Judy Garland: A Biography

by Anne Edwards

  It was a shattering time in Hollywood, and throughout the nation—the time of the beginning of McCarthyism. Many of the top writers whom Judy knew had been attacked. Ten writers, known thereafter as “The Hollywood Ten,” were blacklisted and faced jail sentences for standing up for principles Judy believed in. She was asked for help, and she gave it. Standing up to be counted along with many other stars (her admired Katharine Hepburn for one), Judy released the following statement:

  Before every free conscience in America is subpoenaed, please speak up! Say your piece. Write your congressman a letter! Let the Congress know what you think of its “Un-American Committee.” Tell them how much you resent the way Mr. [Parnell] Thomas is kicking the living daylights out of the Bill of Rights!

  Mayer was furious. He did not like to have his “children” soiling their hands with politics even if the freedom of the land was at stake. His position—due a great deal to his association with Hearst—was also pro-McCarthy. He reprimanded Judy severely.

  One night, suffering a sleeplessness that had lasted through thirteen days and nights, she took what could have been a tragic overdose of sleeping pills. Luckier than Marilyn Monroe, who a dozen years later—suffering the studio’s wrath, suspended, alone at night, and plagued by the same pill addiction and sleeplessness—was to die from such an overdose, Judy was “saved”—which, of course, caused the press to label it “another phony suicide attempt.”

  Refusing to see Dr. Simmel, Judy turned to a younger man—attractive and charming: Dr. Herbert Kupper.

  20During Judy’s hospital stays, Liza remained at home with her father. For the child, those days were idyllic. He treated her like a princess, gave in to her every whim, took her to the studio and let her ride the boom that raised and lowered the camera, and even had pint-sized replicas of the costumes in his films made for her and for her friends.

  Now Liza recalls: “He really understood me. He treated me like such a lady. Even then, he dealt with me on a feminine level. To do that to a little girl is probably the most valuable thing that can happen.”

  Liza also remembers her friends and herself (Dean’s daughter Gayle Martin and James’s daughter Portland Mason) dressing up in the costumes her father had brought home and giving a show for her parents on the back lawn. She would strut and sing, and Judy would shout from the “audience,” “Sing out! Kick higher!”

  In a sense this, Judy’s second serious suicide attempt, was a way of singing out, of kicking higher—for no one except Dr. Simmel had taken the first attempt seriously. Dr. Kupper, who was now in charge, felt strongly that she needed clinical help. Consulting with Dr. Simmel, Dr. Kupper recommended Anna Fromm Reichman’s sanitarium. Hostile now to anything Dr. Simmel suggested and because the last clinic he had sent her to had been a bad experience, Judy refused to go there. Alternatives were sought.

  The Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, was finally agreed upon. An eminent psychoanalyst, Dr. Edward Knight, was just joining the staff directly from the Menninger Clinic, where he had been trained. In an unusual move, it was decided Dr. Kupper would accompany her. That choice was to badly influence any benefit to Judy that Riggs could have effected. Dr. Knight was not to arrive in Stockbridge until the eighth of August (1947); Judy, the fourth of August; and Judy had obviously convinced Dr. Kupper that she could not be without private and personal psychoanalytical help for those four days.

  The Main Street of Stockbridge has been immortalized by Norman Rockwell in one of his most famous paintings. Rockwell has lived there for many years and is a familiar sight riding his bicycle down Main Street. Weekly covers of The Saturday Evening Post reveal the townsfolk in just about every aspect of their daily lives during that period. Stockbridge appeared to represent small-town U.S.A. more than any other single town in the country. But it was a one-sided portrait. Years later, Arthur Penn in the film Alice’s Restaurant was to capture another aspect. Yet there was, and is, more to Stockbridge; for the truth is that far from typifying small-town U.S.A., it was, and still remains, one of the most unique communities in the nation. Like the man with a thousand faces, it has a mask for every taste; but under each is the same liberal, fighting, rebellious spirit that could in 1776 make the area (Lee, Lenox, Stock-bridge) the toughest battleground of the Revolution, while in 1972 it could count up more votes for George McGovern than any other voting precinct in the country.

