Judy Garland on Judy Garland (50 page)

JP:
Well, Liz has grown up.

JG:
Yes. [All
laugh.]

JP:
Oh, yeah. I laugh. She says she always thinks of Liz Taylor with chipmunks!

JG:
Well, we had a pretty strange group, you know.

JP:
Well, who all was in that group?

JG:
Well, it was a terrible classroom in the first place, when you think of all of us in one group with Elizabeth Taylor in the schoolroom. You know, we went to school. We did, believe it or not. There was Elizabeth Taylor and Lana Turner and Mickey Rooney and Freddie Bartholemew and me and Deanna Durbin.
[Audience laughs.]

JP:
That was one room?

JG:
One room! There was only one. And …

JP:
Well, you all turned out swell.
[Judy laughs, makes a mocking gesture.]
What happened in Metro? What did they do?

JG:
I don't … that was …

JP:
Were you kids scared? Were you scared?

JG:
No, no.
[Mocks shaking.]
Not at all! We were fine. Have you seen us since we've come out? We're a
very
peculiar group.
[Paar and audience laugh and applaud.]

JG:
Lana kept excusing herself every five minutes by having to raise her hand in school to go out and smoke.
[Audience laughs.]

JP:
How was Mickey?

JG:
He went out and smoked, too. [All
laugh.]
We
all
did!

JP:
How far did you go to school in that kind of system?

JG:
We went to school clear through the …

JP:
High school?

JG:
Yeah.

JP:
Is that right?

JG:
Well, we got old enough and they finally
sprung
us. We didn't pass. [
All laugh.]

JP:
Did you kids know when you were that age that you were big stars or was that kept from you?

JG:
Oh,
no!

JP:
Why were you frightened? 'Cause you were frightened …

JG:
Yes, terrified.

JP:
You were scared. Who were you scared of? Everybody?

JG:
Everybody.

JP:
Didn't you know you were big stars?

JG:
No, no. No, they didn't let us know. We were kept under wraps.

JP:
Who else do you remember? Listen, how'd you start? Did Jessel really give you your name?

JG:
Yes.

JP:
He says he [did]. Did he?

JG:
Yes. Yes, he gave me my
last
name.

JP:
Her name is Frances Gumm.

JG:
Yeah.

JP:
Frances Gumm, yeah. Isn't that right?

JG:
Yes, that's right. Frances Gumm.

JP:
Now, tell them about—were you good in vaudeville?

JG:
We were terrible. Terrible.

JP:
Yeah, who was in it?

JG:
My two sisters, my mother, and myself. We were in rotten vaudeville, too. Not good Keith time or Orpheum time, okay, we were in
lousy
vaudeville. We were in between the switches where they'd show a movie you know and then throw on a lot of acts and then show the movie. We were part of that type work. We were terrible.

JP:
Tell the story about Happy Harry.

JG:
Oh …

JP:
I know, I know. Come on. They want to hear all the stuff I hear.

JG:
Oh, well we did this—my two sisters and I did it—tour throughout Washington and Oregon; all the rotten cities, all the little cities, not the main cities. But it was a tour so the acts stayed together for about six weeks. And we followed a
miserable
comedian—the most depressed comedian I've ever known—called Happy Harry. And he used to come on in “2.” You know what that means … the curtain is quite a ways back so that there's a lot of room. And the music would start. His entrance music
was sort of
[sings tune]
… There was only three pieces in the band—there
were
—piano, drums and some violin or trumpet. So there was an empty pit with just three pieces in it. Now Happy Harry would wait in back of the curtain. And the manager of the tour would make us wait all the way through Happy Harry's act to make sure we were ready, you know. So we watched this poor thing every night and they'd play
[sings tune repeatedly and with growing intensity]
and he'd break through and say, “Hello everybody. This is Happy Harry!” And, and he'd go on with the most
terrible
stories and we were [
bored gesture]
… Well, this one time … Do you still want me to go on?

JP:
Yes!

JG:
Well, this one town we hit, they put him in “1” instead of “2,” which meant he only had that much space
[gestures],
you know, between the pit and himself. [
All laugh.]
We were in the wings, as usual, the Gumm Sisters, and the music went [
repeats tune]
and he went “Hello everybody, ah—!” and right into the pit.
[Audience applauds.]
But wait!

JP:
Wait. It's more.

JG:
He fractured his leg in three places very badly. And we were in the wings. Can I stand up?

JP:
Sure!

JG:
[Standing]
We were in the wings just standing and the manager said, “Go on!” So we had to sing “Dinah.” You know, we went
[singing and dancing]
“Dinah, is there anyone … ” and this poor thing in the pit was going, “Owww! Owww! Owww!”
[Audience laughs and applauds as Paar wipes away tears.]
I wonder if he's still there!

JP:
Oh, Happy Harry, he probably has his own show on the daytime nowadays, one of those quiz shows, I bet you. Listen, what was I going to ask you about? You weren't really a good act in the beginning?

JG:
We were
terrible.
Even at the end we were terrible. We were always terrible.

JP:
Were you jealous of Deanna Durbin? Would you kids get along?

JG:
Yeah.

JP:
Because you were both competitive like mad.
[Audience laughs.]

JG:
Yeah, I was very jealous of her.

JP:
You were jealous of her?

JG:
Yeah, not for long.

