by Sid Luft
Lastfogel had wanted to dismiss the project. He agreed to contact Eddie Alperson about acquiring the rights, but he could hardly wait to call back with the negative news that Alperson wasn’t looking to sell. “Forget about it, Sid.”
I didn’t believe him. Judy was internationally acclaimed. I knew Lastfogel didn’t like to build things; he was an abrupt type of person. When he played golf, he’d hit the ball and immediately run after it; in business conversations if he couldn’t see something concrete right away he tended to dismiss the subject. A Star Is Born may not have interested Abe, but it continued to interest me. I called an agent I knew, also at the Morris office. I asked him to set up a private meeting between myself and Alperson.
Alperson was eager to meet me and a date was set, to correspond with the time period when I would be staying in Los Angeles to appear in court over my custody rights. I was about to meet Alperson when I received a call from New York. “Better get back, Judy is in the hospital.” Judy and I had been separated for just three days.
I booked the quickest flight back, but there was enough time to make the meeting before my departure. The Morris agent and I met with Eddie Alperson at his office in Beverly Hills. Eddie was in his midfifties, gray-haired and well dressed, a typical business executive. He could have been with a large accounting corporation. The Morris agent outlined how he’d accomplished an independent deal with Fox by bringing in outside financing. I picked up that Eddie was not really paying attention to what the man was saying. In fact, he soon turned to me and said, “Sid, I think this is wonderful that Judy made this marvelous comeback.”
Eddie didn’t want any part of the agent’s act. At the end of the meeting we walked out of the building onto Canon Drive, where Eddie and I shook hands. I explained I was called back to New York, that Judy needed me, and then I added, “Are you coming with me?” And like magic Eddie replied, “Let’s go.” He went home to pack and met me at the airport. During the flight we hammered out the possibilities.
Eddie was interested in keeping the Morris office out of our deal. He was not eager to pay 10 percent commission off the top of everything. And we both agreed we didn’t want Morris to package the film. Alperson was clever, even brilliant, and he was well liked in the film business world. His close friend Spyros Skouras was president of 20th Century Fox.
Eddie, of course, had his own history in Hollywood. In his twenties he was a wunderkind in charge of distribution at Warner Bros., where he made his success selling The Jazz Singer to theater owners around the country. Independent theater owners couldn’t afford to convert their theaters to sound on their own, so Eddie’s method was to take the theater operator directly to the bank, where bank officers were eager to help finance the conversion. Eddie started with one theater owner in Chicago, and the film was advertised as a “Jolson Musical.” The lines went instantly around the block. It was Jolson’s name that sold the film, as it was Jolson’s name on a song that sold the sheet music, whether he wrote it or not, he was so powerful a draw. Eddie would go from theater to theater, and by the time he came to New York the RKO circuit was begging for it. The advent of sound was a great victory for the independent theater owner. Prior to that, the circuit got the big films and the little guy got the B movies, the westerns, the horror movies. The advent of talking pictures was like the invention of the bullet: for a moment, it made men more equal.
As we spoke, I experienced rushes of anxiety. I washed them back with bourbon and escaped into the importance of the conversation. I kept wondering what had gone wrong in New York. I wasn’t thinking of Judy as a clinically ill person, or This is an addict. I was worried something awful had happened to the delightful, brilliant woman I loved.
When I got involved with Judy I was convinced I could change her. I had analyzed the situation. We’d had many conversations about her past. It was not out of the ordinary that a star of Judy’s caliber would occasionally need to stay at a clinic. I understood the pressures. I believed Judy was intelligent, deeply in love with me, so I felt I could influence her. And actresses were usually self-absorbed by nature, so I wasn’t thinking, This is a selfish woman. Though she needed constant devotion, it was easy, since I was head over heels in love with her.
In spite of my passion I had said to Ted and to Bob Agins, “Will I be Judy’s Garland’s third husband?” Meaning, once I’m married to her, I’m no longer Sid Luft, I’m Judy Garland’s husband. We discussed this back and forth, and their response would come: “But are you in love with her?” And the answer was always “Yes.”
