Judy Garland’s appearance during her final Television appearance

[quote]If I were around then I would be heartbroken seeing her like this.

I'm heartbroken about your grammar.

Judy! Judy! Judy!

R1 There's nothing wrong with OP's grammar

Liver failure.

The real tragedy was that no one helped her. People they were getting loaded with pills and alcohol looked at her as the designated sick one. They needed her around to show they weren’t anything like her. Judy had a really good soul and was forced to take drugs as a teenager. I have a lot of compassion for her, not to mention, she was preternaturally talented , a voice from the heavens .

By 1969, nobody could help Judy. She sucked dry every person who tried--she was a bottomless pit of need. Even when people offered her a home, she wouldn't stay long. She had to keep moving, moving, moving, though where she was trying to get to, even she didn't know.

Judy's real psychological breaking point was her Hong Kong overdose in May 1964. That broke something in her brain, and she was never the same. The last 5 years of her life were miserable chaos.

There appears to be a white cat trying to claw its way out of her dress; if not, what is that?

R6, what happened in Hong Kong 🇭🇰? I agree the pills induced insanity and histrionics were out of control in her few last years. But why not earlier? Hollywood is a very Fairweather friends, lackadaisical and shallow community. It really is a sea of vipers

Here’s Judy at the 5:19 mark . This was shot in 1965. She looks so frail. I wish someone showed her compassion

r3 Yes, there is.

[quote]If I were around then I would be heartbroken seeing her like this.

Should be "if I HAD BEEN around then, I would HAVE BEEN heartbroken to see her like that."

R10 Nitpicking priss

I think she was afraid of getting fat. That fear dogged her since her studio days. Cigarettes, dope and booze are a replacement for food.

R1 The Op is the fat dimwit from Brooklyn Ed-win, aka the fat tik tok troll, Aaron Schock apologist AND the Dylan Geick stalker.

R12, I think her brain, heart and soul depended on the pills for self protection. She looked so much older than her contemporaries and they were getting loaded too. I think Judy had PTSD

Really sad.

[quote]I think Judy had PTSD

I don't think there's any doubt about this.

It looks like her face melted.

R10, Both are correct.

Judy was one of the most talented singers ever. She also had a lot of pain and struggle throughout her life. Despite that, she had a good heart, which is hard to encounter in Hollywood. At a time when gay people were oppressed beyond belief, they identified with her struggles and she theirs.

[Quote] The real tragedy was that no one helped her.

People always say this. How many mentally ill people have you fixed, dearie?

Her great-grandson looks just like her. Genetics...

R7 that would be the padding that would've filled out the front to hide her emaciated figure, although it does look like a feral cat got ahold of it.

This kind of photo makes me wonder how little shame you'd have to have to cast her in VOTD.

Judy was a good soul

I wonder what she thought of Jim Bailey? Must be freaky to watch someone imitate you.

[quote]By 1969, nobody could help Judy. She sucked dry every person who tried--she was a bottomless pit of need.

Yeah, need for drugs and booze. Need for attention. Need to be able to perform as she used to.

Judy was mentally ill in a time when, not only was it taboo, it was not understood. No one could have "saved" her. In 1969, Judy was severely under weight and barely able to function.

I think the whole thing about people helping her in the 30s, 40s, early 50s - that was a lot of “newl money - everyone walked a tightrope at the studios - they could be dropped at any time. Unless you were ballsy like Kate Hepburn or an innovator like Dick Powell - no one had much money. today’s stars make crazy money but not then. The studios banked the stars houses and cars so they would look good in the movie magazines. To fight hard for Judy was to risk toppling their own career. …. Then like you said, by the 60s the cycle was too far gone.

New money NOT newl money!

Poor Judy.

Such a talent, such a mess.

She was gone by the late 1940s, R26. Evidence is her talking numerous "sick" days, not showing up at all, being fired from Annie Get Your Gun This was not only about drugs - every one took them at MGM - it's about mental issues, probably bi-polar disorder.

[quote]I wonder what she thought of Jim Bailey?

Judy LIKED him! Bailey said she met him in his dressing room and gave him pointers. Sounds ridiculous, but since this toward the end of her life and she was quite pitiful, I believe it.

By her last few years, the barbiturates and speed pills did a-number on her brain and soul . It would any mere mortal

How could they do a number on her in her later years, R31? She had been on them for 25 YEARS.

Read Lorna's book!

I see many are falling for the "good heart" troll at R19.

