Judy Garland

An American singer, actress, and vaudevillian, Judy Garland (Frances Ethel Gumm), was born in Grand Rapids, Minnesotaon June 10, 1922. She was acclaimed for her deep vocals. She started performing with her elder sisters, Suzanne Gumm and Jimmie Gumm in Vaudeville. Her parents were settled in Grand Rapids, where they ran a movie theatre. Judy was of Scottish, English, and Irish origin. She was named after her parents at a local priestly church.She did her schooling from Hollywood High School and later got graduated from University High School. Her first appearance was on the stage of her father’s movie theatrewhen she was just two-and-half years old during a Christmas show where she sang a chorus of Jingle Bells. The Gumm Sisters made their first film debut in a short film, The Big Revue, in 1929. Following which they appeared in ‘ A Holiday in Storyland ‘ and ‘The Wedding of Jack and Jill.’

There were many stories behind the name the Garland sisters but by 1934, the sisters changed their name from the Gumm sisters to the Garland sisters. In 1926, due to some reasons, her family shifted to Lancaster, California where her father purchased another theatre and started operating it. She was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a teenager with which she made more than two dozen films that include her most iconic role in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ as Dorothy in 1939. After 15 years she left the MGM studio and achieved new success over record-breaking appearances in concert, her Emmy-nominated television series and flourishing record career. During her initial years at the studio, she got dressed and photographed in simple outfits or in squirt gowns and dresses to correspond to the image of the girl-next-door, created for her. She used to wear doused caps on her teeth and disks made of rubber to reshape her nose. While preparing for a radio performance on the Shell Chateau Hour, on November 16, 1935, she got to know that her father got hospitalized with meningitis. Living her shattered behind, Frank Gumm passed away the next morning.

By pairing Garland with Mickey Rooney as backyard musicals, MGM got an endearing formula. The pair first casted together in supporting characters in Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry (1937). Garland alleged that she, Rooney and other performers were steadily laid down to take amphetamines to stay awake to match up with the agitated pace of making one film after the other, along with barbiturates so that they can sleep well. She got addicted to them because of regular intake which became a lifelong struggle for her. She later realized that her youth was stolen by MGM. However, her co-actor denied that the studio was responsible for her addiction; he said it was Garland herself who chose to go on that path. In 1938, she got a chance to be a part of the young Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz, which was a captious success; in this film, she sang the song Over the Rainbow. She won Academy Award, a Juvenile Award for her performance for the same in 1939. Garland experienced her first adult romance with Artie Shaw but was heartbroken in early 1940. After this, she came in a relationship with the musician, Davis Rose. David was married at the time when he proposed Judy, they waited for his divorce and soon after that they both got married on July 27, 1941.

Garland agreed to a trail separation, got her child aborted and divorced in 1944. On June 22, 1969, her dead body was discovered in the bathroom of her rented house in Chelsea, London. It was later learned that the reason of her death was self-overdose of barbiturates. There was no evidence found which stated that she had committed suicide. Her post-mortem reports showed no wrecks of drugs in her stomach, which signified that the drug had been consumed over a long tenure, rather than taken in just one dose. Her death certificate mentioned that her death had been accidental. No matter how beautiful she looked in the pictures or on screen, she was never confident in herself, and she never escaped from the image of girl-next-door which had been created for her.