Judy Garland on Judy Garland (5 page)

She was particularly bright-eyed and bubbling that noon, what with the thrill of a smart new cream-colored makeup kit Norma Shearer had given her a few moments before, and Clark Gable sitting at the very next table to us.

What thirteen-year-old girl wouldn't be thrilled over a combination like that?

But before we go any further, you might as well know that while Judy has a great weakness for the Gable gentleman, Robert Donat is definitely “tops” in her screen affections.

“Sophie Tucker is a friend of his,” she confided breathlessly, “and she's written to England asking him to send me an autographed picture. Isn't that grand?”

Miss Tucker, recently returned from English stage and screen engagements, is Judy's mother in
Broadway Melody of 1937
[retitled
Broadway Melody of 1938],
the Eleanor Powell picture currently before the camera at the studio.

“And wasn't it marvelous of Miss Shearer to give me this?” Judy wanted to know for the third time, as she lovingly patted the makeup kit beside her.

I could see plainly that I was starting out with a distinct handicap on that interview. Yet there is a certain honor in even competing with Norma Shearer and Clark Gable.

“You know, I didn't do a thing,” Judy was saying. “I just went to a party Miss Shearer gave. That was all.

“But she's lovely, anyway. She's always doing nice things.”

She smoothed a fold of her little dark blue sailor suit which the makeup kit had rumpled while she'd had it on her lap a few moments before, and with a happy sigh turned her attention to the toasted cheese sandwich the waitress set before her.

This Judy has acting and music in her blood from both sides of the family, I found. The movie theater in which she made that surprise debut at two was her father's. Her mother was pianist there, turning out by the hour that “atmospheric” music which always accompanied film showings in those days of the silents.

“Even now I think I could play ‘Hearts and Flowers' with my eyes shut,'' she smiled, telling me about it.

The couple, Frank and Ethel Gumm, were veteran vaudeville troupers. As a boy soprano, Frank had worked his way through school by singing. As a man, he had a fine baritone voice. Ethel both played and sang well. At fourteen, she was ably holding down a job as pianist in a movie theater.

After their marriage, they toured the country in a singing act, as Jack and Virginia Lee. But the advent of Suzanne, Judy's eldest sister, stopped all that for a time.

Two years later, “Jimmie,” (a girl in spite of her name) was born. Four years more, and Judy put in her appearance. She was known as Frances then.

They settled down in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, and Mr. Gumm bought a small moving picture theater.

The girls all showed talent. To their delight, their parents worked up a little singing and dancing act for them. They put on performances for their friends and at their father's theater.

When Judy was three, the family decided, with a suddenness characteristic of them, to take a trip to California. Partly as a lark, partly as a means of earning a little extra money, they “divided the family into two acts,” as Judy puts it, and worked their way out here, staging performances in movie theaters along the route.

“That was my first professional work, and it was such fun,” giggled Judy. “I can actually remember it. Daddy and mother were one act, and we three girls the other. We'd go on first, and then sit proudly out in front to watch our parents perform.

“As part of their act, mother used to sing ‘I've Been Saving for a Rainy Day,' and it always made me cry. It was terribly sad!”

“It makes you cry even now when I sing it,” teased Mrs. Gumm. Judy looked a little embarrassed.

They liked California so well that they decided to stay. Mr. Gumm bought a moving picture theater in Lancaster, about ninety miles inland from Hollywood, and the family settled down.

But don't think for a moment that anything could have kept those three girls in Lancaster. They slept there, but that was all. They'd had a taste of the stage, and their appetite was keen for more.

Agents liked their act, and they were booked steadily in small theaters in Los Angeles and Hollywood, and up and down the coast. Sometimes they made the long trip from Lancaster to Los Angeles twice in one day for a sudden engagement. They could always count on coming in at least four or five times a week.

Their mother came along, and played for their act. She was pianist for a number of dancing schools, in addition, and taught personality singing.

As we were discussing those days, Judy suddenly shouted with laughter.