[quote]She had to keep moving, moving, moving, though where she was trying to get to, even she didn't know.

That's very common with the mentally ill, such as those who take to the streets and are only able to live there.

R35 - I have a bipolar ex who moved every 2 years. It was absolutely crazy. He would also do a lot of job hopping. Once he started working in retail at a job where his co-workers were more positive and he stopped drinking and started working out, he lasted five years (got laid off when the lockdown started). Now he can't find another job and he's drinking again. I call him every few days and kind of face time with him around this city and it's the only time he actually says he goes for a long walk. A more exercise-oriented culture would have helped Judy. I am also surprised that none of her gay exes stepped in. I expected a bit more from them than from her straight husbands.

And never, never marry your dealer.

[quote]A more exercise-oriented culture would have helped Judy

And a lot of Lithium

it's been discussed ad nauseum here and elsewhere.

But the general consensus was that even up to the point of the TV show, Judy had periods of stability and could have turned things around. But the cancellation of the TV show and the overdose after it seems to have done a 1-2 punch on her psyche that she just couldn't get completely back up from.

[quote]I think she was afraid of getting fat.

No, she got qiute large for her 4'11" frame several times after leaving MGM such as her 1951 appearance at the London Palladium.

[quote]I expected a bit more from them than from her straight husbands.

Just the one, dear.

[quote]Judy had periods of stability and could have turned things around.

R39, bi-polars can have periods of stability, same with basic alcoholics and those with other forms of mental illness. Without treatment (Rx), it NEVER gets turned around.

R42 Agreed.

I was just saying that things seemed to be salvageable at that point, with the right medication, treatment and support.

Sure, R4. But that stuff didn't exist at the time, not even close.

^ S/B R43

R44 Not to that extent, for sure, and certainly people really didn't understand her illness(es) as much as we do today.

[quote]ad nauseum

How do you say "oh, dear" in Latin?

Lithium was around, it may have helped.

What about a lobotomy?

R48 Sorry but that just created, in my head, the image of an old MGM suit yelling, “Someone get this dame a 7-up, pronto!”

The bottom line was, right up to the end, she made money. She put asses in seats. As long as she could get up in front of that microphone, somebody was going to make sure it was there for her.

Poor dead Judy trotted out once more in devastating photos for our perusal. Pornographic.

Hey, OP! Are you sure that ain't Judy in 1937, the night she "slipped" into the fountain at the Culver? Meaning when Lana pushed her.

She looked just like that. Like Old Lady Flotsam's wraith. I thought Mayer bought all the negatives.

That Judy!

Does Judy count as an Elder Lez? She was NO STRANGER to the lez lez.

Don't get your panties in a twist Judy devotees since birth.

Judy suffered from forced drug abuse coupled with emotional trauma

Suffer suffer suffer, R55

Can you believe they originally hired this junkie skank to portray me?

Then when she couldn't handle the pressure (and her booze) they brought me in to play myself!

Ha! That shows the bastards!

Only one woman in this world is capable of playing Helen Lawson and that IS Helen Lawson, baby!

Fred Astaire had one of the biggest hits in his life with Easter Parade. And this was at a point in his life where he had had many hits and was going to retire. He tried twice again to make movies with Judy but even this kind and gentle though very professional hard-working man had had enough and lost his patience with her. Nobody could help her. Maybe it was the drugs she was taking to make all those early Busby Berkeley movies with Mickey Rooney where you're wondering what the hell they're on but it probably permanently fucked up her brain.

I was molested.

What are shtraight hushbands?

Sometimes I think those around Judy get the bad rap, other times she does, each quite fairly.

I do think Judy had an addictive personality and eventually mental illness, but also that regardless of what career her talent had taken her, if not vocalist and actor, that these would have manifested themselves in her and to others still.

When I see pics of her near the end of her life, something I'm drawn into focusing on is that while those around her seem to look and dress like the 1960s years that they were truly in, Judy always seems out of place, like some relic from another time, or like some unchangeable "Dorothy" from another 1939 dimension forever.

Then I do believe that if she had lived in a later era, she would have had more medication, treatment and career options. I wonder had she lived and been healthy still into the 1970s and beyond, might she have done more things like cartoon animation, radio programs hosting, documentary and commercial voiceovers, working behind the cameras, and so on??

