Judy Garland Under the Rainbow

Kottler.c03 10/24/05 10:11 AM Page 32 COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL Kottler.c03 10/24/05 10:11 AM Page 33 CHAPTER THREE Judy Garland Under the Rainbow Q Judy Garland was locked in the bathroom, lying on the floor, refusing to respond to any of the desperate calls from her hotel bedroom. “Mama,” her daughter Liza Minnelli screamed through the door. “Mama, are you OK in there?” She banged louder, knowing that something was seriously wrong. Liza was certainly the only kid she knew who had to travel with a stomach pump in case she had to save her mother from another drug overdose, which was occurring with frequent regularity. More than once, she’d had to crawl through the window of a bathroom like this in order to revive her mother’s un- conscious body, lying in a pool of vomit. It was the early sixties. Judy’s career was on the skids. Again. She was losing her voice. No producer would agree to work with her after the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio canceled her contract. She had tried television next, but The Judy Garland Show was being creamed in the ratings by Bonanza. It was then considered the most expensive pro- duction mistake in the history of television. Her third marriage, to Sid Luft, was failing. Her mood swings had become so extreme that she was even frightening herself, because she had no idea who would 33 Kottler.c03 10/24/05 10:11 AM Page 34 34 Q DIVINE MADNESS emerge next: the lethargic, depressed victim; the agitated, enraged screamer; or the charming actress eager to please. Even the usual drugs she consumed were not working any longer, handfuls of them, including prescription pain killers, tranquilizers, amphetamines, and anything else she could get her hands on. When washing them down with wine still gave her no release, she began using heroin and morphine as well. This time, the bathroom scene was a false alarm. Judy staggered to the door, groggy and disoriented, wondering what the fuss was all about. Liza could only shake her head in frustration. She was just a teenager, trying to make her way in the world, and here she was, the primary caregiver, the one person in the world who was most re- sponsible for keeping her mother alive. Who Was Judy Garland, Really? Judy Garland’s life resembled absolutely nothing you have ever heard before. She was the ultimate, temperamental thoroughbred. Few people have ever been born with more pure artistic talent that realized it- self so early in life. With these gifts, however, came a sensitivity and vulnerability that had to be nurtured if she were to survive. Instead she was subjected to constant manipulation, exploitation, and abusive medication by unscrupulous adults determined to keep her going way beyond normal human endurance. Already needy, insecure, and un- stable, she developed chronic, incapacitating anxiety that could never be controlled even with all the pills she consumed—Seconal, Tuinal, Demerol, Ritalin, heroin, morphine—pills to lift her up, pills to bring her down, and most of all, pills to numb the pain. Had Judy Garland not been started by her mother and professional managers on highly addictive, dangerous drugs when she was nine years old, perhaps she might have had the chance for a more normal childhood and the opportunity to mature in healthy ways. Instead she learned from the earliest age to reduce any discomfort or provide any needed boost through chemical means. She was a commodity to most of those around her: a meal ticket to her mother and later her pro- ducers, directors, and husbands. So they took advantage of a vulner- able, needy, and sensitive child to enjoy the maximum benefit from their property. Judy Garland may very well be the greatest entertainer who ever lived. She wasn’t just a singer with the best instrumental voice of her Kottler.c03 10/24/05 10:11 AM Page 35 Judy Garland Q 35 generation (or perhaps any generation). She wasn’t only a dancer who could hold her own with costars like Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. She was also a great actress who worked with the biggest names in Holly- wood: Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Mickey Rooney, Maximilian Schell, Montgomery Clift, to mention a few. She used her childlike vulnerability to draw the audience into her heart and wide eyes of amazement—as if she, too, was stunned by the magic. She didn’t just sing to an audience, she sang with them in a way that they felt transported over the rainbow. In a career that began when she was two years old and lasted forty- five more years, Judy Garland made thirty-two movies, earning Acad- emy Award nominations for her role in both a musical (A Star is Born) and a dramatic performance (Judgment