Judy Garland

Singer/actress Judy Garland pursued a multifaceted career that opened in vaudeville and later encompassed motion pictures, audio recordings, radio programs, television broadcasts, and live engagements. She is most widely recalled as the powerful vocalist who headlined a run of screen musicals, above all The Wizard of Oz, where she introduced her trademark number “Over the Rainbow.” Yet, unlike the majority of Hollywood luminaries from that period, she sustained an active recording career, and once her principal film work had diminished she successfully redirected her fame toward concert and album projects, reaching a peak with the Grammy-winning chart-topping release Judy at Carnegie Hall.

Born the youngest of three daughters to ex-vaudevillians who operated a theater in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, Garland first appeared onstage at age two, delivering “Jingle Bells” during the holiday season. She soon joined the vocal trio her older sisters had formed; her unusually developed timbre quickly placed her at the forefront of the act. In autumn 1926 the family relocated to California, where the sisters secured sporadic stage and radio bookings and even filmed a handful of short subjects in 1929 and 1930. During a Midwest tour in summer 1934, George Jessel proposed renaming the group the Garland Sisters; each performer also adopted a fresh given name, with the future star selecting hers from the Hoagy Carmichael/Sammy Lerner composition “Judy.”

The Garland Sisters disbanded in summer 1935 after the eldest sibling, Mary Jane, married. Shortly afterward Garland auditioned successfully for MGM and signed a contract that autumn. Within weeks she made her national radio debut on The Shell Chateau Hour. Although the studio had no immediate projects lined up, her recording activities progressed when Decca captured two test sessions in 1935; in June 1936 the label finally taped “Stompin’ at the Savoy” and issued it the next month as her first commercial single, even though no long-term agreement had yet been finalized.

Garland entered feature films with the loan-out musical Pigskin Parade at 20th Century Fox in November 1936. She impressed MGM executives by performing a customized version of “You Made Me Love You,” rewritten by Roger Edens as a tribute to Clark Gable, at the star’s birthday celebration on February 1, 1937; that routine reappeared in Broadway Melody of 1938, released the following August. After screening the picture, Decca president Jack Kapp approved a recording contract, prompting the label to release Garland’s studio renditions of “Everybody Sing” and “Dear Mr. Gable: You Made Me Love You” from the film.

Four additional pictures—Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry, Everybody Sing, Listen, Darling, and Love Finds Andy Hardy—plus several more singles appeared through 1938, yet genuine stardom arrived only with the August 1939 premiere of The Wizard of Oz. Glenn Miller had already recorded “Over the Rainbow,” turning it into a hit prior to the film’s release, but Garland’s own Decca version also gained traction; her momentum was reinforced by the prompt release of Babes in Arms. At the February 1940 Academy Awards she received a miniature Oscar recognizing her exceptional juvenile performance. In March, Decca issued her debut album, the three-disc, six-song Judy Garland Souvenir Album, pairing the “Dear Mr. Gable” single with the newer sides “In Between” (from Love Finds Andy Hardy) and “Figaro” (from Babes in Arms).

Three 1940 releases—Andy Hardy Meets Debutante, Strike Up the Band, and Little Nellie Kelly—yielded a Top Ten single with “I’m Nobody’s Baby.” The December session for Little Nellie Kelly material was led by David Rose, whom she married on July 28, 1941. Three further films followed that year: Ziegfeld Girl, Life Begins for Andy Hardy, and Babes on Broadway. Her sole 1942 picture, For Me and My Gal, co-starred Gene Kelly; their duet of the title song became a Top Ten hit. In 1943 she headlined Presenting Lily Mars and Girl Crazy, made a guest appearance in Thousands Cheer, and made her concert debut on July 1 with the Philadelphia Orchestra under André Kostelanetz at an outdoor Robin Hood Dell concert estimated at 30,000 attendees; she also toured military camps in support of the war effort.

After 1943 her screen output slowed to roughly one major release annually. Meet Me in St. Louis, directed by Vincente Minnelli, opened in December 1944; she married Minnelli on June 15, 1945, shortly after her divorce from David Rose. Her recording of “The Trolley Song” reached the Top Ten, as did the accompanying film soundtrack album. Another Minnelli project, the non-musical The Clock, followed in May 1945. In June she joined Bing Crosby on the novelty “Yah-Ta-Ta Yah-Ta-Ta (Talk, Talk, Talk),” her first Top Ten hit unconnected to a film. Lyricist Johnny Mercer scored first with “On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe” (music by Harry Warren) from the forthcoming The Harvey Girls, taking it to number one in July, yet Garland’s own September version also entered the Top Ten; the picture itself premiered in January 1946.

She gave birth to daughter Liza Minnelli on March 12, 1946, and reduced her schedule while still appearing in guest spots in Ziegfeld Follies and Till the Clouds Roll By. The latter, a Jerome Kern biography, coincided with the launch of MGM Records and its Top Ten soundtrack album. Although still nominally a Decca artist, Garland’s subsequent releases through 1950 were MGM soundtrack recordings.