Also I wonder about if she was actually dying anyway by the time of early 1969. I agree with posters upthread, and from what I've read of her, that her body seemed meanwhile to be starting to shut down, in addition to her mind. Or would we have seen, had she lived beyond 1969, that there were other organic health issues unyet diagnosed or revealed that we might have witnessed her getting sick and dying from, still while she was relatively middle-aged?

The good thing, I believe, is that as the next generation continues to rediscover her music, movies, humor, acting and overall talent, that will be their focus, rather than her often troubled-seeming life and then overdose death that framed it that many of her older fans lived and remembered following her.

Ha! Ha! Ha!

I'll say.

[quote]The last 5 years of her life were miserable chaos.

Well, sure except closing night of her 1967 Palace Theater engagement (she did 31 shows, missing none!) She was fantastic.

R58, Astaire only did Easter Parade because Gene Kelly, who was scheduled to do it, had to drop out because he broke his ankle during a tantrum at his house over volley ball.

Astaire was a relentless perfectionist, not "kind and gentle," at work. That he could have worked with Garland at all, at any time...that Astaire lost his patience with her was highly predictable.

[quote]Judy suffered from forced drug abuse coupled with emotional trauma

What emotional trauma? Her fucked up family? That she married gay men? That she worked too hard? That she was at the mercy of numerous "villains" like Ethel Gumm, Louis B Mayer, Sid Luft, David Begelman, Mickey Deans? How about Judy talking responsibility for her actions and choices? ALL of the movie stars from that time had similar hardships, yet neither they nor their fans looked for scapegoats the way Garland fans do. As for the drugs, ALL of these movie stars were on them - forced by the studio. Many became addicts, and whether they became addicts at 15 or 25 is besides the point, an addict is an addict.

Look at Rita Hayworth. Horrible abusive childhood, bad marriages, alcoholism, probable pill addiction. Is the Alzheimers that disabled and killed her blamed on alcohol and emotional trauma? If you think that causes Alzheimers, you may be in for a rude awakening. Look at Lena Horne. Loveless childhood, bad marriages, pills and alcohol in excess, throw in racism. Her personal issues rarely if ever showed up in her work and post-MGM live singing career. Should we blame her successful one woman show on Broadway at age 64 on emotional trauma?

I think that Garland's mental illness was always there waiting to make an appearance, drugs or no drugs, singing career or no singing career, ll of her life. If she had been a housewife in Grand Rapids, she'd have the same mental health issues. Her older sister had them, and she died a suicide in her 40s.

My mom used to tell me about seeing her on Jack Parr's show one night and how she was completely smashed. My mom said she felt so sad and uncomfortable watching it. She was a big Judy fan.

R65 the difference is that most of the others were adults when they experienced those things, at least in conjunction with their career. Judy was a child and came to view it as normal because to her it was.

She wasn't a child, R67, she was a teenager. There's a big difference between ten (or younger) and fifteen.

She started out as a very very little girl in vaudeville and by the time she was a teen churning out hits for MGM they had to have been giving her barbiturates. Look at those teen musicals with Rooney. NO teen has that kind of unrelenting wide eyed energy day after day week after week.

What does Astaire replacing Kelly have to do with Easter Parade being one of the biggest hits in a hit laden career? He was supposed to do two more films with Garland and got angry with her lack of professionalism. I heard Burton Lane speak once at a showing of Royal Wedding. He knew practically everybody in musicals from the 20s to the 60s. He said Astaire was the nicest person he ever knew in show business.

Wasn't her last appearance in Norway where her last gay husband, Mickey Deans dumped her in the care of a str8 couple for a few weeks after the concert?

Deans claimed he had some business travel to conduct but more than likely he took the money from her appearance and vacationed somewhere with his bf.

Judy was one of the most gifted and talented performers in history. Her best work will live forever and new generations will discover her and find her work to be ageless.

However, her personal life was chaotic and a large degree of that was her own fault. She maximized playing the victim and I do not recall ever hearing her say that she took responsibility for many of the erroneous decisions that decimated her life. She was always blaming others. She surrounded herself with people who sometimes wallowed with her and out of fear for losing their own unhealthy connection with her, kept their mouth shut and didn't dare speak the truth.

We all have trauma and devastating situations that befall us. Yes, many of us are fortunate enough to have family and friends to help us. Judy had a dysfunctional family and more fiends than friends. However, taking ownership for some of the bad decisions and missteps, would have helped her to discard the people who were there to simply bask in her starlight at any cost, and perhaps get some real and lasting help. It would have been hard. It would have been embarrassing and exposed the inner person who might not be one everyone would like. It might have saved her life, however, and let her enjoy the career she worked very hard at.

