51 Years Without Judy Garland: Revisit Her Most Iconic Moments
Frances Ethel Gumm wanted the world to know her name — just not her real name. So, just before her impromptu audition for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios in September 1935, the Grand Rapids, Minnesota, native settled on the stage name Judy Garland. And the rest, as they say, was history.
Garland became a global superstar at the age of 16 when she starred as Dorothy Gale in the 1939 movie adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s children’s book The Wizard of Oz. The role earned her an Academy Juvenile Award, making her only one of 12 young actors in history to receive the honorary Oscar.
In the years that followed, Garland frequently starred opposite Mickey Rooney and Gene Kelly on the big screen. Her other notable films included Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) and Easter Parade (1948).
By the late 1940s, the actress began making headlines more for her personal struggles than for her onscreen accomplishments. She had been hospitalized and attempted suicide multiple times, battled a decades-long dependence on pills and repeatedly failed to report to work. MGM dropped her in 1950, but her career resurged within a matter of a few years.
Garland’s starring role in the 1954 version of A Star Is Born was considered to be one of the greatest comebacks in Hollywood. She was nominated for a best actress Oscar, but lost to Grace Kelly for The Country Girl in a stunning upset. Nearly a decade later, in April 1961, Garland performed an iconic concert at New York City’s Carnegie Hall that many dubbed the “greatest night in show business history.”
Throughout her life, the entertainer was married five times: to David Rose from 1941 to 1944, Vincente Minnelli from 1945 to 1951, Sidney Luft from 1952 to 1965, Mark Herron from 1965 to 1969 and Mickey Deans for just three months before her death in June 1969. She had three children: Liza Minnelli, Lorna Luft and Joey Luft.
On the 51st anniversary of her untimely death, take a look back at Garland’s most iconic moments.
Garland launch her career as an entertainer at 2 years old when she began performing with her older sisters, Mary Jane and Dorothy Gumm, as the vaudeville act The Gumm Sisters in the late 1920s. They sang at their dad Francis Gumm’s theater every Christmas, with mom Ethel Gumm accompanying them on piano, before taking Chicago by storm.
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Garland auditioned for legendary producer Louis B. Mayer in September 1935, singing “Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart” and the vaudeville classic “Eli, Eli.” He immediately signed her to a contract with MGM, where she was forced to undergo a makeover to look older and less like the girl next door.
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MGM hit the jackpot when it paired Garland with Mickey Rooney for a series of movies in the late 1930s and early 1940s, most notably the Andy Hardy franchise and Babes in Arms (1939).
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Garland landed what would become her most famous role when MGM could not secure Shirley Temple from 20th Century Fox to play Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. The movie was released in August 1939 and was an instant success, thanks in part to Garland’s song “Over the Rainbow.”
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Garland won her only Oscar, the aforementioned Juvenile Award, in February 1940.
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Devastated after her crush Artie Shaw eloped with Lana Turner, Garland embarked on a whirlwind romance with songwriter David Rose. He proposed while still legally married to actress Martha Raye, and married Garland in July 1941. They separated in January 1943 and divorced the following year.
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Garland starred alongside Gene Kelly in his movie debut, the 1942 musical For Me and My Gal.
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Garland’s role as Esther Smith in the 1944 musical Meet Me in St. Louis became one of her best known. On the soundtrack, she sang standards including “The Trolley Song,” “The Boy Next Door” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”
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Garland started seeing Meet Me in St. Louis director Vincente Minnelli after shooting the movie. They married in June 1945 and divorced in 1951.
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Garland and Vincente welcomed their daughter in March 1946. Liza went on to follow in her mom’s footsteps, becoming a famous actress and singer best known for her Oscar-winning performance in the 1972 musical Cabaret.
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Garland and Fred Astaire’s movie Easter Parade was the highest-grossing musical of 1948. It included the popular songs “Steppin’ Out With My Baby” and “We’re a Couple of Swells.”
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Garland’s drug and alcohol abuse in the late 1940s led MGM to replace her with Ginger Rogers in The Barleys of Broadway, which would have been Garland’s second role opposite Astaire. She used her time off to get better and returned to set true to form for the successful 1949 musical In the Good Old Summertime.
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After losing another job, the title role in 1950’s Annie Get Your Gun, and undergoing an extensive hospital stay in Boston, Garland was cast opposite Gene Kelly in the 1950 musical Summer Stock.
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Garland wed her manager Sidney Luft in Hollister, California, in June 1952. They separated in 1963 and finalized their divorce in 1965.
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Garland and Sidney had two children: Lorna, born in November 1952, and Joey, born in March 1955.
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Garland received critical acclaim for her part in the 1954 adaptation of A Star Is Born opposite James Mason. NBC sent a film crew to her hospital room, where she had just given birth to Joey, so that she could give an acceptance speech if she won the best actress Oscar. However, the statuette went to Grace Kelly.
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Garland’s mega-successful performance at Carnegie Hall took place in April 1961. The live recording of the concert won four Grammys, including Album of the Year, which made her the first woman to ever win in the evening’s top category.
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Garland’s CBS variety series, The Judy Garland Show, premiered in September 1963. The Emmy-nominated series was popular with critics, but ended in March 1964 after just 26 episodes.
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Garland and her tour promoter Mark Herron married in November 1965, but separated six months later. They did not finalize their divorce until February 1969.
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Garland wed her fifth and final husband, entrepreneur Mickey Deans, in London in March 1969, one month after her marriage to Herron officially ended.
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Deans found Garland dead in the bathroom of their rented London home on June 22, 1969. She had celebrated her 47th birthday just 12 days earlier. Her cause of death was ruled as an accidental overdose of barbiturates. An estimated 20,000 people paid their respects at her New York City funeral.
In 1988, Lorna wrote a memoir titled Me and My Shadows about her late mother. ABC adapted it into an Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning miniseries starring Judy Davis as the late actress in 2001. Garland’s music and movies also left behind a mark on the LGBTQ community, and she was posthumously honored with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997. Most recently, Renée Zellweger won an Oscar for her portrayal of Garland in the 2019 biographical drama Judy.
Photo Editor: Maria Fitzsimons
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