“Do you remember the time we were putting on our act in Bishop, when I was five?” she asked her mother, “and just as I was to go on, I found I had my Oriental costume on wrong side out?”

“I'll never forget it,” said Mrs. Gumm. “I was playing the piano, and looked up. There stood Judy in the wings, with not a stitch on, struggling to turn her dress right side out. Meanwhile, the other two girls were doggedly plowing through the chorus of ‘Avalon Town' over and over again.”

At that time, the youngsters' parents had considered pictures for them, but not seriously.

“We weren't sure there was a real place for them in films,” said Mrs. Gumm. “When Judy was six, and her sisters ten and twelve, Gus Edwards arranged an audition for them here at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, but nothing ever came of it.”

A little later, the owner of a dancing school, convinced of the talent of the three, particularly Judy, was knocking at studio doors in their interests. He was I. C. Overdorff, head of the Hollywood School of the Dance. The children's mother was playing for his students at the time.

Still nothing happened. So the girls continued merrily on with their act in the theaters.

“Why not take a trip to Chicago?” one of them suggested brightly, about three years ago. “We might do some good business.”

Off they went, Mrs. Gumm and the girls. At the Oriental Theater there, they played on the same bill with George Jessel.

Through a mistake, they were billed as “The Glum Sisters.”

Mr. Jessel, who had become quite interested in the trio, threw up his hands when he saw it.

“Let me give you a name to work under,” said he. “Garland. Robert Garland, an old friend of mine, writes for the Sun and Telegraph in New York. I know he'll be glad to have you use his name. He's a grand fellow.”

So the “Gumm” became “Garland.”

The “Judy” made its appearance two years ago, when the family [was] on vacation at Lake Tahoe. It occurred to Frances that Judy was an interesting name, and she promptly adopted it.

It was the Lake Tahoe jaunt, too, that got her into pictures. By that time, Suzanne had married, and the act had broken up. The other two girls were each working on their own.

Their holiday at the Lake over, the family had started on the homeward journey in their car. Ten miles along the way, Judy remembered she'd left her music behind. They decided not to turn back.

Five miles more, and “Jimmie” discovered she'd left all her hats behind. That was different. You can't replace your favorite hats.

They returned to the Lake. When they arrived, they found that Lew Brown, the songwriter, had just arrived at the hotel. Someone insisted he hear Judy sing. All disheveled, and in her little rumpled sun shorts, she sang for him.

He worked fast.

Two days later, Judy was signed to a contract at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

“Who has taught you to sing and dance, Judy?” I asked, curiously.

“Mostly my mother,” replied the little girl, smiling at Mrs. Gumm across the table, “although of course I've picked up a lot of things here and there, being on the stage so much.”

“She's worked hard, too,” said Mrs. Gumm, “because she's been so interested in getting ahead. Roger Edens, who arranges all her songs and dances for her pictures here, has helped her a great deal.”

The talk drifted to Judy's plans. Her brown eyes danced again as she told me about the new house that is to be built in Cheviot Hills, not far from the studio. It will be a red brick house, Colonial style, such as Judy has always longed for. Not a very large house, for the family is smaller now. Suzanne, of course, is married, and Mr. Gumm died a year and a half ago.

“But we're going to have it large enough to entertain when we want to,” Judy assured me. “I love parties. And there'll be special accommodations for my pet duck, and my two dogs, two turtles and canary. We're going to have a swimming pool, too, and a tennis court.

“And besides that, I want to adopt a baby sister,” she went on gravely. “Mother thinks it's a good idea, so we're going ahead with it right away.

“Why don't we go to that orphanage we were talking about, and see if we can't take a little girl over the weekend on trial?” she asked her mother.

“We ought to do it as soon as possible, don't you think? The more time the baby spends with us, the less time she'll have to be in an orphanage.” Her brows wrinkled anxiously.

“We want her about a year and a half old,” she explained to me, “and we're going to name her Penelope.”