Apparently on November 11, Judy performed a matinee not feeling well, then began the evening performance before being overcome with sluggishness. She managed to get off the stage only to collapse and be rushed to LeRoy Sanitarium. By the time I returned to New York, Judy was back at the Carlyle with the explanation that Marlene Dietrich had recommended a Dr. Udall Salmon, a fashionable Park Avenue diet doctor. Salmon helped women lose pounds with pills. In this case Judy had asked for other pills as well, and she was given them. With the prospect of a film she was once more worrying about her weight, or so I reasoned.
“Darling,” I asked her, “do you think it’s a good idea for you to take medication from a stranger, no matter how highly recommended?” My uncle Dr. Israel Rappaport had informed me, “For God’s sake, that man has the worst possible reputation talking women into diet pills. Get Judy away from him.” But I was soft about what happened. Judy looked in good health, and I didn’t want to make too much of the situation.
Judy returned to the Palace after a four-day absence. The night of her reopening she was in her dressing room making herself up when Dr. Salmon pranced into the outer room. I blocked his entrance. He was wearing a black cape, black fedora, and muffler, dressed like the flamboyant Yiddish stage actor Boris Thomashefsky (grandfather of conductor Michael Tilson Thomas). I could hardly contain myself at the sight of this comic character. “Dr. Salmon,” I said, “I’m going to ask you to leave without a scene.” He was speechless. “Please don’t see Miss Garland again,” I pressed. With that, I dismissed him.
I had understood that this kind of experience was behind Judy, but here it was happening all over again. She had suffered a toxic reaction to whatever medication Salmon prescribed. Judy would never explain to a doctor about her sensitivity to pills, and doctors were not inquiring either. In her mind, she was never responsible for her tendency to drug herself. It was always someone else’s fault. Conveniently, she overlooked the fact that her mother had fought the studio on this issue.
In my mind it was not going to be a problem. I was in charge. I would control and protect her until she was freed from the destructive habits of the past. Judy did not con me either. She did not say she would never take another pill, nor did she apologize for the inconvenience. She was, however, respectful of my approach. When I returned to her dressing room I said, “Darling, I got rid of the doctor. He has a reputation that can’t do you any good.”
Judy said, “OK.”
“You know your career is on the line.”
“But you think I’m too fat.”
“I do not. I think you’re fine the way you are.”
That night, as it was like a mini-opening, I could see she wanted me around a bit longer. We continued to talk as she worked on her makeup. With Dottie having returned to retirement, Judy generally preferred to put her makeup on alone, a transition between home and the stage, to shore up her concentration. Eventually she would hire a makeup assistant, “little” Ernie, who was camp and very funny.
Judy responded, “What about the picture?”
“Darling, if you want to lose weight, we’ll go on a diet together. You don’t need any kind of medication. What you need to do is cut out the food you love.”
Judy giggled at this last remark.
“Darling,” I continued, “you must cut out all the luscious hot fudge sundaes you adore; no more P.J.’s cheeseburgers, blood rare with a slice of Bermuda onion and homemade re
lish. No more extra spicy chili with an ice cold beer. Forget heaps of mashed potatoes and gravy, and . . .” Judy was staring at me with her huge saucer eyes. “. . . no more fettucine alfredo.”
By the time I was finished with the mouthwatering list of Judy favorites she was hysterical with laughter, holding me tight. “No alfredo,” she echoed. “I may not be able to go on.”
We did go on a diet, and Judy went from a size fourteen to a size six by the end of the Palace engagement—without a pill.
Judy may not have apologized to me for her dalliance with Dr. Salmon, but trouper that she was as she performed, she would intermittently apologize to her “old friends,” the audience, for “not being perfect.” Now the press was watching how she perspired, how she breathed, how she turned her head. The crowds were ever faithful, and I was told the night she collapsed the comedic actor Jan Murray and Vivian Blaine of the Broadway production of Guys and Dolls graciously entertained the audience.
