E! Mysteries & Scandals Judy Garland (1998)
E! Mysteries & Scandals Judy Garland (1998)
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00:00This is the story of a little girl, searching, searching, searching.
00:07You made me love you.
00:14On June 22, 1969, the death of one of Hollywood's most beloved stars came as sad news to America and the world.
00:21Judy Garland was only 47 years old when she was discovered dead of a drug overdose in a London apartment.
00:27Whatever happened to that wide-eyed, innocent girl, so filled with hope and joy and boundless enthusiasm?
00:33Well, I've hung on to every bit of rubbish there is to hang on to in life.
00:38And I've thrown all the good bits away.
00:40On this episode of Mysteries and Scandals, we'll explore how and why one of the brightest stars and most beloved singers, Judy Garland, self-destructed.
00:48You deserted me. I said, Judy, please, never. Everybody deserts me. Everybody.
00:53Everybody was out to use her. Everybody was out to get something from her.
00:57She kept running away, running away, running away.
01:00Sadly, Judy learned you can run, but you can't hide.
01:03I'm A.J. Benza. Join me as we examine the agonizing life of an American tragedy, Judy Garland.
01:23On June 27, 1969, the day of Judy Garland's funeral, the Upper East Side of Manhattan was shut down when thousands of mourners turned out to pay a final tribute.
01:32Judy had come a long way from her childhood in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.
01:36Judy Garland was born Frances Gumm on June 10, 1922.
01:40Her father, Frank, owned the local theater where her mother, Ethel, played the piano.
01:45Judy was the youngest of three girls, which earned her the nickname Baby Gumm.
01:49Marcella Radwin was a lifelong friend.
01:51She was a joy. Everybody loved her.
01:54And by the time she was two years old, she was up on the stage with the two girls who would dance and sing.
02:01But the home life of Frank and Ethel Gumm wasn't happy.
02:04Frank was obviously bisexual.
02:08And he became enamored of a young boy and made love to him, of course.
02:15And there was nothing to do to save their face except to move, to get out of there.
02:19The Gumm family moved to Los Angeles where mother Ethel immediately began shopping Baby Gumm at the studios.
02:25Everybody went crazy over that little girl.
02:28But the name Frances Gumm was a tough sell, so Baby Gumm became Judy Garland, biographer Gerald Clark.
02:35Finally, she went to MGM and she was signed in September 1935.
02:43And the tragedy for her was that her father died about six weeks later.
02:48And he didn't see her become a star.
02:51Frank Gumm died of spinal meningitis at the age of 49.
02:54Judy was only 13 at the time.
02:57John Carlyle was a close friend of Judy's.
02:59I think she adored her father.
03:02I don't think she ever, ever got over it.
03:04Judy bravely stifled her grief and carried on.
03:07But the early years at MGM were difficult ones for the shy and insecure young girl from Minnesota.
03:12Judy was the ugly duckling.
03:15Stevie Mayer said, oh, there's my little hunchback, because Judy had a way of punching her shoulders.
03:21This was devastating for Judy.
03:24MGM thought of Judy as the girl next door.
03:27The girl who doesn't get the boy.
03:30And that's the role she played in several of the Andy Hardy movies.
03:35She became Mickey Rooney's sidekick.
03:37She had a crush on Mickey Rooney and everybody knew this.
03:40Judy Garland and I were just meant, from the word go, to be part of each other's life.
03:48We couldn't have been closer had we been born from the same womb.
03:53Mickey and Judy made 10 films together, including the popular Andy Hardy series of the 1930s.
03:59Those movies showcased Judy's acting talents as well as her fantastic singing voice.
04:04So 16-year-old Judy was the logical choice for the role of a lifetime.
04:08Dorothy in the 1939 MGM classic, The Wizard of Oz.
04:12Jerry Maron, who played one of the Munchkins, remembers the first day of filming.
04:16Well, we started November 11, 1938.
04:20We met Judy, Judy Garland.
04:23We got a big kick out of her and she got a bigger kick out of us, you know.
04:27Because don't forget, when you get up in the morning and take a look and see 125 minis,
04:32you say, what the hell is going on here, you know.
04:35It was during the filming of The Wizard of Oz that Judy began a lifelong battle.
04:39Donna Mason was a choreographer at MGM.
04:42She was worried about her weight, and so was the studio,
04:44and they used to press her down with like a corset because she was supposed to be 12.
04:49Louis being there himself told her she had to go on a diet, and he gave orders.
04:54So the folks at MGM came up with a terrific idea intended to solve her weight problem and boost her energy level,
05:00get Judy hopped up on diet pills.
05:03In 1939, during the making of The Wizard of Oz, Judy's great tragedy happened.
05:10They gave her her first dose of Benzedrine.
05:14One of the ways you lose weight is by taking Benzedrine to speed,
05:18something to speed up the metabolism.
05:20Ethel said to me, you know, Metro is really upset this girl.
05:24She can't eat and she can't sleep, and she's on this Benzedrine stuff,
05:28and then at night she takes second all to go to sleep.
05:31But Judy did as she was told, and by the age of 16, she was well on her way to becoming drug dependent.
