JUDY GARLAND BIOGRAPHY

Judy Garland (whose name at birth was Frances Gumm) was born in 1922 in Minnesota.

Judy made her first stage appearance at only two yewars old. Later, Judy was signed up by Louis B. Mayer who was the head of M-G-M.

Her first film with M-G-M was in 1936 in "Every Sunday". In 1939, Garland starred in "The Wizard of Oz". Judy won a special Oscar as "the best juvenile performer of the year". The song "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", which Garland sang in the movie made her internationally famous.

Garland married Vincente Minnelli in 1945. In 1946, they had a daughter named Liza Minnelli.

Garland was nominated for an Oscar for her role in "A Star is Born" (1954), and then "Judgement In Nuremberg" (1961).

In 1961, Judy Garland did a live concert at New York's Carnegie Hall. An album made from the concert performance won five Grammy Awards.. Judy Garland died on June 22, 1969.

Judy Garland (born Frances Ethel Gumm; June 10, 1922 - June 22, 1969) was an American film actress and singer. Through a career that spanned almost her entire life, Garland attained international stardom as an actress in both musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage. Beginning in vaudeville with her sisters, Garland was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a teenager. There she made over two dozen films, including a string of "backyard musicals" with frequent co-star Mickey Rooney and the film with which she would be most identified, The Wizard of Oz. After 15 years, Garland was released from the studio but gained renewed success through record-breaking concert appearances, including a critically-acclaimed Carnegie Hall concert, a well-regarded but short-lived television series and a return to film acting beginning with A Star Is Born. Despite her repeated professional triumphs, Garland battled personal problems throughout her life. Married five times, four of her marriages ended in divorce. Garland died of an accidental drug overdose at the age of forty-seven, leaving surviving children Liza Minnelli and Lorna and Joey Luft.

Judy Garland: The Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Legend

Born in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, Frances Ethel Gumm was the youngest child of former vaudevillians Frank Gumm and Ethel Marion Milne. Her ancestry on both sides of the family can be traced back to the early colonial days of the United States. Named after both her parents and baptized at a local Episcopal church, "Baby" (as Frances was affectionately called) shared the family's flair for song and dance. The Gumm girls performed at their father's theatre, accompanied by their mother on piano, for the next few years.

In 1928, The Gumm Sisters enrolled in the dance school run by Ethel Meglin, proprietress of the Meglin Kiddies dance troupe. It was through the Meglin Kiddies that Garland and her sisters would make their film debut, in a 1929 short subject called The Big Revue. This was followed by appearances in two Vitaphone shorts the following year, A Holiday in Storyland (featuring Garland's first on-screen solo) and The Wedding of Jack and Jill. They next appeared together in Bubbles. In 1934, the sisters, who had been touring the vaudeville circuit as "The Gumm Sisters" for many years, performed in Chicago at the Oriental Theater with George Jessel. He encouraged the group to choose a more appealing name after the name "Gumm" was met with laughter from the audience. "The Garland Sisters" was chosen, and Frances changed her name to "Judy" soon after.

In 1935 Garland was signed to a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, supposedly without a screen test, although she had made a test for the studio several months earlier. The studio did not know what to do with Garland, as at age thirteen she was older than the traditional child star but too young for adult roles. Garland's physical appearance created a dilemma for MGM. At only 4 feet 11½ inches (1.511 meters), Garland's "cute" or "girl-next-door" looks did not exemplify the more glamorous persona required by leading ladies of the time. Garland transformed throughout her film career. During her early years at the studio, she was photographed and dressed in plain garments or frilly juvenile gowns and costumes to match the "girl-next-door" image that was created for her. She performed at various studio functions and was eventually cast opposite Deanna Durbin in the musical short Every Sunday. Mayer finally decided to keep both girls, but by this time Durbin's option had lapsed and she was signed by Universal Studios.

Garland next came to the attention of studio executives by singing a special arrangement of "You Made Me Love You" to Clark Gable at a birthday party held by the studio for the actor. MGM hit on a winning formula when it paired Garland with Mickey Rooney in a string of "backyard musicals." The duo first appeared together in the 1937 B movie Thoroughbreds Don't Cry. They became a sensation, and teamed up again in Love Finds Andy Hardy. Garland would eventually star with Rooney in nine films.

Garland landed the lead role of Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz (1939) at the age of sixteen, in which she introduced the song with which she would forever be identified, "Over the Rainbow". Garland was initially outfitted in a blonde wig for the part but Freed and LeRoy decided against it shortly into filming. Shooting commenced on October 13, 1938] and was completed on March 16, 1939 with a final cost of over $2,000,000. From the conclusion of filming, MGM kept Garland busy with promotional tours and the shooting of Babes in Arms. The Wizard of Oz was a tremendous critical success, although its high budget and promotions costs of an estimated $4,000,000, coupled with the lower revenue generated by children's tickets, meant that the film did not make a profit until it was re-released in the 1940s. At the 1940 Academy Awards ceremony, Garland received an Academy Juvenile Award for her performances in 1939, including Wizard of Oz and Babes in Arms. Following this recognition, Garland became one of MGM's most bankable stars.

Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland

In 1940, she starred in three films: Andy Hardy Meets Debutante, Strike Up the Band, and Little Nellie Kelly. In the latter film, Garland played her first adult role, a dual role of both mother and daughter. Little Nellie Kelly was purchased from George M. Cohan as a vehicle for Garland to assess both her audience appeal and her physical appearance. The success of these three films, and a further three films in 1941, secured her position at MGM as a major property. At the age of twenty-one, she was given the "glamour treatment" in Presenting Lily Mars, in which she was dressed in "grown-up" gowns. Her lightened hair was also pulled up in a stylish fashion.

