Judy Garland on Judy Garland (64 page)

DC:
I don't know!
[Audience laughs.]

JG:
Well, what are we talking about now?

DC:
I was thinking …

JG:
Why don't we go back to Bob Hope or the flowers and I'll come on again.

DC:
That was the best entrance anyone has made on this show.

JG:
You should have seen me dressing upstairs. Do you remember a man named Owen McGiveney? No, you're too young. Everybody's much too
young. [To
guest Ida Kaminska.]
Even
you're
much too young!
[Audience laughs.]
Owen McGiveney did nothing but change clothes. He wasn't witty or anything. He was in vaudeville. He'd just come on in one outfit and run off in the wings and come out in a whole new outfit in two seconds, and everybody thought it was pretty good. And I was like Owen McGiveney upstairs. I had odd and very strange … I don't mean strange …
nice
people, but strangers, working on my hair and makeup, and if I came out looking well, it's simply because of my good spirit! [All
laugh; audience applause.]

DC:
I don't think I could have said that better myself.

JG:
No kidding! I don't think I could …

DC:
Strange people
do
handle you when you're on a show like this. It's an odd feeling to go from studio to studio, especially for a lady, and suddenly all these people descend on you and they start doing things and …

JG:
And you haven't met them and there isn't time to get acquainted, you know, and sort of say, “Well, it's nice to see you again,” because, in the first place you haven't seen them before [
audience laughs],
and all they say is “Allright, come on! You're on in
four seconds!”
and you've just gotten into the studio and you don't know who you're working with or what songs are going to be up, but you bloody well do it. And I
don't know why!

DC:
Really? You're beginning to question the reason for all this foofaraw after all these …

JG:
Do you mean showbiz?

DC:
Showbiz, yeah.

JG:
The biz?

DC:
The biz.

JG:
I think it's
hideous. [Audience laughs.]
Except for the audiences. I like them but I don't like all the … well …

DC:
Junk that goes with it.

JG:
… the bloodstained runners that separate the artist from the audience. [To
audience.]
Well, you know about that. You all know about that. Maybe you're out there. I don't know. You know about it.

DC:
I've been wondering myself. Listen, when I come back I have … you can stay a while can't you?

JG:
Where are we going?
[All laugh and audience applauds.]

DC:
That's a damn good question because I always say “We're going away,” but we don't. We stay right here.

JG:
Oh?

DC:
Well, let's see if we go away when I snap my fingers.
[Commercial break.]

DC:
We're back. Have you noticed that we're back?

JG:
Are we?

DC:
We weren't anywhere at all. You're right about that.

JG:
I've done so many comebacks, it's … [All
laugh.]
I'm the
Queen
of the Comebacks! And I'm getting tired of coming back, I really am. I can't even go into a restaurant and have to go to the powder room without making a comeback when I come out. [All
laugh.]

DC:
Well, you'll make another one about six minutes from now, too, because we'll have another break then and we'll have another comeback. Then we'll go away and not have been anywhere.

JG:
I've not had a break for a long time. Do you have coffee breaks?

DC:
Coffee breaks?

JG:
Do you stretch them with Juicy Fruit?
[Audience laughs.]

DC:
We stretch them with anything we can get. [All
laugh.]

JG:
How does it feel to be a legend? [All
laugh and applaud.]

DC:
At this moment, rotten! [All
laugh.]

JG:
No, I mean … oh, level with me.

DC:
I'm so seldom asked.

JG:
Well, people are so afraid of you, you know. They don't dare. How does it feel to be a living Statue of Liberty?

DC:
Very, very gratifying.
[Audience laughs.]
And I find it when a kid like yourself comes along and shows a little promise, [
audience laughs]
it's a pleasure to be able to give you a break.

JG:
Oh, gee.

DC:
I know that a lot of important people are watching this show.
[Audience laughs.]

JG:
Oh, gee. I hope so.

DC:
I could throw up from this! [All
laugh.]

JG:
Oh no! I've got my black dress on.
[Audience laughs.]
And I brought my hat just in case anything like that might happen.

DC:
Oh!

JG:
What else have you got to say for yourself?

DC:
You said something about a coffee break. See, I have some. I never offer my guests my coffee. And I have some extra New York tap water here.

JG:
Your rose or your glove?
[Singing tune of “People Will Say We're in Love” from
Oklahoma!] Ba ba bum! Ba ba bum! Ba ba bum! Ba ba bum-bum!

DC:
And they said we couldn't get her to sing on the show.
[Audience laughs.]

JG:
That's it! [All
laugh and audience applauds.]

DC:
That's not only it, it's all we can afford.

JG:
I don't know what those curtains … after the television series I did … which unfortunately is buried somewhere in Newark …
[Audience
laughs.] Why,
I don't know! All twenty-six shows. We didn't have those kinds of classy curtains, and so you've got a little more money than we all think.

DC:
Well, listen, those curtains are going to be available shortly. [All
laugh.]

JG:
What do you mean?

DC:
Well, they're marked down because we're closing out in a month.
[Audience laughs.]
*

JG:
Well, when are you coming back? Not to bring up the …

DC:
Well, I've made so many comebacks that … [All
laugh.]
I don't really know!

JG:
Oh, copycat.

DC:
Yeah, I took your material. Do unknown songwriters—they must—come to you with manuscripts clutched under their arms and in their sweaty palms?

JG:
Unknown songwriters?

DC:
[Are] unknown songwriters [wanting] you to do their numbers all the time. This must have gone on for years and years! What do you do about that?

