Judy Garland on Judy Garland (66 page)

JG:
To be happy. [
Both laugh.]

Are you going to go on working now?

JG:
Do you want to ask my husband?

[To Mickey Deans.] Are you going to let her go on singing?

Mickey Deans:
Well, we're looking at different contracts now completely. To go on singing … she can go on singing if she wants to. It's not work anymore, though. It doesn't have to be.

You're saying she doesn't have to. Is that because of the wedding present, five hundred cinemas?
*

MD:
She can buy hats with the money she gets from that.
[Judy laughs.]
My investments are entirely different. I'm very happy … She'll probably be in the kitchen, cooking, you know.

JG:
[Laughs.]
I'm a good cook.

MD:
You can start being a housewife now.

JG:
Well, I've wanted to be just married and happy for a long time.

*
Mickey's wedding gift of a chain of movie houses across the United States to be known as Judy Garland Cinemas never materialized.

Just days into her marriage with Mickey Deans, Judy and opening act Johnnie Ray set off on a four-city tour with stops in Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö, Sweden, and concluding in Copenhagen, Denmark. Learning of the singer's arrival in Copenhagen, popular local radio personality Hans Vangkilde set out to secure an interview with Judy for his program on Radio Denmark, and became desperate when she didn't respond right away. During a two-year stay in New York City, Vangkilde had befriended Margaret Hamilton. It was a long shot, but he decided to lure Judy with a photo her fellow
Oz
actress had signed to his children, sending it to her hotel suite with a request for a visit. Judy responded and agreed to an interview.

“There was an immediate empathy between Judy and Vangkilde,” explained author Anne Edwards, who interviewed Vankilde for her Garland biography, “and the interview became a very personal and honest discussion between the two…. She seemed happy as she asked Deans' opinion about everything, including him in all discussion. She held his hand, leaned against him, and kept referring to him as ‘my man' or ‘my husband' as he hovered close by, making flip side remarks.”

Judy's voice was understandably brittle. She was terribly frail and not in any condition to be concertizing. Still, Mickey Deans saw his wife as an artist embarking on yet another comeback under his guidance. “I treasure the tape of that interview for the optimism and health in Judy's outlook,” he recalled in
Weep No More, My Lady,
the biography he coauthored with Ann Pinchot. “This is a recording of a woman contemplating a new life…. It contains remarks that were familiar to me, since Judy had reiterated them, and they were memorable for their poignancy.”

A day before their interview, Hans Vangkilde attended Judy's concert at Copenhagen's Falkoner Centret and witnessed what would be her final
performance. “The air was thick with rumors that the star was no longer a star, that she had not only lost her voice, but that she could no longer even get through her program,” wrote a critic for the
Politiken.
“Suddenly she stood on the enormous stage and disproved all the rumors in the world…. After a large number of curtain calls, she finally gave in to the deepest wish of the audience. She sat down on the stage floor and began to sing ‘Over the Rainbow.' It was as though she sang it for the first time, with fervent innocence and sweetness. Tears came to one's eyes. All the spectators arose and cheered Judy Garland. She had a great triumph.”

Hans Vangkilde:
Haven't you had any fun in your life?

Judy Garland:
Not until I met Mickey.

HV:
But now you have?

JG:
Oh,
yes.

HV:
Judy Garland, it's just about a year ago that we saw—

JG:
[Interrupting.]
Judy Garland-Deans,
please!

HV:
Oh, yes,
certainly!
I'm sorry. But then, Judy … That I'm allowed to say? Am I?

JG:
Ask Mickey.

Mickey Deans:
We're not going to call you Sam, that's for sure!

HV:
Judy, we saw the first film in television last year. Your first film was shown in Danish television,
The Wizard from Oz [sic].

JG:
The Wizard of Oz?

HV:
Yes.

JG:
It was shown for the first time?

HV:
Yes, in Danish television.

JG:
Did people like it?

HV:
They
loved
it.

JG:
Did they?

HV:
My little kid was just crying!
[Laughs.]

JG:
Oh, I
know!
I have three children and even I have had to reassure them when I'm sitting beside them that I haven't been stolen by the witch. It's a wonderful movie, though. They show it every year in America.

HV:
They still do that in America?

JG:
Yes.

HV:
It's a long time ago now.

JG:
Well, not that long. Let's not make it that long ago.
[Laughs.]
No.
[Sarcastically.]
About a
hundred and fifty years ago!

HV:
No, but what I'm aiming at is not to say anything wrong, but to state that—

JG:
No, I didn't mean that. It
was
a long time ago!