One of Garland's most successful films for MGM was Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), in which she introduced three standards: "The Trolley Song", "The Boy Next Door", and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." Vincente Minnelli was assigned to direct this movie, and he requested that a make-up artist named Dorothy Ponedel be assigned to Garland for the picture. Ponedel refined Garland's appearance in several ways, including extending and reshaping her eyebrows, changing her hairline, modifying her lip line and removing her nose discs. The Clock (1945) was her first straight dramatic film, opposite Robert Walker. Though the film was critically praised and earned a profit, most movie fans expected her to sing. It would be many years before she acted again in a non-singing dramatic role. Garland's other famous films of the 1940s include The Harvey Girls (1946) in which she introduced the Academy Award winning song "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe" and The Pirate (1948).

During filming for The Pirate, in April 1947, Garland suffered a nervous breakdown. She was eventually able to complete filming. Following her work on The Pirate, Garland completed three more films for MGM: Easter Parade, In the Good Old Summertime and her final film with MGM, Summer Stock. There were a series of films which Garland was unable to complete. Garland was cast in the movie adaptation of Annie Get Your Gun in the title role of Annie Oakley. She was suspended from the picture on May 10, 1949 and was replaced by Betty Hutton. Garland was next cast in the film Royal Wedding when June Allyson became pregnant in 1950. The studio suspended her contract on June 17, 1950, replacing her with Jane Powell.

In 1951, Garland divorced Vincente Minnelli. She engaged Sid Luft as her manager the same year. Luft arranged a four-month concert tour of the United Kingdom, where she played to sold out audiences throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland. The tour included Garland's first appearances at the renowned London Palladium for a four-week stand in April. In October 1951, Garland opened in a vaudeville-style two-a-day engagement at Broadway's newly-refurbished Palace Theatre. Her 19-week engagement exceeded all previous records for the theatre and was described as "one of the greatest personal triumphs in show business history." Garland was honored for her contribution to the revival of vaudeville with a special Tony Award. Garland and Luft were married on June 8, 1952 in Hollister, California.

In 1954, Garland filmed a musical remake of A Star Is Born for Warner Bros. Luft and Garland, through their production company Transcona, produced the film while Warner Bros. supplied the funds, production facilities and crew. Upon its September 29 world premiere, the film was met with tremendous critical and popular acclaim.

Garland was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress and in the run-up to the 27th Academy Awards, was believed to be the likely winner. She could not attend the ceremony because she had just given birth to her son, Joseph Luft, so a television crew was in Garland's hospital room with cameras and wires to televise Garland's acceptance speech. The Oscar was won by Grace Kelly for The Country Girl (1954). Garland won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Musical for the role. Garland's films after A Star Is Born included Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) (for which she was Oscar- and Golden Globe-nominated for Best Supporting Actress), the animated feature Gay Purr-ee (1962), and A Child Is Waiting (1963) with Burt Lancaster. Her final film, I Could Go On Singing (1963), co-starring Dirk Bogarde, mirrored her own life in the story of a world famous singing star. Garland’s last screen performance of a song was the prophetic I Could Go on Singing at the end of the film.

Beginning in 1955, Garland appeared in a number of television specials. Her concert appearance at Carnegie Hall on April 23, 1961 was a considerable highlight. The 2-record Judy at Carnegie Hall was certified gold, charting for 95 weeks on Billboard, including thirteen weeks at number one. The album won five Grammy Awards including Album of the Year and Best Female Vocal of the Year. In 1961, Garland and CBS negotiated a new round of specials. The first, entitled The Judy Garland Show, aired in 1962 and featured guests Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. Following this success, CBS made a $24 million offer to Garland for a weekly television series of her own, also to be called The Judy Garland Show, which was deemed at the time in the press to be "the biggest talent deal in TV history." A successful run on television was intended to secure Garland's financial future. Following a third special, Judy Garland and Her Guests Phil Silvers and Robert Goulet, Garland's weekly series debuted September 29, 1963. The show lasted only one season, and was cancelled in 1964, after 26 episodes. The series was nominated for four Emmy Awards.

With the demise of her television series, Garland returned to the stage. Most notably, she performed at the London Palladium with her then 18-year-old daughter Liza Minnelli in November 1964. The concert, which was also filmed for British television network ITV, was one of Garland's final appearances at the venue. She made guest appearances on the The Ed Sullivan Show, The Tonight Show, The Hollywood Palace and The Merv Griffin Show.

In February 1967, Garland was cast as "Helen Lawson" in Valley of the Dolls for 20th Century Fox. The character of "Neely O'Hara" in the book by Jacqueline Susann and subsequent movie was rumored to have been based on Garland, though the role in the film was played by Patty Duke. During the filming, Garland missed rehearsals and was fired in April. She was replaced by Susan Hayward. Returning to the stage, Garland made her last appearances at New York's Palace Theatre in July, a 16-show tour, performing with her children Lorna and Joey Luft.

By early 1969, Garland's health had deteriorated. She performed in London at the Talk of the Town nightclub for a five-week run and made her last concert appearance in Copenhagen during March 1969. She married her final husband, Mickey Deans, in London on March 17, 1969. On June 22, 1969, Garland was found dead by her husband in the bathroom of their rented Chelsea, London house. The coroner, Gavin Thursdon, stated at the inquest that the cause of death was "an incautious self-overdosage" of barbiturates. Garland was interred in Ferncliff Cemetery, in Hartsdale, New York.

The American Film Institute named Garland eighth among the Greatest Female Stars of All Time.



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