The Tragic Life of Judy Garland

We sure hope that this Hollywood star is happier somewhere over the rainbow. Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’ll be outlining The Tragic Life of Judy Garland. For this list, we’ll be looking at Judy Garland’s early life and career, and what a difficult experience she had. The tragedy of Judy Garland’s life began before she was even born. Her parents were Frank and Ethel Gumm of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, a couple who had moved to the area and ran a vaudeville theatre. The couple already had two daughters, and were not expecting another child. In fact, the pregnancy was not a happy surprise; her father called a friend who studied medicine for advice on having the pregnancy terminated. Abortion was illegal in the United States in the 1920’s, so their only option would have been a “back alley” abortion, which came with serious health risks to the mother. So Judy Garland was born on June 10, 1922, to parents who didn’t want her. And her name, the one we’re familiar with, was one that she adopted later in life. At birth, she was known as Frances Ethel Gumm - which certainly doesn’t have the same ring to it. Many have wondered why Frank and Ethel Gumm didn’t want to have another child, and there’s been speculation that Frank was, at the time, having extramarital affairs with men. While there’s no way to confirm this with certainty, either way Garland’s home life was an unhappy one from the time that she was young. In an interview decades later, Garland detailed some of the marital conflict in her home when she was a child, saying, "As I recall, my parents were separating and getting back together all the time. It was very hard for me to understand those things and, of course, I remember clearly the fear I had of those separations." While their family life may have been messy, there was one positive thing that Frank and Ethel could offer their daughter: an introduction to show business. Considering their career path, it should come as no surprise that they wanted to involve their daughters in the performing arts as well. When Judy was just two and a half years old, she performed a rendition of “Jingle Bells” at a Christmas show. She also began performing with her two sisters, Mary Jane and Dorothy Virginia, under the name “The Gumm Sisters”. Though it would be nice to look at this time as the beginning of a love for the stage, there was a darker side to these early forays into entertainment. Garland said, years later, "The only time I felt wanted when I was a kid was when I was on stage, performing." When she performed with her sisters, she was known as “Baby Gumm”, but their family name caused some issues. Their act was once printed in a playbill as “The Glum Sisters”, which definitely doesn’t sound like a show that anyone wants to see. So the family rebranded, with all the sisters opting for the more whimsical sounding “Garland” as a surname instead. You could say it was then that Judy Garland was truly born. After she starred in her most famous role (which we’ll get to soon), Judy Garland stated that her mother was “the real Wicked Witch of the West.” While this might seem like an over the top statement, you’ll probably agree when you hear how Judy was treated. Before she even turned ten years old, Ethel Gumm was reportedly providing her daughter with pills to improve her performances. Uppers to give her more energy, and downers to help her come down from it and sleep. In terms of her mother’s motivations, her husband’s health was failing and her daughters’ act was the family’s primary way to make money and support themselves. But this fostered a dependence on drugs in Judy that followed her into adulthood. If Ethel’s goal was to make her daughter a star, she definitely succeeded. When she was just 13, Judy was offered a recording contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. While she wouldn’t achieve great success for another couple of years, there was one bright light during this time: her friendship with Mickey Rooney. He was another young up and comer working with MGM and the pair starred in several movies together. Studio execs decided that Garland was overweight and began restricting what she ate, reportedly giving her only chicken broth and cottage cheese. Some from the studio even called her a “fat little pig with pigtails.” Later on, she said, "From the time I was 13, there was a constant struggle between MGM and me — whether or not to eat, how much to eat, what to eat. I remember this more vividly than anything else about my childhood." She was prescribed amphetamines to keep her thin and boost her energy levels during filming, and barbiturates to sleep at night. While this may sound shocking to modern ears, it was actually somewhat commonplace at the time, though that certainly doesn’t make it any less reprehensible. Garland has asserted that this was the beginning of her battle with addiction. But soon it was time for her big break. When the studio was looking for a young actress to star in “The Wizard of Oz”, they almost passed over Garland in favor of more well known performers like Shirley Temple and Deanna Durbin. But, as of course we know, Garland was given the role, despite the fact that at 16 she was deemed too old for the part. In fact, during filming she had to wear restricting corsets in order to give her body a more childlike look. When “The Wizard of Oz” was finally released, it catapulted Garland into stardom, but by that point her schedule was so busy that she didn’t even have time to see the film in theatres, only viewing it a year after its initial release. As she went into adulthood, her struggle with drugs worsened to the point that it caused her to lose roles in major films. She was initially cast in both “The Barkleys of Broadway” and “Royal Wedding”, where she was set to act alongside Fred Astaire. But she was erratic on set, often calling in sick and missing days of work. Because of this behavior, she was replaced by other actresses. A low point came when her contract with MGM was terminated due to these issues. On top of the problems with drug use, Garland also had a troubled romantic life. She was engaged for the first time when she was just 18 years old to a man named David Rose, who was married at the time he proposed. Once his divorce was final, they married in 1941, and Garland became pregnant; but her mother and the studio arranged for her to have an abortion. Just a few years later, Rose and Garland called it quits. She ended up being married a total of five times throughout her lifetime, and none of the partnerships seemed like simple or happy ones. She said that her third and fourth husbands, Sidney Luft and Mark Herron, struck her; Herron claimed it was “self defense”. In 1969, Garland married nightclub manager Mickey Deans. Garland died just a few months later, shortly after turning 47, in an overdose of barbiturates that was deemed to be accidental by the coroner. These were the very same drugs that were given to her when she was a teen working on “The Wizard of Oz”. After her death, her estate was valued at just $40 thousand, despite all of the success she achieved in her lifetime. Luckily, her legacy remains, and her two daughters, Liza Minnelli and Lorna Luft, also went on to succeed in show business - even after seeing what the industry did to their mother.