
Horrible world of show business.

JG:
But I'm afraid they're stuck with it. My sixteen-year-old daughter is
terribly
good. She's a magnificent dancer and also an awfully good actress. And she's very pretty. And my nine-year-old girl is the Gertrude Lawrence of Scarsdale!
[Both laugh.]
There's just no holding her. My little boy, Joe, he's seven. He doesn't know quite whether he wants to be a conductor or a mechanic. He takes everything apart, you know, the way boys do. And yet, he knows the whole score—the
background
music—of
West Side Story
and conducts it when no one's watching. If anybody's watching he just stops immediately. He thinks that's, you know, he doesn't want to be caught at it. So I think they're sort of … I don't know what they're going to do. They can do what they want. But
thank God
they're talented! Wouldn't that be awful if they wanted to be onstage and had no talent?

WBW:
I don't think there'll be any problem. I remember, again, seeing some still shots of your eldest daughter and she's a
beautiful
girl.

JG:
Yes, she's lovely.

WBW:
She's sixteen?

JG:
She's sixteen. Yes.

WBW:
And she's been studying ballet from—

JG:
She's been dancing. She's been studying dancing since she was four years old. She just wanted to go to dancing school and she has a sort of a natural, marvelous grace and coordination for dancing. This last summer we spent in Hyannis Port. She went into summer stock and was an apprentice at the Melody Tent, which means you paint scenery and all this stuff. They finally thought she was so good they gave her several acting roles. She never talked to me about it, and I did the best I could to not look
[laughs]
like I was being shut out. But she finally explained to me, very kindly, that she didn't think she should ask me anything about acting [and] that she should wait for the director to tell her. And she was quite right. But I went and saw her. She's a
wonderful
actress.

WBW:
Are they severe critics, for instance, when you work a concert? Do they come to your concerts and then offer critiques afterward?

JG:
No, they come to the concerts and they've heard me sing, so they sort of like the excitement and sometimes there are celebrities there. They couldn't care less about me and my thing. You know, I am just mama. They've heard me sing on the stage and they're kind of bored with it. And I'm glad!
[Laughs.]

WBW:
Let's get to another tune you did in concert a year ago. [On] this particular tune, “When You're Smiling,” it seemed to me that in listening to it on the Capitol recording that the audience was really at this point as … I guess you'd call it a fever pitch. And when you start …

JG:
Well, that was the opening number, wasn't it?

WBW:
Was “When You're Smiling”?