  There was a fair share of the Daughters of the American Revolution when Judy was in Stockbridge, but the town has always attracted the young, has always been a gathering place for artisans and artists. Nestled in the rolling Berkshire Hills, its Indian trails lure hikers in spring and fall, its ski runs, skiers in the winter. Even then it was a glorious outdoor salon of sorts for writers (today Norman Mailer, William Shirer, William Gibson, and Stefan Lorant live there, to name just a few of the town’s current writers-in-residence).

  But what has, since the twenties, given the town and its Main Street a singular and very special ambience has been the gracious, lovely, large facade of Austen Riggs. It was once one of the area’s grandest private homes; its green lawns, wide driveways, and elegant buildings welcome. Set back only fifty feet or so from the sidewalk, it remains in appearance more a stately home or a luxury inn than a psychiatric clinic. One building is, in fact, called The Inn. Patients are not placed behind barred windows or bolted doors. A sense of freedom prevails, and patients between therapy sessions mingle with the townspeople. Often after therapy has ended they remain, as William Inge did, to live in the town—Riggs having a community spirit within that binds patients for years thereafter.

  There is also a tremendous theatrical atmosphere at Riggs. It certainly must be one of the few psychiatric centers to have a successful little-theater workshop. This all must have been considered in the decision that Judy should go to Riggs. It made good sense to believe that Judy would be able to adjust to the atmosphere of this clinic, whereas she had not at the previous institution.

  Riggs is expensive, and as a general rule no one is taken on short tenure. (Judy was expected to remain several months.) Most of the patients have affluent backgrounds and are well educated, sensitive, and intelligent. Some are alcoholics, some addicts, others desperately insecure. Most are young, and many who have walked up that driveway are famous (the aforementioned William Inge, for one).

  The first error to be made regarding Judy’s journey to Riggs was allowing Dr. Kupper to accompany her. And the second surely was the decision for her not to go directly to Riggs and become oriented before Dr. Knight’s arrival but to remain at The Red Lion Inn (down the main street from Riggs) until that time. It was August 4, and the height of the Tanglewood summer concert season (Tanglewood, which is in the adjoining town of Lenox, is the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra). The Inn was packed, and every time Judy went through the lobby she was not only approached but often physically stopped by admiring fans. Judy could not bear being touched by strangers and, therefore, was forced to remain secluded in her rooms for most of the time. She had several rooms, for besides Dr. Kupper she was accompanied by a maid and a secretary. There were many reasons why in the past therapy had not been successful with Judy. Her public acclaim, for one thing, preconditioned her relationship with her analyst. Whenever the analyst pointed out a failure in the handling of her private life, she could match it with a success in her professional career. And for another, there was always someone on the outside who was willing to keep her supplied with pills.

  A pattern formed the first four days that Judy spent at The Red Lion Inn previous to her sessions with Dr. Knight (who arrived on August 8, with intensive therapy scheduled to begin with Judy on the fifteenth). She became overly dependent upon Dr. Kupper, consulting him three or four times a day. When Dr. Knight arrived on the eighth, he was extremely disturbed by this “breach of ethics”—accusing Dr. Kupper of allowing himself to be “at the beck and call” of a patient, thereby undermining any analyst’s position. Angry words passed
between the two men. Dr. Knight issued an ultimatum that Dr. Kupper leave before he began sessions with the patient and that the patient move to the Center. Judy fought this decree, remaining on the side of Dr. Kupper. Dr. Kupper finally gave in and on August 14 returned to California.

  Left alone, Judy now refused to move to Riggs from the Red Lion Inn, and Dr. Knight relaxed his ultimatum. Sessions began the morning after Dr. Kupper’s departure. It was the most intensive therapy Judy had experienced. For four days her relationship to her father was almost surgically exposed. It was very clear that she believed her father had been homosexual, that she had overheard something of a homosexual nature, and that she bitterly blamed all this on Ethel. She also discussed his death and brought up an incident that she had not revealed before. When her father had been taken to the hospital, just before his death, fluid had been emanating from his ear. A childhood blanket of Judy’s that she had never been able to cast away was taken by Frank from the house to protect his ear. Upon his death Judy reclaimed it and kept it close to her for a very long time. Then one day it was gone, Ethel apparently having disposed of it. Judy could not forgive her for this.