She resumed full-time filming with The Pirate (June 1948), followed by Easter Parade co-starring Fred Astaire (July) and a guest role in Words and Music (December); the Rodgers-and-Hart biography produced a number-one soundtrack album. Her relationship with MGM soon deteriorated. Years of diet pills, amphetamines, and barbiturates—reportedly first supplied by her mother and later by the studio—had produced addiction and instability incompatible with the rigors of big-budget musicals. Simultaneously the studio, losing audiences to television and facing separation from the Loews theater chain, grew more reliant on expensive productions and more financially restricted. Cast opposite Fred Astaire again in The Barkleys of Broadway, she was dismissed and suspended for erratic conduct, then reinstated to complete In the Good Old Summertime (summer 1949). Subsequent firings from Annie Get Your Gun and a second suspension preceded another reinstatement for Summer Stock (summer 1950), which yielded a Top Ten soundtrack album. After a third dismissal from Royal Wedding on July 17, 1950, she made a halfhearted suicide attempt that reached the press and recast her public image from the guileless child of The Wizard of Oz to a tragic Hollywood figure. MGM formally terminated her contract in September; she divorced Minnelli on March 22, 1951.

Garland shifted to the concert stage, accepting a four-week London Palladium engagement beginning April 9, 1951, which launched a substantial comeback. Returning to the United States, she reopened New York’s Palace Theatre on October 16, 1951, for what was planned as a four-week run; the booking extended to nineteen weeks and closed February 24, 1952, reportedly grossing $750,000. For this achievement she received a special Tony Award “for an important contribution to the revival of vaudeville.” On June 2, 1952, she married her manager, Sid Luft, and gave birth to Lorna Luft on November 21, 1952.

Garland and Luft formed a production company and contracted with Warner Bros. to remake A Star Is Born; the October 1954 release earned Garland an Academy Award nomination. Columbia’s soundtrack album reached the Top Ten. Son Joey Luft was born March 29, 1955. She toured the West Coast in July and starred in a ninety-minute live television special in September tied to her debut Capitol album, Miss Show Business, which also entered the Top Ten and brought an Emmy nomination for Best Female Singer. A half-hour TV special aired in April 1956, followed by a four-week Las Vegas hotel residency in July–August and a two-month Palace return in September, during which Capitol released the charting LP Judy. Three more Las Vegas weeks occurred in May 1957 alongside the chart entry Alone. She toured the United States through October, then spent a month at London’s Dominion Theatre. Additional U.S. dates filled 1958 and 1959, accompanied by Capitol releases Judy in Love and the concert set Judy Garland at the Grove (1958) plus The Letter (1959). Hospitalized for hepatitis in November 1959 and advised to stop performing, she resumed with a London Palladium appearance in August 1960, further European dates through December, and the October Capitol album Judy! That’s Entertainment! She made a cameo in the December film Pepe. More European concerts followed in January–February 1961. On April 23, 1961, she performed at New York’s Carnegie Hall; the concert was recorded for a double album that reached number one by September, earned gold certification within a year, and won Grammy Awards for Album of the Year and Best Solo Vocal Performance, Female.

December 1961 brought a dramatic return to film in Judgment at Nuremberg, earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. A February 1962 television special garnered Emmy nominations for Program of the Year and Outstanding Program Achievement in the Field of Variety. The July album The Garland Touch reached the Top 20. Six weeks at Las Vegas’s Sahara in September initiated further dates through February 1963. November saw the animated musical Gay Purr-ee, for which she supplied a voice. January 1963’s dramatic feature A Child Is Waiting preceded a March television special that earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Program Achievement in the Field of Music. Its success prompted CBS to offer her a weekly variety series. In May she portrayed a troubled singer in I Could Go on Singing, her final screen role; the soundtrack album reached the Top 40.

The Judy Garland Show premiered September 29, 1963, opposite NBC’s Bonanza and ran twenty-six weeks through March 30, 1964, despite the competitive slot, receiving an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Performance in a Variety or Musical Program or Series. Capitol issued Just for Openers, drawn from the series, on the final broadcast date.

A Far East tour in May 1964 was hampered by illness. November found her back at the London Palladium with eighteen-year-old daughter Liza Minnelli; the performances were filmed and recorded, yielding a British television special in December and the August 1965 Capitol double album “Live” at the London Palladium, which charted for several months. Garland toured the United States throughout 1965. She married actor Mark Herron on November 14, 1965, immediately after her divorce from Sid Luft became final (she divorced Herron on April 11, 1967). Activity lessened in 1966 to occasional live and television appearances, but expanded again in 1967, including a month-long Palace return that summer. ABC Records released the resulting live album Judy Garland at Home at the Palace—Opening Night, which charted in September. A handful of U.S. dates occurred in 1968, the last at Philadelphia’s JFK Stadium on July 20. On December 30 she opened a five-week engagement at London’s Talk of the Town. She married her fifth husband, nightclub manager Mickey Deans, on March 15, 1969. Three Scandinavian concerts followed, the final one at Copenhagen’s Falkoner Center on March 25. Three months later she died of an accidental barbiturate overdose.

In the decades after her death, Garland’s troubled private life, set against the exuberance and innocence of her screen roles, has fueled numerous books and accounts, sometimes overshadowing her accomplishments with narratives of Hollywood excess. Even sensationalized treatments, however, rely on her star power and vocal command for their appeal. Garland herself, drawn to the backstage story of A Star Is Born—which she performed on radio and later filmed—evidently recognized the pull of a tragic persona and may have cultivated it intentionally. Still, her artistic legacy rests primarily on her extraordinary voice and profound emotional investment in her material.

Her extensive recorded output, encompassing film, radio, and television appearances as well as concerts and studio sessions, produces a lengthy and sometimes disordered discography. In the 1990s Rhino reissued her soundtrack recordings, MCA assembled the box set The Complete Decca Masters (Plus) covering her 1930s and 1940s Decca work, and Capitol compiled its own retrospective, The One & Only, of her 1950s and 1960s material. Beyond these lie countless quasi-legal releases that warrant cautious approach.