Judy Garland on Judy Garland (62 page)

Now Judy goes into another room. She quickly reappears with a record. “It just kills me about this record. Mercury pressed it in 1964 and never released it.
*
They say I sound lousy on it. They say I'm not up to snuff. Now just listen to this record and tell me if I sound lousy on it.”

Judy puts the test pressing on the machine and a song [the title song] from Noël Coward's
Sail Away
starts it off. Judy comes on singing it in an up-beat tempo and the voice comes across fast, loud and clear. This is followed by “Something's Coming” from
West Side Story,
which Judy sings with that held-in, always charged intensity of hers.

As the song accumulates momentum, Judy in the room sings along with Judy on the record, throwing up that arm, hunching her body, now raising herself on the balls of her feet and belting out the song, now stopping and laughing and saying “Christ! That doesn't sound bad! That song works!”

The record spins along. Next comes “Just in Time” (“Listen to the key changes in there, will you. Doesn't that just kill you?”). Judy sings along again, her voice warm and supple, always a bit trembly.

The foreclosure of the house forgotten, the slander forgotten, the loneliness forgotten, Judy sings with Judy on the unreleased record and nothing really seems to matter. She's up there giving a show and she knows she's got everyone in the palm of her hands because she's Judy Garland and there's nobody—but nobody—like her.

*
The intended album,
Judy Takes Broadway,
was recorded in a “live” recording session on April 26, 1962. Judy was suffering from laryngitis and unable to complete the recording. The project was shelved until 1989 when it was released with bonus material as
Judy Garland Live!

Videotaped at NBC's Studio 6B in New York's Rockefeller Center, this Jack Paar television special aired May 14, 1967.

Jack Paar:
Somewhere over the rainbow is a land called Oz, which bears a striking resemblance to the Hollywood of the late '30s. In that enchanted land, good triumphs over evil and in breathtaking color, and people never lose their innocence, least of all little Dorothy from Kansas. But quite a bit of water has flown under the bridge since Dorothy first flew over that rainbow. In the intervening years, Oz and Hollywood have made a star of Dorothy, made her famous, made her grow up. The very talented stardom comes fast. Learning to live with it sometimes takes a little longer. No one knows that better today than the girl whose singing has a quality of heartbreak, ours or hers: the great Judy Garland.

[
Judy enters to applause, carrying a broom, as she mimics sweeping the stage floor.]

Judy Garland:
Oh, my goodness gracious!

JP:
I see you found work back there.
[Audience laughs as Paar notes Judy's short skirt.
] And certainly your
knees
are over the rainbow, sweetie!
[Audience laughs.]

JG:
These are supposed to be the new knees.

JP:
Well, honey, it's almost a thigh, I would say. [
Audience laughs.]

JG:
I don't know, it's not
mine. [Audience laughs.]

JP:
Well, whoever's it is. How are you, darling?

JG:
Fine, darling, how are you?

JP:
I'm glad you're here; glad you're happy and smiling.

[Judy feigns tears.]

JP:
I was with her the other—

[Judy interrupts with more false sob.]

JP:
… Last week … last week in Hollywood, and she could be in some of the most tragic situations sometimes.

JG:
Oh, ho!

JP:
But then she'll say, “You know, no matter how bad things are,” and I waited for the rest, you know. “No matter how bad things are,” she said, “they can always get worse.” [All
laugh.]
“And somewhere behind every cloud …”

JG:
There's a lot of rain! [All
laugh.]

JP:
Oh, but we're going to have fun tonight—we're going to talk—because no one can tell show business stories like Judy Garland. We've done shows in London, we've done them here and she has—

JG:
Lost more friends!
[Audience laughs.]

JP:
Well, I suppose so. Did you ever hear from Dietrich after you told that story?
*

JG:
You know what? No, I never heard from her. That was my idea, you know.

JP:
Do you ever hear from Deanna Durbin?

JG:
No, but her eyebrow is still around somewhere.
[Audience laughs.]
She had that one thick eyebrow that wouldn't quit.

JP:
Just one eyebrow that went across?

JG:
You know, just like a caterpillar.
[Audience laughs.]

JP:
What did you call her in those days when you …

JG:
Hairy! [All
laugh.]

JP:
No, what'd you call her in those days when you …

JG:
Edna Mae!

JP:
All right, so now you've discovered that they've put you in pictures. Now there's Mickey Rooney. And is Lana Turner there yet?

JG:
In school.

JP:
Yeah, now they're on the M-G-M lot. Now these kids had to take regular lessons, do so many hours of work, run on the set and this one [
to Judy]
would run and do her little lessons and then run on
The Wizard of Oz
set and then have to read her lessons to Bert Lahr, who was a lion, and he would help her with her lessons. And can you imagine the kind of education you're gonna get doing history with a guy with whiskers?
[Judy laughs.]
It's absolutely
insane!
Tell 'em about Lana Turner and Mickey. Come on.