Doris Day was in a car that was hit by a train when she was 15, losing her dream and years of work, at becoming a professional dancer. She was on massive painkillers during her more than a year recuperation. She started working professionally at 16, was married for the first of four times at 18, was beaten and abused by her husband, was ripped off by her third husband to the tune of more than 22 million. And yet, she lived 50 years beyond Judy, dying at 97 in 2019. She found a very satisfying outlet as a passionate advocate for animal rights.

Deanna Durbin was married 3 times by the time she was 29 She walked away from Hollywood that same year and lived a gloriously happy life, away from the limelight, raising 2 children and passing away at 91 in 2013.

Despite an obvious mental illness that worsened with time, Judy could have lived a long and healthy life had she stopped spending so much time pointing the finger at real or imagined "enemies" who had caused her problems, and instead accepted responsibility, committed herself to the arduous process of getting answers and maintaining a good balance, and filling her life with people who would speak the truth to her and keep her focused. Marrying a string of gay men did her no good just as it damaged her daughter, Liza. They were fun, a good audience, and great companions for a while, but their own needs eventually made them stray and frankly, she wore them out.

I've known too many people with mental illness who call at 3 AM and need to talk for hours and hours. No matter what you give, it is rarely enough for them at that moment. It can get exhausting, especially if you have a family or career or life that you would like to continue. Judy needed 150%, at times, from everyone in her circle. She tested them and if they failed, she used guilt to try to make them come around. She had very few long term real friends who lasted for decades. Yes, the fans were there but even that was not enough.

She is a great tragedy with an overwhelming amount of talent, who should have lived to be 90. The fact that she didn't is partly her own doing. Not completely since there are certainly other villains in the piece, but had she spoken out frankly about her role in the tragedy that unfolded, she could have done a tremendous amount to change the perception, in those days, of what mental illness can and does do - even to a monumental talent like Judy Garland.

R69, Sammy Davis was in vaudeville as a tot too, then night clubs, radio, Broadway, TV, records. He worked for almost all of his 64 years non-stop. He endured numerous personal tragedies including losing an eye in a car wreck. He smoked too much, drank way too much, and was addicted to cocaine for years.

BUT Sammy Davis was never an unemployable crazed drug addict. Nobody comes here weeping over made his shortened life so hard. Nobody makes excuses or blames other for his behavior. Why not? Because people, many who weren't even born when she died, MUST weep with poor Judy and make excuses for her. ENOUGH.

Btw, R69, have you excuses for Mary Jane "Suzy" Gumm? What was her fucking problem?

On Jack Parr...

[quote]She started out as a very very little girl in vaudeville and by the time she was a teen churning out hits for MGM they had to have been giving her barbiturates.

Barbiturates are SLEEPING PILLS.

R71 Oh, yeah? Well, you won't BE ABLE TO TAKE IT!

For someone so "unemployable" Judy seemed to work an awful lot!

She gave over 1500 live concerts from 1951 to 1969, filmed over thirty tv hours, recorded about ten studio albums and worked on six feature films being nominated for two Academy Awards. She certainly was the busiest unemployable person on record!

r66 r73 P-A-A-R

I deserve an *Oh Dear* for that one, r77.

R76, you have no knowledge of the pathetic wreak Judy Garland was in the last few years of her life. Stop, just STOP.

Sammy Davis Jr wasn't downing amphetamines and barbiturates every day as a teen being the bread winner for the biggest movie studio in the world. Mary Jane's fucking problem was she was no Judy.

Judy said to Babs don't let them do to you what they did to me! People like Louis B, Nick Schenk, Busby Berkeley and Dore Schary. They ate her up and spit her out. And that total piece of shit James Aubrey finished her off.

[quote][R76], you have no knowledge of the pathetic wreak Judy Garland was in the last few years of her life. Stop, just STOP.

I was referring to the "unemployable" smear.

Actually, I am among the most crazed and obsessed Judy Garland Queens you will ever encounter, and have spent years learning everything about her life including the last five years. You know NOTHING compared to me on this topic. NOTHING.

JUDY !

Cary Gant never said, 'Judy, Judy, Judy.' Did you know that? How many of you knew that?

[quote]ALL of the movie stars from that time had similar hardships, yet neither they nor their fans looked for scapegoats the way Garland fans do. As for the drugs, ALL of these movie stars were on them - forced by the studio. Many became addicts, and whether they became addicts at 15 or 25 is besides the point, an addict is an addict.