  At the end of each day she would return to the Red Lion Inn devastated, exhausted, and without professional nursing care. Her maid gave her massages, but Judy would end each evening in an enervating fit of tears, finally having to take a generous dose of barbiturates to fall asleep. She was still having easy access to pills, even though Dr. Knight had spoken to all those close to her.

  By August 19, he once again issued an ultimatum: she would have to move into Riggs. But by now other pressures existed for Judy. Able at The Red Lion Inn to take all the calls that came in and to make all the calls she wanted, she was constantly, in her free time, on the telephone to California—to her agent, her manager, Minnelli, and Dr. Kupper. During her short absence the studio decided she should be cast in The Barkleys of Broadway, again opposite Astaire. Her agent managed to convince her that financially and professionally she desperately needed to accept this offer and to return to Hollywood right away. The press had been brutal in its recent treatment of Judy. The fear seemed to be that her audience might defect unless she could prove that she had simply been a victim of bad publicity.

  The next morning, August 20, without discussing the move with Dr. Knight, she left Stockbridge with her maid and secretary, flying out that same day for the Coast. More angry letters passed between Dr. Knight and Dr. Kupper, for the former seemed to be convinced that his California colleague was responsible for the patient’s departure, and he feared she was totally incapable of returning to her former environment or work conditions without becoming dangerously ill or suicidal.

  Charles Walters was once again to be her director. She had gained back some weight in Stockbridge and was immediately placed on a crash diet at the same time as she began dance rehearsals. “By now,” she says of that period, “I was just a mechanical hoop that they were rolling around.” Her migraines returned worse than ever. She would go days without sleep, the Nembutals she took not seeming to affect her any longer except to throw her into deep depression. “I just wanted to go somewhere to lie down and stop,” she confesses. But Walters wouldn’t hear of it, and Minnelli remained on the side of the studio. First, she was late to rehearsals; then she began missing entire days.

  Gathering what courage she had left, she called a meeting with the front office. Freed and Mayer were there. It was an emotional and disturbing confrontation, and Judy left Mayer’s executive office in tears after being chastised for being ungrateful after the studio had made her a star, and reprimanded severely for not being able to put a halt to her bad habits, pills and drinking (she was now drinking heavily when the pills did not seem to work). Her absenteeism from the set grew worse. One morning when she did not appear as scheduled, she was sent a telegram. She had been fired from the film.

  Neither she nor her agent could reach anyone. Freed was “not on the lot” and Mayer “out of town.” All other executives were “in conference.” Within twenty-four hours no more calls were necessary. It was already in the newspapers. Ginger Rogers had replaced her. And she was made the “heavy.” She had been fired because she was “unreliable, temperamental, and ungrateful.” No one also mentioned that she might be ill.

  She turned back to analysis and then, growing increasingly despondent, she confessed that she thought analysis was of no avail to her.

  The doctor replied that if she did not continue she would be dead in six months—because she was definitely suicidal.

  It seemed to her a cold, cruel analysis, but now she began to fear herself.

  21The studio had a change of heart. It had purchased Irving Berlin’s smash New York hit Annie Get Your Gun, and under pressure from Berlin, Judy was called back to the studio to play Annie Oakley. It was the one role Judy truly had been longing to play; and although she was in no physical condition to even consider the gargantuan challenge Annie presented, she hastened to accept. Shortly there-after, she was horrified to discover that her hair was falling out because of her heavy narcotic intake. It shook whatever small confidence she had.