Besides all these activities, there will be ballet lessons. These are being arranged for now. Both Judy and her mother feel that this is one of the best ways to achieve grace and a properly poised body.

“And what's all this I hear about you and Jackie Cooper being such good friends?” I asked, when the time seemed to be right to bring up this important matter. “He says you're the grandest girl he knows.”

Judy looked a bit upset.

“She and Jackie have had a little falling out.” said her mother. “But it was really my fault. I didn't make myself clear to Jackie about a certain date. I'll fix it up,” she smiled.

As we were saying good-bye outside the commissary door, and had stopped to show the new makeup kit to one of Judy's studio friends, we met Meredith Howard, the young woman publicity aide who had arranged our interview. Judy spied her charm bracelet and stopped to admire it.

“Oh, I'd so like to have one of those,” she sighed.

“I've been planning to get you one for a long time,” confessed her mother. “We'll see about it this afternoon.”

“And you should have charms on it for your three pictures,
Every Sunday, Pigskin Parade,
and
Broadway Melody of 1937,”
put in Miss Howard. “I'll get you the first.”

“I'll get the second,” I promised.

“And I'll get the third,” added the gentleman to whom Judy had been exhibiting her new kit.

“What a day!” sighed Miss Garland blissfully.

Prepared during production for
Thoroughbreds Don't Cry,
the first of ten films Judy would make alongside Mickey Rooney, this piece for
Movie Mirror
is the earliest known example of her personal writing for publication.

Hello Juniors:

Freddie Bartholomew was telling me about the time he was guest editor for MOVIE MIRROR Junior and how much he enjoyed writing it, so when Miss Turner asked me if I would like to write the department this month, I jumped at the chance and I hope you like mine as much as you did Freddie's.

I've been on the stage ever since I was a few years old and I've been in pictures for the last two years. I'm fourteen now, and I hope to spend the rest of my life in pictures.

Mother and Dad were both vaudeville entertainers, but when my oldest sister, Suzanne, was born, they quit the stage and Dad bought a movie theater in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. I have two older sisters, and the three of us used to spend all the time we possibly could in Dad's theater watching the acts.

We were crazy about the stage, and my sisters got up a little act and the two of them used to put it on in the theater. They sang and danced,
and I would cry because they wouldn't let me be in it, too, so when I was four years old I just determined to get up there anyhow. I got to the stage during their act and interrupted proceedings to give my version of a nursery song. It wasn't very good but, boy, it was plenty loud.

After that, they made a place for me and the three of us used to give regular performances in Dad's theater and for our friends. In fact, we'd put on that act for anyone who would stay still long enough to watch us dance and listen to us sing. We kept adding new songs and dances to it and spent all our spare time rehearsing.

My folks decided to take a trip to California and we thought it would be a lot of fun to act our way out there. So Mother and Dad got up an act of their own, and we three girls had ours. We put on performances in movie theaters all along the way from Minnesota to California, and I've never enjoyed a trip so much in my life. We'd give our act first, and then Mother and Dad would go on, and we three girls would sit out in front and watch them. We were tremendously proud of the whole thing.

We all liked California so much that my parents decided to stay out here, and Dad bought another movie theater in Lancaster, which is about eighty miles from Hollywood, and we all settled down there.

My sisters and I wanted to keep on acting, though, so we went to agents and managed to get bookings in theaters all up and down the coast. We were in a different theater almost every night. Lots of times we'd have to leave Lancaster on a moment's notice for a new engagement, and we'd scurry around like mad getting our things together and rushing off so we'd be in time for the theater. Mother always went along with us on these trips and played the piano for us.

Finally we thought it was about time for a vacation, so the whole family went up to Lake Tahoe for a few weeks. As we were driving back home, we discovered that we'd left all our hats at the hotel so we had to turn around and go back for them. When we got there, a friend of ours dashed out to the car and said, “Are you lucky, Judy! Lew Brown, the songwriter, just got here, and you're going to sing for him right away!” He started dragging me into the hotel, and before I knew what it was all about, there I was standing in front of Mr. Brown.