This is just pure, pig-headed ignorance. It absolutely does matter whether someone was 15 or 25 when they were addicted to pills. It matters physically -- a teen addict will have different and often more severe effects on their brain than an adult -- and it matters as to how easy it is to become addicted. It matters that authority figures were giving a child drugs versus an adult.

Not all stars had the same hardships, nor were they all forced onto drugs. That's just ridiculous. I cannot imagine anyone going through life believing every Hollywood star from, say, 1935 through 1959, was basically the same person with the same life and upbringing, only with different faces. It's ridiculous.

[quote]Despite an obvious mental illness that worsened with time, Judy could have lived a long and healthy life had she stopped spending so much time pointing the finger at real or imagined "enemies" who had caused her problems, and instead accepted responsibility, committed herself to the arduous process of getting answers and maintaining a good balance, and filling her life with people who would speak the truth to her and keep her focused.

I don't think anyone here knows what mental illness is.

All this talk of Doris Day doing this and Deanna Durbin doing that means nothing. They weren't sick and addicted like Judy was. There was an obvious family history of mental illness along with a tumultuous upbringing, which we now know can cause physical problems such as sleep disorders, cognitive impairment, and even affects the brain's ability to regulate metabolism and immune response. On top of that, she was given pretty hard drugs, which also affected her physical development as much as her emotional development.

There is no version of Judy Garland that could have "committed herself to the process" of getting well. The support wasn't there, the medical and psychological knowledge wasn't there, the medications weren't there. She herself could not have done any of the things you suggest without massive amounts of professional help.

That's what mental illness is. "She should have taken responsibility" is meaningless when you're talking about someone who had significant genetic and environmental damage that made her unable to process reality in a normal manner. I'm certain she had moments of lucidity but even so, at that time, would she have had anywhere to go to try to get help? She would have been sent to Meninger's or some hospital like Bela Lugosi ended up in.

And in spite of it all she was still the greatest. Frank Sinatra once said "they'll forget us all. All of us but Judy."

r6 I've always thought Judy was a borderline

What was her relationship like with her parents/siblings throughout her career? Was her family involved with Judy’s children?

She lost the ability to sleep; She probably had to take barbiturates the size of horse pills to knock her out. And then when you finally wake up you're in an exhausted fog. Thus the amphetamines.

Michael Jackson also lost the ability to sleep and kept insisting on larger doses of whatever he was taking to knock him out and that killed him. And he was pretty close in age to Judy when he died.

People don't know what it's like to be incapable of sleep. I can tell you it's like something out of a horror movie. Seriously.

[quote]Judy said to Babs don't let them do to you what they did to me!

Again, not taking responsibility for anything.

How does Lithium go with alcohol?

(BTW: Joshua Logan admitted he got great benefit from Lithium. Though even that didn’t keep him from using those pesky color filters in “South Pacific.”)

R89 terrible, indeed. A day supplemented with uppers and downers. And oh, when the uppers start to wear off and you're about to crash, but not quite because you are already beyond exhaustion…

Awful. God-awful.

In the 1970's, I did a lengthy series of interviews with MGM Director, Charles Walters.

He adored Judy's talent and was a good friend. He admitted, numerous times, that friendship with Judy often came with a price - sheer exhaustion!! She was the neediest person he ever met, even in a business filled with needy people. What you gave her was never enough and if you didn't give it all, she would manipulate you with guilt and going on and on about every unhappy experience in her life, whether real or imagined.

Walters also shared that Mayer was enormously sensitive to Judy and her moods and it went beyond her being a valuable asset to MGM. He personally paid some of her bills for treatment and went up against the NY Office in trying to keep her at MGM. He was imperfect, of course, but he was not the monster or demon that Judy portrayed him as being, AFTER his passing.

Walters had plenty to say about Vincente Minnelli and I can only hope that one day, a real biography of him will be published.

Minnelli did not love Judy and it was an arranged marriage. His behavior during the marriage helped undermine Judy's confidence. Minnelli slept with Tom Drake during the making of "Meet Me...", made a pass at Judy's "The Clock" co-star, Robert Walker, but was rebuffed soundly. Vincente made no secret of his lust for Gene Kelly during the making of "The Pirate" and that contributed toward the excessive costs, over budget and the picture's failure. Vincente made sure that Kelly's ample ass was showcased in the film and Vincente and Kelly did have sex during the film's production.