  Her first assignment for the role was to learn how to shoot a gun. Terrified of firearms all her life, she seemed unable to do this. Next came the accent. Always able before to mimic any language, she found that Annie’s backwoods drawl escaped her. The front office was buzzing. There were meetings on the set, in the commissary, at the homes of Freed and George Sidney (the director). Replacement was discussed, but Freed wanted to give Judy every possible chance. They decided to record the music first. The records (a collector’s item now) were completed with a sense of relief. Judy’s voice was better than ever. Her accent was not good, but the power and delivery were so brilliant that it seemed it could be overlooked. Filming began again. Judy knew she wasn’t any good. Her performance was bad, and she looked haggard and strained.

  One day, while she was rehearsing the “I’m An Indian Too” number in full Indian costume, a note was delivered to her by a stooge. It read, “Your services are no longer required.”

  Judy recalled that her anger was such that she could only stand and stare at this stranger, finally saying, “You can’t do this to me. With this makeup on, I don’t even know what tribe I belong to. What reservation do I go to?”

  Betty Hutton was called in to replace her.

  Judy went home, where her marriage was now a sham. Depression enveloped her. Retreating to her own room, she regressed to the kind of self-imposed isolation she had suffered as a child—now communicating only with baby Liza, as she had once done with her dolls, Peggy. Suicide was constantly on her mind. She felt the press was against her, her audience lost, and her career over. Then she received a call from her old friend Joe Pasternak.

  There was a saying in Hollywood at the time that you didn’t have to have talent—you just had to be Hungarian. Pasternak possessed a Hungarian heritage; spoke with an accent “seasoned well with paprika”; was ebullient, lively; and had the ability to infuse his spirit into his cast and crew. What distinctive talent he personally lacked he was able to recognize instantly in others. Having known Judy as a young woman and produced two of her previous films—As Thousands Cheer and Presenting Lily Mars—he wanted her now to replace June Al-lyson, who was pregnant, in his current production, In the Good Old Summertime. It meant Judy had to report to work immediately.

  Perhaps the quality that Pasternak admired most was great talent. He believed Judy was a genius in her field, and respected her wholeheartedly for this. More courtly than any of his predecessors, Pasternak treated her with humor and gentle persuasion, and was able to get her though the making of the film without serious time delays, while at the same time extracting a top-notch performance from her.

  One can pick up the mood on a Garland-Pasternak film by some of Pasternak’s remarks:

  “Sometimes there was friction between her [Judy] and the other actors because she was cute. I could understand. But they couldn�
�t. It’s like a family of five or six children where one is the most talented and it’s difficult to hold back your admiration and give everybody the same amount of love.” . . . “You couldn’t stay angry at her [Judy] very long. She’d come in after doing some foolish things that she couldn’t help doing and look at you with those sad, beautiful eyes and start singing, and you’d forget you wanted to bawl her out.” . . . “I’ve made a hundred and five pictures—only four of them with Judy. But I never ceased to wonder how God had given so much talent to one little person!”

  She had been on suspension after Annie Get Your Gun when Pasternak asked the studio for her services. The front office was violently against this, but Pasternak persisted and won. He saved Judy’s life, but he was not aware of this.

  His faith in her rekindled her spirit. She accepted the role immediately. The film was a remake of an early James Stewart–Margaret Sullavan vehicle called Shop Around the Corner. Originally, it had been a contemporary story set in Hungary; Pasternak placed it in turn-of-the-century Chicago. Judy had gained back some weight and was feeling sturdier. Pasternak decided she should not be forced onto a crash diet and that period costuming could help to conceal her weight gain. It was both a humane and a sensible decision, and the story, which only nine years before had seemed so moving, now also had vitality, charm, and a lovely comedic quality. The plot revolved around two antagonistic co-workers in a music shop who unknowingly carry on a correspondence love affair. Van Johnson was her co-star, and they were supported by the talent of Buster Keaton, Spring Byington, and S. Z. “Cuddles” Sakall.

  According to Pasternak, Judy hardly flubbed a line in the entire production, seldom had to have more than two takes for any scene, and learned her musical numbers in no time at all. Her voice was clear and brilliant and warm. She sang “Play That Barbershop Chord,” Eva Tanguay’s old hit “I Don’t Care” (giving it a very unique and new arrangement), and “Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland.”