at Nuremberg). Her films Meet Me in St. Louis, Easter Parade, The Pirate, Babes in Arms, and others she made with Mickey Rooney when she was barely a teenager rank as among the best musicals ever. Then there was The Wizard of Oz, often regarded as the best film (and certainly most watched) ever made. Her work as an actress would have qualified her for immortality alone. Although The Judy Garland Show, offered late in her career, would meet stiff competition, her TV specials in the late fifties and early sixties attracted the largest audiences in the history of CBS. Her live concert in 1961, Judy at Carnegie Hall, became the fastest-selling record album of the era, winning five Grammy Awards. In the thou- sand concerts she gave all over the world, from the London Palladium to the Palace Theatre on Broadway, record-breaking sellout crowds waited months for tickets. Her personal life, the subject of tabloids during the time (and long after), only added to her legend. She was the original diva, a superstar who lived with the relentless pressure of sustaining a superhuman level of performance and who sought constantly for the reassuring reward of applause and the love of her audience. The same talent that allowed her to reach such lofty heights of creative and artistic expression, however, was also her scourge. She never stopped being an actress, even when the cameras weren’t running. She played roles—often decep- tive—that compromised her relationships. In order to keep up her performance, alleviate her anxiety, and achieve some kind of happiness, however transient, she lied to her friends, coworkers, even to her doc- tors and psychiatrists, about her problems and ailments, making it im- possible for them to help her. Worse still, she believed her own lies after a while, no longer able to separate the actress from the person. For Kottler.c03 10/24/05 10:11 AM Page 36 36 Q DIVINE MADNESS years, she had been able to pretend that her husband, Vincente Min- nelli, was only “artistic” in his manner, even though everyone else knew he preferred the companionship of men. There came a point when she could no longer indulge the fantasy that they were anything other than friends, roommates, and coparents of their daughter; they had never really been lovers. Garland created fantasy worlds for her fans and inhabited them herself. When reality intruded, she closed her eyes, clicked her heels three times, and wished herself back to Kansas—or rather to the small town in Minnesota where she spent her earliest years—the only time she ever remembered being happy. When the illusions, fantasies, and denial failed her, she used more and more drugs to prolong the dreams and deaden the pain. Judy Garland’s art, her amazing talent to act out different roles, dance to whatever tunes her directors orchestrated, or seduce others through the powerful vibrato of her voice, also enhanced her madness. She was so used to taking direction, from age three onward, that she was virtually incapable of making sound, mature decisions. If Garland was literally born and bred to perform on stage, it was this same extraordinary talent that would eventually destroy her; it was the madness that took her art to unprecedented levels. She was absolutely wild, impulsive, uninhibited, reckless—all the qualities of a self-destructive personality—but also the features that made her stage presence so transcendent. Audiences got the sense that this was someone who was putting everything into her performance, inviting them to join her with an equal level of passion. When she would sit on the end of the stage, dangle her feet over the edge, and begin belt- ing out “Over the Rainbow,”people would begin sobbing for their own lost dreams. Judy Garland was not a controlled method actor. She would turn on a switch and the electricity would flow—sparks flying everywhere, circuits shorting, blowing out the transformer on occasion. Her per- formances may have seemed effortless with her photographic mem- ory for scripts and reluctance to ever rehearse, but that was because she wanted to put every piece of herself into a line, a song, or a dance. She could only do that by letting herself go completely. Director George Cukor was thoroughly blown away by her power to hit the perfect dramatic nuance of any scene, usually on the first take. Judy told him, only half kidding, that it wasn’t really acting on her part because she was so used to dramatic roles in her life. But whatever ad- Kottler.c03 10/24/05 10:11 AM Page 37 Judy Garland Q 37 miration Cukor ever felt for Garland’s talent was counteracted by his firsthand frustrations with her self-indulgences and erratic behavior, which were so disruptive to his set.

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