JG:
Well, first of all, everyone who sings has people send them songs that they write … you know, amateur songwriters. The first thing you do is make sure you send them back after you read them over because they'll sue the Dickens out of you if they don't get them back. However I've got to tell you, there was one marvelous man called Peter A. Follo. F-O-L-L-O.

DC:
Follo?

JG:
Follo. And he was rather rich, evidently, because he sent me … This was years ago, just after we had lost the war completely, and Pearl Harbor was just bombed out and we were desperate.

DC:
In ‘41, this was?

JG:
I don't remember, either that or the Civil War, when I was born. [All
laugh.]
But anyway, Peter A. Follo sent me a group of his amateur songs and it was leather bound and beautifully copied. And they were just terrible, terrible,
terrible
songs.

DC:
[Laughs.]
They were?

JG:
They were the worst songs. So I had to keep them, even if he sued me. He wrote one song … Now, mind you … Pearl Harbor, they weren't kidding, you know. And then, I think, was it Mr. [Henry J.] Kaiser and Hildegard had to get a lot of ships built quickly so that we could defend ourselves. In the meantime, Peter A. Follo sent me these songs, and the first one was a kind of a peppy song called “You Lousy Jippy Jippy Japs.”
[Audience laughs.]
And I'm sure he meant it well, but it was kind of a …

DC:
A frisky little number.

JG:
Yeah, frisky! I think he was Japanese.

DC:
Poking fun at our yellow enemies.
[Audience laughs.]
That was the way they talked during the war. Did you remember the posters that showed the Japanese as rats?

JG:
No, that was Peter A. Follo. He was the rat.

DC:
Yeah?

JG:
[Singing and clapping.] You lousy jippy jippy Jap / I hate you so much / I'll make you go 'n‘ buy a crutch / Just wait and see / You lousy jippy jippy Jap / You lousy big rats.
. . And that's the most I can remember of it.
[Audience applauds.]
*

DC:
You know, I remember when that was on the Hit Parade!
[Audience laughs.]
That's really a terrible song, isn't it?

JG:
Well, it didn't inspire too much. Mr. Follo was an enemy, obviously, but he also wrote a song for everybody to join the army. A mobilization song. And he didn't like rhyming. He wrote words and lyrics and it went:
[singing] Uncle Sam is going to build an army / Uncle Sam is going to build a navy / And if you dare to come upon our shores / If you do we'll punch you on your jaws
[pronounced “jors”]
/ We are gonna certainly surprise you / And we'll knock out / For the U and S and A is going to knock you flat.” [Audience applauds.]

DC:
We'll be back after these messages!

[Commercial break]

DC:
Oh, we're caught talking. You were talking about how you were at M-G-M in what they always called the great days of M-G-M. The business has told stories about Louis B. Mayer, who was such a dominating figure in those days.

JG:
Well, he was a dominating figure. He was a very good movie maker. He
did
make good movies. I don't know what happened. Well, first of all he
died! [Audience laughs.]
Then I suppose everything went into television and separate productions and all that. But Mr. Mayer was always really quite nice … very stern … very nice to me … except that he …
[Laughs.]
Can I tell a terrible story?

DC:
Tell a terrible story? This is the place!
[Audience laughs.]

JG:
There was an anxious producer by the name of Harry Rapf. R-A-P-F.

DC:
Rapf?

JG:
Yes, which made you stop and think anyway, his name.
[Audience laughs.]
And I had only been at Metro for about six months and they didn't know what to do with me because I was at that rotten age. You had to be two or eighteen. There was no in-between. So I just went to school a lot. And didn't learn a
thing,
by the way. Except one day Mr. Mayer sort of ordered me into a private dining room at M-G-M, and there were just a lot of men eating and congratulating Mr. Mayer on the food from the commissary. They obviously wanted to stay in good with Mr. Mayer.

DC:
As if he cooked it himself.
[Audience laughs.]

JG:
Yes! He did! [All
laugh.]

DC:
That's not the end of the story, is it?

JG:
No, no. But if you want it be …
[Audience laughs.]

DC:
I'm sorry, I'll shut up.

JG:
No, no, don't!

DC:
So all these men are in the …

JG:
No, there were about seven men in there and they were all trying to stay in good or stay with Mr. Mayer, and I was twelve or thirteen, and I was always just given chicken broth, but not a noodle in it because I had “baby fat.” Everybody can have baby fat. That's not necessarily a criminal offense. But no matter what I ordered, I'd always get this rotten chicken soup. And even in Mr. Mayer's private dining room. Well, Harry Rapf was sitting here, and he had the most astounding nose, because it was very aquiline, but it went way over to the desk. [
Audience laughs.]

DC:
And came back again.

JG:
And kept getting in my soup! [All
laugh.]
And they were all eating like mad, these gentlemen. You know, [saying] “Here, have some of this and some of that,” and bypassing me as I sort of tried to get … well, anyway … Harry Rapf was perspiring—I suppose he was going to be fired or something—and the apple pie came on and my eyes bugged out. And they were all just eating, and I thought, “What am I doing here? I haven't been in a movie!” And nobody's paying any attention to me. And Harry Rapf finally broke the silence by saying with his mouth full of apple pie, “My goodness, Mr. Mayer! This is the best piece of apple pie I've ever had in my whole mouth!” [All
laugh.]
He was so
nervous.
He meant to say “my whole life.” I laughed and I was never asked back.