HV:
You have been in show business for—

JG:
Too long!

HV:
No, I don't think so.

JG:
[Laughs.]
Well, you don't have to
sing! [Laughs.]

HV:
Well, that's not the impression we got at the concert.

JG:
Well, I like to sing now that I know I don't
have
to sing. Because I'm happily married to a man who's able to give me the protection and help that I need, and I can do a concert now and then if I
want
to. That's a much nicer feeling. That's why I had a good time at the concert you saw.

HV:
We have a feeling that show business in America can be very tough to keep on top.

JG:
Oh, it's
very
tough. You don't always keep on top, either. No one does.
I don't!
My life, my career's been like a roller coaster.
[Laughs.]
I'm either
an enormous success or just a down-and-out
failure,
which is silly! Everyone always asks me, “How does it feel to make a
comeback?”
And I don't know where I've
been! [Laughs.]
I haven't been away, I've been working all the time.

HV:
There's an old saying. I don't know whether it goes in the United States, too, but there's an old saying that it's cold on the top. It's very freezing on the top.

JG:
It's
lonely
and cold. Lonely and cold. But when you … if you're lucky to find one person … I wanted to make sure … I was
nervous!

HV:
At the wedding?

JG:
Of course. I'm a very … well, I was, literally, a blushing bride.

HV:
You were?

JG:
Yes. I know. But I was very happy.

HV:
You still are?

JG:
Oh, of course!

HV:
We could see that on the stage, too.

JG:
You could?

HV:
Yes.

JG:
I'm proud.

HV:
I think that almost any Danish newspapers you could think of mentioned that your happiness showed and they could feel it in the way that you sang, too. Especially the song you sang to your husband.

JG:
“At last I have someone who needs me.” [“For Once in My Life.”]

HV:
We were just talking about the loneliness and the freezing top.

JG:
Yes, well, you're either, as you put it, freezing at the top and lonely, or else you're surrounded by people who are not truthful.

HV:
People who are using you.

JG:
Yes, just use you, you know. And if you're as unaware as I am, and you're a woman, it can get pretty rough, sometimes. But it isn't that way anymore.

HV:
It isn't?

JG:
No!
I can go
home
with my husband at night if I do a concert. I don't have to be alone in a hotel room.

HV:
Where do you live?

JG:
We live all over the place. [
Laughs.]

HV:
You do? But you have a home?

JG:
We have a home in New York. We have a home in London.

HV:
Where do you spend the most time?

JG:
New York. And London.
[Both laugh.]
No, wherever my husband goes, I go. Except to Stockholm.

HV:
Do you have a feeling that you have had a rich life?

JG:
No. Not until now. I think it's been an
interesting
life. I've loved always giving performances to audiences because I think audiences are the most respectable people in the world because they pay money to come and sit for a long time. Whether you sing well or whether you sing badly, they've paid, and sometimes
saved
money, too, you know, so I have the highest respect. But I can't take the audience
home
with me. I couldn't before. I can't now, either, but I've got my love to keep me warm.

HV:
Now you're talking about the audience. In other words, you mean that human beings are better when there are a lot of them than in singles?

JG:
No, I mean in my line of business, in the entertaining business, if you're a woman and you have made a success of yourself by working … I've worked very hard, you know? And I was lucky enough, I guess, to plant a star. And then people wanted to either get in the act or else they wanted to rob. I mean emotionally or financially—whatever—and then walk away. It was always lonely.

HV:
It's hard for us more anonymous people to understand the difference between being a well-known woman walking on the street … I'm anonymous when I walk on the street, but you're not. You always have somebody looking at you, somebody coming up greeting you, and …

JG:
I don't mind that.

HV:
You don't mind that?

JG:
Not if they're nice, you know. I like to meet people.

HV:
But what I mean is … isn't it sometimes hard for you not to be able to be yourself in the middle of a crowd?

JG:
Talk to my husband about my shopping spree!
[Laughs.
] I ran through how many stores?
[Laughs.]

HV:
Yes, well, I'll talk to him a little later about
that! [All laugh.]
How is it to walk down the street in a foreign country—

JG:
[
Interrupting.]
Fun. Fun. It's fun.

HV:
Do people come up to you and say hello?

JG:
Yes, they do …

HV:
And it doesn't bother you?

JG:
No, I'm too busy looking for a piece of porcelain if it's in Denmark, or wherever. I like to shop, I like to look in windows … Sometimes if I'm tired or after doing a performance or just before a performance I don't go out because when I do go shopping or anything, I wear myself out. [
Laughs.]