On her return, she was presented with masses of bouquets and flower arrangements. It was opening night all over again. The ovation was deafening.
I renegotiated a ten-show weekly that left out Mondays and the matinees on Tuesdays and Fridays. Nobody wanted to cash in their tickets. It was the hottest show on Broadway, and that was saying something in a season that included The King and I. MGM had quickly rereleased two of Judy’s films, Babes in Arms and Meet Me in St. Louis, along with the album Judy Garland Sings, to cash in on the Garland renaissance.
Judy was receiving honors and awards for reestablishing vaudeville. A luncheon was held in her honor at the Hotel Astor by the American Federation of Labor. Her stamina and virtuosity were once more likened to Jolson in the 1920s. She was given a lifelong silver card membership to the AFL.
Previous smash hits at the Palace had included Eddie Cantor and George Jessel, who had each had runs of nine weeks, standing room only; Kate Smith had played for ten weeks in 1931. Judy would go on to play for nineteen weeks to break all records. As weeks passed and I saw that she could continue indefinitely, I thought it would be a good idea to move to a nicely appointed apartment around the corner from the Hotel Carlyle. Here, our relationship became like a marriage. We had the privacy I craved, and although I still was not rushing to the altar, I was more aware of Judy’s need for a formal sense of belonging.
One afternoon when we were at home before leaving for the theater, there was an unexpected knock at the front door. I had no idea who could be there, as we didn’t receive people at the apartment. I called out to Judy to answer the door, but she had disappeared. It was the building manager about some minor detail. When I closed the door I looked around for Judy and found her hiding in a large walk-in closet in the bedroom. She was shaking. This was no childish game of hide-and-seek. I swept her into my arms and asked what was wrong. I was discovering that the more tender I could be with her the better we could communicate.
Judy suffered from severe premenstrual syndrome, often to the point that she felt she would never come out of the depression. Frequently, she’d ask me to be patient, “bear with me.” My immediate reaction was that it must be “that time.” But I knew it wasn’t.
Judy explained that for an instant she’d experienced a flashback to the old studio days, when she lived in fear of the Anslinger Commission. In fact, she said that Harry J. Anslinger, US commissioner of narcotics, had once requested she be given a leave of absence from work. He wanted her to detox for one year. The man met with her personally. Judy told him a doctor had been supplying her with pills. The doctor’s license was revoked, but another took his place, because MGM was all powerful and was not about to give their moneymaking star a leave of absence. Judy’s reflex to hide was a holdover from this era, when actors lived in fear of being busted. And Judy in particular, an imaginative, overly sensitive young girl, envisioned herself being carted off to jail for taking pills.
She had originally been encouraged to take pills by the studio bosses, and then she began to get a buzz from the drugs, to rely upon them. She was not the only youngster to suffer: Mickey Rooney and Elizabeth Taylor, among others, were similarly caught in the studio dope traps. Uppers are sometimes recommended to people in positions of responsibility such as pilots and truck and bus drivers to deter drowsiness on the job. However, this feeding of narcotics to children was a deep, dark secret known only to those connected to the studio and the government.
Judy admitted she felt she grew inches when she took Benzedrine: the extra “bennie” gave her the courage to march ten feet tall into Louis B. Mayer’s office and speak her mind. Nonetheless, drug addiction or dependency on stimulants was considered degenerate, a sin, as well as severely against the law. An individual could indeed go to prison for using drugs. In 1949, actor Robert Mitchum was sentenced to jail, where he served time for possession of one joint.
Now, helping Judy out of the closet, I comforted her as best I could. The incident was quickly forgotten.
I began to interest Judy in short overnight trips. We would leave after the show on Saturday night and come back Monday afternoon. We’d go to our favorite inn in Connecticut, or to visit Judy’s colt, Florence House, which at this point was still being trained on Long Island. One afternoon Judy accidentally got locked in the stall with Florence. She was fearless and thought it was great fun. She was familiar with horses, and in her youth she had loved to ride.
