Judy Garland American Actress and Singer (1922–1969)

Early life

Judy Garland was born Frances Ethel Gumm on 10 June 1922 in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. Her parents, Frank Gumm and Ethel Marion Milne, were vaudeville performers who ran a movie theater in the town, and she was the youngest of three daughters. At the age of two she stepped onto the stage of her father's theater to sing alongside her older sisters, and the three girls soon became a touring act, with their mother at the piano. In 1926 the family moved to Lancaster, California, where her father bought another theater.

The sisters appeared in a handful of short films beginning in 1929, and Garland's earliest credit on record is the short Bubbles, released in 1930. By late 1934 the act was billed as the Garland Sisters, and Frances took the first name Judy not long afterward.

Career

In 1935 Garland auditioned for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and was signed to a contract at the age of 13. Her first feature role came on loan to another studio in Pigskin Parade (1936). Back at MGM she was paired with Mickey Rooney in a run of youthful musicals, including Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938) and Babes in Arms (1939).

She was cast as Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz (1939), the role in which she sang "Over the Rainbow", the song that stayed closely tied to her career. In the 1940s she moved into more grown-up parts. Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) gave her "The Trolley Song" and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas". The Clock (1945) was her first straight dramatic film. Other releases from the period include The Harvey Girls (1946), Ziegfeld Follies, Easter Parade (1948), in which she worked opposite Fred Astaire, and In the Good Old Summertime (1949). Summer Stock (1950), with Gene Kelly, was her last picture for the studio, and she and MGM parted company in September 1950.

Her next phase centered on live performance. After radio appearances with Bing Crosby, she toured Britain and Ireland in 1951 and played the London Palladium and then the Palace Theatre in New York, where her run set attendance records. She returned to films with A Star Is Born (1954), which she and her husband Sidney Luft produced, and later appeared in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), Pepe (1960) and A Child Is Waiting (1963). On record, she made Judy at Carnegie Hall, a live album from 1961, and later recorded a concert album at the London Palladium. She also starred in a television series, The Judy Garland Show.

Recognition

Garland received an Academy Juvenile Award for her work on screen as a teenager. She earned Academy Award nominations for Best Actress for A Star Is Born and for Best Supporting Actress for Judgment at Nuremberg. For A Star Is Born she won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy, and in 1961 she became the first woman to receive the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award.

Judy at Carnegie Hall won the Grammy Awards for Album of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, making her the first woman to take the album prize. She was given a Special Tony Award for her contribution to the revival of vaudeville, and received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997. Several of her recordings have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, and she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She was also nominated for Emmy Awards for The Judy Garland Show. In 1999 the American Film Institute placed her eighth on its list of stars of classic Hollywood cinema.

Personal life

Garland was married five times. Her husbands were the musician David Rose (1941 to 1944), the director Vincente Minnelli (1945 to 1951), Sidney Luft (1952 to 1965), Mark Herron (1965 to 1967) and Mickey Deans, whom she married in 1969. She had three children. Her daughter Liza Minnelli, born in 1946, and her daughter Lorna Luft, born in 1952, both became performers.

Garland died on 22 June 1969.