JP:
Oh.

JG:
Because we were
[audience laughs]
… the only reason I said that is she came to Metro originally, you know.

JP:
From Universal?

JG:
Yeah. No! She came to Metro first and then
went
to Universal. And when she came to Metro, I had just gotten out of vaudeville and I thought I was sorta hep. And in came this girl with
[gestures]
one eyebrow—never stopped in the middle—it went right across. Very low. And I thought, “Well she's nothing, really. Who's this?”
[Sings in operatic tone.]
And then they
fired
her and they were going to fire me because they didn't know what to do, actually, with thirteen-year-old girls [or] twelve-year-old girls. There was no such thing. You either had to be a munchkin or you had to be
[gestures to chest]
eighteen or something. [All
laugh.]
No, no in-between. So, they fired her and I thought “HA! Well,
you know,
that's all right, I'm going, too. They don't know what to do. Then they picked her up at Universal, and suddenly she was the most
beautiful,
glamorous girl and very talented.

JP:
I liked you best, though.

JG:
You did?

JP:
Yeah.

JG:
You just liked jazz, instead of opera.

JP:
No, I don't like jazz much. No, no. I just, I just liked you.

JG:
Did you, darling?

JP:
You tear my heart out, you know? It isn't hard to tear it out, incidentally, but boy … No, there's a wail in your voice that just
moves
everybody.

JG:
That's very nice.

JP:
Oh it's very moving. I remember your first picture. You were in a band concert, right?

JG:
Yeah.

JP:
Is that true? Is that right?

JG:
With Deanna Durbin.
[Audience laughs.]
It was “Opera Vs. Jazz” [and] called
Every Sunday.

JP:
Was she in it too?

JG:
Yeah,
Every Sunday.

JP: Well, I was in love with you.

JG:
You were?

JP:
Yeah. And that song, “Dear Mr. Gable.”

JG:
Yes.

JP:
Yeah. And to me you'll always be Dorothy. Little Dorothy. Hey, tell the story about how those clowns tried to crowd you out in
The Wizard of Oz.

JG:
Oh, I don't dare. You're
terrible!

JP:
You knew that when I came on. Everyone knows I'm terrible!

JG:
You mean Jack and Bert?

JP:
Yeah, how they crowded you out.

JG:
Well, you know they're my friends
now.
But then they … Well they are!

JP:
How old were you?

JG:
I was about twelve. No, no, I was older than that. I was fourteen [
sic].
They tried to make me
look
twelve, in many different ways
[awkward gesture to chest],
but they didn't quite make it.
[Audience laughs.]

JP:
I'd know you're sixteen or more now! I just figured that out. You've got a lovely knee, do you know that? You've always did have lovely knees.

JG:
Well, I've covered it a bit …

JP:
That dress is becoming a blouse, isn't it?
[Laughs.]
Tell them about
The Wizard of Oz!

JG:
Well, we were … [laughs].

JP:
Oh, I love her!

JG:
I had to work with three very
professional
men, you know—Jack Haley and Bert Lahr and Ray Bolger—and they had so much makeup on. One was the Tin Man, and one was the Scarecrow, and one was the Cowardly Lion. And they were so busy complaining about their makeups, and each one was making bets as to which makeup was the most difficult. And they all gained weight all the way through the picture. And they all pretended they just … [
gestures fatigue]
and whenever we do that little dance up the Yellow Brick Road …

JP:
Yeah, I remember that.

JG:
I was supposed to be
with
them.

JP:
They'd crowd you out?

JG:
They'd shut me out. They'd close in, the three of them, and I would be in back of them dancing.
[Gestures dancing as audience laughs.]
I wasn't good enough, you know, to say “Wait a minute now!” And so the director, Victor Fleming, who was a darling man—he was always up on a boom—would say.
“Hold it!
You three dirty hams, let that little girl in there!” [All
laugh; audience applauds.]

JP:
Boy! I wish you'd come on this show every week and just tell stories. [
Audience applauds.]

JG:
I'd like to. I really would like to.

JP:
I told you … Hey, look what I've done for Hugh Downs [Paar's partner/sidekick]!

JG:
Yes.

JP:
Oh, I got him already, didn't I?
[Judy laughs.]
We'll be right back after this message from Kimberly Clarke.

[Commercial break.]

JP:
Oh,
peekaboo!
Listen, you gonna sing tonight?

JG:
I would like to sing. Would you like me to?

JP:
You know …
[applause].
'Cause if you don't sing, we're out those two guys holding up the cards out there.
[Judy laughs.]
There's a song … The people who wrote this
Gay Purr-ee,
the music, Hip Yarburg …

JG:
No, no, no. Start again.

JP:
Yip Harburg.

JG:
Right.

JP:
But what did it
used
to be?

JG:
Yip!
What was it, I wonder? Yip Harburg.

JP:
I can't believe he changed his name from anything else.

JG:
Well, he wrote the words. How could he write that name?

JP:
Did he write “Over the Rainbow?”

JG:
Yes.

JP:
See, he wrote all of her great songs. And he's written some great songs in this new picture…

JG:
Gay Purr-ee.
Plug.
[Laughs.]

JP:
Yeah,
Gay Purr-ee.
But the song I like the
best,
I think, is “Little Drops of Rain.” And I think it has the quality of “Over the Rainbow.”