Life had achieved a certain wholesome quality in spite of our taste for nightlife. Now with the new schedule we could cut out and relax on our own, and that was wonderful. It was a heady brew; everything was experienced in an accelerated manner. The world seemed to revolve around us. Judy had lived a heightened life since childhood; she was an exotic hothouse flower. I didn’t perceive her as pathological, but I was also naive about substance abuse. She was so completely seductive and entertaining—what need was there to know more?
23
MAX METH WAS Judy’s conductor for the first eight weeks of her Palace run, but he could not have anticipated Judy would be performing for more than two months—already a month beyond the original contract. When other obligations forced Meth to withdraw, Judy immediately requested that her sister Susie’s husband, Jack Cathcart, replace him: “He’s got to conduct me.” By now I had such confidence in her professional taste I was sure Judy was on the money. And Judy was absolutely correct about Jack, whom she had known since the 1934 World’s Fair, where she was guest of honor and star performer on Children’s Day. Jack was an attractive, charming person, a talented musician and composer. So when he said he wasn’t pleased with the overture, I respected his opinion. He proceeded to rewrite it, creating a splendid new overture. He was gifted—hiring him wasn’t just to do Judy’s sister a favor. At the same time, it provided Judy with a nostalgic sense of family. Her life had been a succession of backstage family, blood family, and studio family, and often the families overlapped.
Roger Edens, who functioned as a creative conduit for Judy her entire professional career, bringing music to her attention, was part of her studio family. She respected Edens’s taste and creative recommendations, and came to depend solely on his judgment for revue material. George and Ira Gershwin and Irving Berlin had also been integral parts of Judy’s interdependent family. Judy continued to inspire these composers.
At the Palace she was able to bring the families together, the surrogate and the real. Judy’s sisters, Jimmie and Susie, had long ago given up their careers when Judy became a star at MGM. Virginia—Jimmie for short—had married musician Bobby Sherwood. She allowed herself to get heavy and stayed that way. She remained outside the world of show business, living a more ordinary lifestyle in Texas with her daughter, Judaline, named for her famous aunt. But Judy did refresh her relationship with her oldest sister, Susie, whose husband, Jack, was now part of the show. Susie, who had changed her name from Mary Jane to Suzanne, was vivacious, taller than Judy, with a good figure. Sadly, like Judy, she would fall into episodes of substance abuse.
Susie’s husband was a handsome man, and women were after him. This bothered Susie. In later years Jack would call our house looking for her. I’d have to tell him, “We don’t know where the hell she is.” His usual complaint was that she had come home and then left again without a message. One time he located her in Detroit in some funky hotel room and had to leave his work and bring her home. But for a glorious moment, at the Palace, the two sisters shared a rosy world. The RKO Palace Theatre became home.
This was Judy’s “family”—Hugh, Chuck, Roger, the dancing boys from MGM, sister Susie, brother-in-law Jack, Sid the devoted lover. In addition, we had many wonderful people working with us. Vern Alves came into our lives through Ella Logan and Fred Finklehoffe. He was a terrific administrator who took over Judy’s press relations, and he became the associate producer on A Star Is Born. Then there was Ernie the makeup assistant, who knew how to cheer Judy up. He was a small person like her, and he loved to get into drag. In the midst of one performance, as the audience broke into an appreciative applause, Ernie made an entrance onstage behind an unaware Judy. He was in a crazy pirate drag, wearing high heeled mules, with a live toy poodle on a leash. People got hysterical laughing. Judy took her bow and quickly went off into the wings asking, “Why is everyone going nuts?” Then she spotted Ernie and broke up, demanding he come out and take a bow.
It was a glorious time with one notable exception: whenever I mentioned her mother, Judy slammed a door on the subject. Eventually I dropped it.
By December my divorce was final. Lynn had managed to say extremely negative things about me to the press. She charged that I deserted her night after night on the pretext I was going to get a paper only to return home with the milkman, saying I’d been “out all night with the boys.” She’d won custody of Johnny even though I had paid her considerable money in back alimony. She was not letting up, especially now that I was “half a millionaire.”