I do not know, nor did Walters, whether Kelly was gay, straight or bi-sexual. Walters did say, however, that Kelly was an "attention whore" who would do anything or anyone if he felt it would get him one step ahead of everyone else. Mayer was aware of this and it is one of the reasons that Kelly and Mayer never got along.

Around the lot, according to Walters, Kelly was known as "Smelly Kelly". This was NOT because he physically smelled but because, as a human being, he stunk!!!

Kelly taunted and teased Van Johnson about Johnson being gay, during the production of "Brigadoon" and Johnson desperately wanted to have sex with Kelly. It did not happen.

Walters further noted that he never heard Judy accept even one iota of responsibility for anything bad that happened in her life. He said she had a seeming inability to recognize her role in at least some of the misfortunes. It was always someone else's doing and she maintained that stance until the end of her life. If she were confronted with what we'd now call ":tough love", she would simply remove that individual from her orbit.

Thanks for the amazing insights r93

Johnson and Kelly go way back together. Van was in the chorus of the original production of Pal Joey in which Kelly starred. Who knows what relationship they had back then? You can see Johnson in production photos and the color silent footage made of parts of the production.

Thanks, R93, well done.

Waiting for Judy loyalist to come back with "But she was ON PILLS SINCE BIRTH!," "The poor dear could NOT SLEEP!," "Those meanies MADE HER A PSYCHO!"

^^ You are very tiresome, Sir. Was your Mama a drunken whore?

Thanks R93, I had to look up Gene Kelly's "ample behind"… I was certainly not disappointed.

or in "The Pirate"

or "An American in Paris"

I just never find this debate interesting. She'd been dead over fifty years now; she's not coming back.

I also think she's not as eternal as many of you are making out. How many under-25s listen to her now, other than Greg the flamboyant kid from "Curb Your Enthusiasm"? And he's not even a real person.

Pop culture is disposable.

Oh fuck you, r102.

PAL JOEY footage...

Even if she was a needy black hole and couldn’t accept responsibility for her life it’s sad. What happened to her as a child is sad and it’s sad she was never able to grow and make a life for herself.

Judy is as eternal as the other greats like Sophie Tucker, Piaf, Streisand and Liza.

Weeeeeee’re…

…OFF to the embalmer!

"Pop culture is disposable."

The Wizard of Oz seems to keep hanging in there, r102.

[quote]Even if she was a needy black hole and couldn’t accept responsibility for her life it’s sad...

Yes, it's sad. It's sad, sad, sad. We can all agree that it's very sad. However, then endless stream of worshiping queens who wallow in that sadness, who live for that sadness...are boring, boring, boring. 52 years after her death, Judy Garland is like a cartoon character for people who need to be sad about her sadness.

They're allowed to be sad, r109, just like you're allowed to be snarkily hypercritical of them.

How about getting on with their lives like normal human beings, R110?

And they're interfering with your life....how, r111?

Judgmental much, r111? This is Datalounge. We aren't exactly *normal* human beings. It's nice that you are though.

They should have just put Judes on a 24/7 morphine drip.

R61 What is your native language? Just curious

Well Judy's father who it seems was the only person who ever loved her was into boys(though he had 3 children so he was holding out on someone) and the family had to keep moving and the mother sounds like she was using her daughters to escape a nightmare of a marriage. Then through an incredible stroke of luck Judy turns out to be a gold mine.

Judy was fucked from day one. And when she put the blame on everyone else it's easy to see why she thought that way. She was a genius who was dealt a very bad hand by fate.

[quote]She would have been sent to Meninger's or some hospital like Bela Lugosi ended up in.

Judy DID do a stint at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka Kansas in 1947 after crashing and burning while filming "The Pirate". L.B. Mayer personally paid for much of Judy's hospital care. Most people including Judy neglect to acknowledge that Mayer cared a great deal for Judy personally, and when his power faded when Doré Schary arrived, he could no longer protect her.

They seem to be getting along perfectly well in these home movies which would be from late 1947, after Judy's first psychiatric hospital stays, but perhaps before her return to MGM for reshoots of "The Pirate" and the start of "Easter Parade".

Judy kept a reasonable relationship with her mother until the late 40s claiming Ethel became hopelessly neurotic and kept suggesting to her daughter a frontal lobotomy would cure her from her woes. Oh, DEAR!

I don't know why there's some ancient old crank on here saying there's one "Judy loyalist" who is obsessed with being sad about her. I'm the person who posted above about how the drugs and mental illness affected her, and I'm not sad, I'm astonished that so many grown adults on Datalounge don't understand what mental illness is.