JG:
What, you mean in school?

JP:
Anything!

JG:
Well, it was an odd class!

JP:
They were an odd group.

JG:
Yes. Freddie Bartholomew, myself, and Edna Mae Durbin.
[Gestures to brow; all laugh.]
And Mickey Rooney and Lana Turner. And we had a schoolteacher that wouldn't quit. She would be so mean. She scared me.

JP:
Was she mean?

JG:
Yes, a terrifying woman. And Mickey would always want to smoke, so he'd raise his hand and ask to go to the gentlemen's room as a little boy. Then Lana went out and smoked with him.

JP:
Lana and Mickey were smoking.

JG:
Yeah. And that's about all. I just burned inside of the schoolhouse.

JP:
Was it strict? Did you actually graduate?

JG:
Oh yes, I graduated from University … High School!

JP:
High school.

JG:
Yes, but with
strangers!

JP:
Was Mickey fun?

JG:
Mickey was marvelous.

JP:
And what was Lana like?

JG:
She was wonderful, too. They were
smoking
all the time! [All
laugh.]

JP:
No wonder Mickey never grew up. Now we
know
! [All
laugh.]
Do you recall when the beautiful little thing came in, Elizabeth Taylor? Did you like her? Liz?

JG:
With the chipmunks she had.

JP:
Liz had a chipmunk?

JG:
Yes.

JP:
Is this true now, 'cause you've put me on?

JG:
Called Nibbles.

JP:
Nibbles?

JG:
Yes.

JP:
Let's hope it's Nibbles. [
All laugh.]

JG:
[Nodding her head.]
Nibbles.

JP:
Yes, and so what did Nibbles do?

JG:
Not much.

JP:
He didn't do much. And everywhere she went she had this little chipmunk. Everywhere she went, Mary had her little chipmunk, huh?

JG:
Elizabeth
had her little chipmunk.

JP:
Did you like her then?

JG:
Not very much.
[Audience laughs.]

JP:
You weren't so crazy on her, huh?

JG:
No, she doesn't have very good manners.

JP:
Really?

JG:
No, and she has a
bad
voice.

JP:
Her acting voice, you mean?

JG:
Yeah. Somebody told her to
breathe
all the time she's talking.
[Produces an airy sound; audience laughs.]

JP:
Who did you like then?

JG:
I liked Mickey Rooney. I liked Mr. Mayer.

JP:
Did you like Mr. Mayer? [
Audience laughs.]

JG:
Yes, he was a very nice man.

JP:
He was nice to you.

JG:
Yes, he was a very great motion-picture maker.

JP:
Did you like Jackie Cooper?

JG:
I didn't know him.

JP:
Didn't you know him?

JG:
He was on another lot two blocks away.

JP:
How about Freddie Bartholomew? You know he works in New York in an advertising agency?

JG:
Yeah, he got smart.

JP:
Would you ever see any of these people?

JG:
Well, no. They wouldn't let us get together.

JP:
They wouldn't?

JG:
No. They wouldn't let us know we were a hit either.

JP:
They never let you know?

JG:
We found out though!
[Audience laughs.]

JP:
Hey, how about in
The Wizard of Oz?
That picture, they show it once a year and it must cost $300,000 or $400,000.

JG:
Well, where's the money?

JP:
I know. [All
laugh.]
Do you get a penny of that?

JG:
No!

JP:
Oh, I see. Well, what about the Moonchkins?

JG:
Yeah, how about the … the
what?
[
Audience laughs.]

JP:
The Moo …

JG:
The
MUNCHkins!

JP:
MUNCHkins.
Yeah. Well, what did the Munchkins do? They were little dwarfs, weren't they?

JG:
Well, they were very tiny. Yes.

JP:
Were they little kids or little men?

JG:
They were drunks.
[Audience laughs.]

JP:
They were little drunks? Wh-wh-wh-wh-what'd they … You've got me
stuttering
! [All
laugh.]
What'd they do? What'd they do?

JG:
What'd they do?

JP:
What'd the dwarfs do?

JG:
Well, one of them who was about forty, a gentleman, asked me for dinner. And I couldn't say, “I don't wanna go out. I
can't
because you're a
midget.”
I just said, “No, my mother wouldn't like it.” And he said, “Ah, come on. Bring your ma, too!”

JP:
How big was he?

JG:
About two inches high.
[Audience laughs.]

JP:
Well, what could you do with him?

JG:
I don't know …

JP:
What could
he
do?

JG:
Oh, they evidently did
a lot
because … [
Audience laughs.]

JP:
There was a lot of 'em!

JG:
Oh,
hundreds and thousands!
And they put them all in one hotel room. Not one
room,
one hotel in Culver City. And they got smashed every night and they'd pick 'em up in butterfly nets! [All
laugh; audience applauds.]
They'd slam a tulip in their nose. Oh, the poor things. I imagine
they
get residuals. [All
laugh.]