![]() ![]() They were divorced in 1951 after the birth of a daughter, Liza, now 23 and herself a singing star. In 1945 she married director Vincente Minnelli. In 1941 she married composer-conductor David Rose. “She was - I’m sure - at peace, and has found that rainbow. “She was a great talent and a great human being. Mickey Rooney, her costar of the ‘40s, learned about her death at Downingtown, Pa., where he is appearing in summer stock. After the Pythons largely disbanded in the 1980s, Jones wrote books on medieval and ancient history, presented documentaries, wrote poetry and directed films. Terry Jones was a founding member of the Monty Python troupe who wrote and performed for their early ’70s TV series and films including “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” in 1975 and “Monty Python’s Life of Brian” in 1979. “I’ve heard how ‘difficult’ it is to be with Judy Garland,” she said a few years ago, more sadly than defensively, “but do you know how difficult it is to BE Judy Garland? And for ME to live with me? I’ve had to do it - and what more unkind life can you think of than the one I’ve lived?” A role promised her in “Valley of the Dolls” went to Susan Hayward because she couldn’t show up in time for the shooting schedule. Her intermissions sometimes lasted 90 minutes. Sometimes, though, she was booed off the stage when she couldn’t put a show - or herself - together. Nervous, fidgety, seemingly fighting for control, she would come on stage almost tentatively - and then, after a few songs, burst forth into the old Garland style that had made her a star. But the feeling she put into songs like her perennial “Over the Rainbow” made up for what one critic referred to as “a tremolo which at times can suggest a fly-wheel about to tear loose.” In later years, what had been a rich, creamy, wistful voice began to show cracks and tremors. On it she told of her youth in vaudeville, before she soared to the top - and began the long fall back down. She was last seen on national television Saturday, when a Johnny Carson interview taped in 1968 was rerun. In 1963 she made 26 half-hour television shows for CBS. ![]() She sang a sadder-but-wiser “Rainbow” at Carnegie Hall which became part of what some called one of the best live recordings ever made. She broke all-time vaudeville records at the Palace in New York in 1951, ’56 and ’57. People had to literally push me onto the stage.”īut she made a smashing comeback in personal appearances. I lost all my self-confidence for 10 years. MGM, where she had made 30 films, fired her when she failed to report for work, and cast Betty Hutton in role in “Annie Get Your Gun.” She slashed her throat with a broken water glass, was saved, then stuffed herself to obesity. Her film career and her life almost ended in 1950. Louis,” the Andy Hardy films in which she starred with Mickey Rooney, “The Harvey Girls,” “Easter Parade,” and, since 1954, “A Star is Born” and “Judgment at Nuremberg,” for which she received Oscar nominations. Most were big-budget musicals of the ‘40s, although she won critical esteem for her acting ability in later films.Īmong her starring roles were “Broadway Melody of 1938,” “Babes in Arms,” “Strike Up the Band,” “Ziegfeld Girl,” “Girl Crazy,” “Meet Me in St. It was estimated that her films made more than $100 million. “Actually, I get awfully bored with myself as a tragic figure.” “I’m always being painted a more tragic figure than I am,” she said in 1962. Her third husband, Sid Luft, said she attempt to kill herself 20 times in the 13 years they were married.īut she refused to stay down, despite recurring personal and professional disaster. When she was 28 she slashed her throat in a suicide try. By the time she was 23 she had had three nervous breakdowns. ![]() She made 12 films as a teen-ager and was under psychiatric treatment by the time she was 18. “Judy was a child who never had any childhood,” said Ray Bolger, a costar in “Oz,” Sunday, “She was a child who never grew up.” Her best known role was that of Dorothy, at 17, in the 1939 film “The Wizard of Oz” - in which she sang the song which became her trademark: “Over the Rainbow.”Ī wistful teen-ager with a turned-up nose, brown eyes, brown hair and a rich, full voice, she became a top star in the big-star days of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s golden age.Īnd, in the process, she lost her own youth. “She evokes pity and sorrow like no other superstar.” “She doesn’t give a concert, she conducts a seance. “Judy has been coming back since she was invented,” a London critic once wrote. When her career - and, usually, her personal life - hit rock bottom, she would stage a spectacular comeback and again hit the bigtime. She was Hollywood’s queen of the comebacks. But, throughout her crisis-ridden career, she refused to quit fighting. ![]()
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