This constant "she was a psycho leech who wouldn't take responsibility and everyone was a victim of her" is just some made-up bullshit people who are obsessed with hating her and her fans say. It is the EXACT thing you're accusing others of doing. You're obsessed, too, but with hating her and trolling people on DL who you think need to be scolded for some personal failing.

There are countless stories of LB Mayer being both overly sentimental, sappy, caring and sweet while at the same time being a complete fucking monster.

The only people who are going to believe that he was nothing but an upstanding, honest gentleman to Judy because he paid for Menninger's are people who don't know anything about Louis B. Mayer.

Not so r119, I was simply acknowledging a counterpoint to the "conventional wisdom" as put out by Judy herself. Nobody is saying he wasn't at times ruthless and a petty grudge holder, but he had no innate ill will for Judy, nor did he himself cut her loose as some "liability". Without him, that likely would have happened a couple years earlier.

Nobody becomes the highest paid person in America during a depression by being accommodating. Nobody other than you is asserting this.

[quote]Nobody becomes the highest paid person in America during a depression by being accommodating. Nobody other than you is asserting this.

I don't know WHO said "LB Mayer became the highest paid person in the US during the Depression by being accommodating" but it sure as hell wasn't me.

Absolutely impossible to have a conversation around here. Everyone is always responding to what they WISH you said instead of what you actually said.

R115 Russian

R1 a.k.a. R10; your bejeweled panties are obviously crusty, scratchy, and making to testy. Time to change them dear, as the smell reeks right through my iPhone. In other words, shut the fuck up, grammar queen.

Soooooo, I'll sing it againnnnnn....

Cause Vaudeville is back at The Palace...

And I'mmmmm...

On the pills!

[quote]I don't know why there's some ancient old crank on here

90% of DL people are ancient old cranks

It's actually the "young cranks" who fly off the handle when you dare disagree with anything they demand you think!

Petulance is boring.

That'sh what comesh from too much pillsh and liquor...

R124 knows his JUDY!

LB's eldest daughter Edith Goetz turned out to be richer than her father or her sister Irene Selznick. She spent years investing in art.

i was told garland is something you put around your xmas tree as decoration.

And Gumm is something you chew up and spit out!

So WHAT?!?!

Judy was weak!

And Ever was weak!

Eve!

Lucy really liked Judy so I've always wondered why she didn't have her on the season the Ricardos went to Hollywood? Judy could have been very funny, or just sung one song from "A Star is Born" which would have been just released or soon to be. It would be watched and talked about to this day!

I also wonder why Lucy didn't have Buster Keaton on that season, he was always looking to work.

R135, Lucy liked talent. Lucy acknowledged talent. But Lucy was not about to put an unreliable drug addict on her show.

R136 They had Tallulah on a later season.

SO? Tallulah was able to wake up, come in to work and read her lines.

R138 You have obviously never read anything about the shooting of that episode.

[quote] Lucy and Tallulah quarreled all week during rehearsals, with Lucy snapping her fingers in La Bankhead's face and trying to tell the actress how to read her lines, causing Tallulah to storm off the set in anger

It's been documented in multiple Judy biographies that she never, ever took responsibility for anything she did or said. Her neediness was legendary. She was victimized as a young woman, but in later years became her own unique flavor of monster. To say so is not to bash Judy but to acknowledge the truth of her life.

She must have been ferociously charismatic to still be able to pull people into her orbit, long after her looks, talent, and sanity were gone.

Not really, R140. The only people in her orbit were fanatical fags and hanger ons R140. Judy's Hollywood friends were long gone and her ex husband and children kept their distance from her in the last 18 months of her life. She wasn't charismatic anymore. Watch the Dick Cavett clip. She looks riddled with death and disease. Wet brain. Wernicke Korsakoff. Ataxia. And she appears insane and on the hard stuff in all her appearances with her great last love, Mickey Deans. He knew how to get the last bit out of her. Mainlining will raise the dead. It wasn't her first time anyway...

Her story is tragic, but it's not primarily because of mental illness. She was a lifelong drug addict.

Rehearsal Judy

Lucy didn’t have Judy on because she didn’t want the competition. In Hollywood episodes, all the stars are men, other than Eve Arden’s two second bit but she was already friends with Lucy. All the other women were unknowns like in the fashion show. Look at the stars: William Holden, John Wayne, Harpo Marx, Cornell Wilde, Richard Widmark, Rock Hudson. Hedda Hopper makes an appearance, but once again no threat to Lucy. Why wasn’t there a glamorous woman star in the Hollywood episodes? She could have asked her good friend Ginger Rogers. She could have had Marilyn Monroe or Judy Holliday on. They were both rising stars.

The fashion show only has wives and their first names aren't even mentioned.

Every little girl wanted to be her, until she wasn't her anymore.

Judy invited Lucy & Desi to the "A Star is Born" premiere. They are seen in the newsreel footage where Lucy gushes about the film saying she'd already seen it and that it was going to "Sweep all the awards!" she is authentically enthusiastic about Judy and the film. It would have been a major coup for Lucy and Desi to land Judy as a guest star.

It doesn't sound like Lucy had any doubts about Judy in 1954.

The Tallulah "The Star Next Door" episode, the first of The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hours is really the only funny one and Tallulah is fucking brilliant in it. Lucy should have left her alone.

Some strange premises here. Why would Judy Garland agree to do an episode of a television sitcom in 1957? She didn't need that stress to her nerves and she wasn't that kind of performer. Fuck, she could still demand an 8 minute overture before singing a song. She was still held in the highest professional esteem. She was also FAT. Why the fuck would she want to get cute on I Love Lucy? Garland didn't make films anymore but her every professional appearance was an event. She had everything to lose and nothing to gain. AND she probably would have fucked up. Like that terrible (highly rated) 1956 TV special she did. She was all hoarse and croaky and half naked and lip synching. For CBS!!

Judy Garland in 1967 is another story. Not much she wouldn't do for a hotel room and a new dress. She didn't live long enough to do The Depends commercials. Or Get Happy Diet Pills. Rainbow Dish Soap...

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

R148, Judy needed money as early as the mid-50s.

Enough was never ENOUGH for Judes.

Never enough...

Money

Pills

Homosexual husbands

Attention

[quote] So now 1950s-60s Judy Garland was glamorous? HA!

Perhaps the term “high profile” suits you more? A few months before the Lucy Hollywood episodes, Judy opened, and did amazing work in, A Star Is Born.

My question was, and should probably be asked on another thread, why didn’t Lucy include any high profile women stars in her show? Years later she worked with known alcoholics Taylor and Burton.

Movie stars tended to do as little TV as possible.

Judy was terrified of live television, and it was all live in the 50s, wasn't it? That's why she got herself so doped up before her first live TV special. Sid Luft and the doctors worked all day to make her sober enough to get through it, and she was still wobbly during the first half. By the time the 60s rolled around they could tape shows, which is why she was able to do her own series for a season.

R154 no. I love Lucy and some others were filmed. That is what enabled I Love Lucy to become a major worldwide hit.

R142, rehearsal was for camera blocking and lighting. No need to sing full out for that.

Here's the performance with Judy in her drag.

Lucy started having female stars in the 60s. Though they weren't in the prime of their careers like some of the men she had in the 50s.

Ginger was a guest...

I never got the meme that Lucy was some kind of beauty - not even when she was young. I don't know any of her work in real time, I was born in 1983. She was tall and had blue eyes. Attractive. But never anything approaching beautiful and just as importantly, she wasn't pretty. She was not bad looking in some of her biography clips, but even when young in films - her look was kind of hard and bit too forced glamour. Pig nosed and over lined lips. That hideous hair color. She was always so heavy on the makeup too.

She had other talents and charms as we all know. She could do second string glamour in a wisecracking hard ass broad comedy way. I won't deny her great talents. But she never appeared free or relaxed in her professional presentation.

Marilyn Monroe on the I Love Lucy Show? Don't be crazy. Though that one would probably work. Young Marilyn was absurd in her physical presentation too - on purpose. She had a sly joke in her - nothing about Lucy was sly or subtle. They might have been a nice mix of spirits, Marilyn and Lucy.

The I Love Lucy Show doesn't stand up. All the Ay yi yi yi about the looks and bodies of women. It was pretty regressive even for it's time. So Lucy was a housewife, dressed like a queen? She was thick and dumb and dumbfounded. A hard blink. A nag. Her makeup was insanely thick. Drag Queens have smaller waists in their corsetry. Lucille Ball was far from glamorous. But she tried.

R156, I know what a TV rehearsal is for. Thank you, though… I merely titled my post as “rehearsal Judy.” No other inference was intended.