05:36Was it Judy's innocence and vulnerability that allowed Hollywood to exploit this talented young star,
05:41or did Judy's own demons drive her to the brink of insanity and death again and again?
05:45Just ahead, how did America's most revered teenage actress find herself cast among Hollywood's walking wounded?
05:54Judy Garland was 16 when she starred in one of the most beloved films of all time, The Wizard of Oz.
06:00Ironically, Dorothy's whirlwind trip to Oz and Judy's tumultuous life in Hollywood was similar in more ways than one.
06:07Little Judy Garland was lost, frightened, and alone in a place that made a few flying monkeys look like a day at the petting zoo.
06:13Unfortunately, Judy's only escape was through alcohol and drugs.
06:17As Judy's popularity grew, MGM began preparing her for more starring roles,
06:22while choosing to ignore her ever-growing dependency on drugs.
06:26In the early 1940s, Eugene Alfred Pagano became Judy's hairdresser.
06:30I used to say, Judy, why don't you stop taking all of these pills?
06:36She said, well, I can't go to sleep at night.
06:39She was not conscious of who the sweet Judy Garland was.
06:45In addition to the pills, Judy was irritated about having to play teenagers.
06:49Judy's frustration only added to her emotional problems and her conflicts with the studio.
06:54Judy almost missed one of her best roles, which was Meet Me in St. Louis.
06:59This was 1943 when it was being made.
07:02And by this time, she was 21 years old.
07:06Vincent Minnelli was the director.
07:08They couldn't get along.
07:10I feel like the ossified woman in the slideshow.
07:13It seems Vincent Minnelli had an odd preoccupation, which annoyed Judy.
07:17He'd always be putting on his lipstick and his eyeshadow.
07:21He made Judy look absolutely gorgeous.
07:25It was the first time she had really looked beautiful in a movie.
07:28She fell in love with Vincent Minnelli.
07:31He was an out-and-out pronounced gay.
07:36He had never been out with a woman that I knew.
07:39I never pictured him married.
07:41I don't think anybody would picture him married.
07:43I don't think even Judy pictured him married.
07:46And I think he just wanted to be married to somebody.
07:52And he picked her.
07:53And they did have a baby, which was sort of a minor miracle.
07:58And they had a wonderful baby, Liza.
08:00It was absolutely a dream.
08:02That dream baby, of course, grew up to be the Oscar-winning actress Liza Minnelli.
08:07After Liza's birth, the pressures of a difficult marriage, motherhood, and fame sent Judy to the brink.
08:13Her first real breakdown came about 1947, which was the time of the pirates.
08:22And she became paranoid that she would, in fact, hallucinate.
08:28She was going to reset.
08:30And there was one point they had a bonfire.
08:32It was part of the movie.
08:33She ran around saying, they're trying to burn me alive.
08:36They're trying to kill me.
08:37So she had lots of doctors.
08:40And each doctor didn't know what the other doctor was doing.
08:43So she had anything she wanted at any time she wanted.
08:47Then she was going to do Annie Get Your Gun.
08:50And she fell apart.
08:53She couldn't really go on.
08:55She was exhausted.
08:56So they took her off the picture.
08:58Marcella Rabwin is the widow of Dr. Mark Rabwin, Judy's family physician.
09:02Mark went to see L.B. Mayer.
09:05He said, Mr. Mayer, I just want you to know,
09:07I think Judy's going to die if you keep her here under contract.
09:11So he said, get her well.
09:14That's all he said.
09:16Next thing, the studio fired him.
09:18It was the spring of 1950.
09:20And Judy, now 28 years old, was devastated by her dismissal.
09:24MGM had been her home for 15 years.
09:26She made more than 25 films for the studio,
09:28bringing in well over $100 million, which was a very, very big buck for the time.
09:33But studio executives aren't notorious for their overwhelming loyalty.
09:36Judy had become an embarrassment and a nuisance.
09:38It was time to cut her loose.
09:40Depressed, drug addicted, and out of work.
09:42Was there any hope for a comeback?
09:44Or was Judy headed straight into a yellow brick wall?
09:47So always look for the silver lining.
10:07Christmas came early this year with Judy Garland.
10:10Judy and James and George Kukauer and everybody else in this picture
10:15are going to take all of the Academy Awards that they have.
10:18Judy Garland was without question one of the greatest stars Hollywood ever created.
10:22But Judy's talent and star power was sabotaged by her unbridled drug abuse.
10:26I'm A.J. Benzo for Mysteries and Scandals.
10:29It was Judy's erratic and volatile behavior that finally got her fired from MGM in 1950.
10:34The place she called home for 15 years.
10:37That same year, 28-year-old Judy's marriage to Vincent Minnelli disintegrated.
10:42They divorced but remained close friends.
10:45Minnelli was with Judy the night she finally snapped.
10:48She broke a glass apparently and took it against her throat.
10:53And somehow the newspapers, the columnists found out about it.
10:57And there were headlines all over the world.
11:01Judy did spend time in a sanitarium and upon her release went to New York for some rest.
11:05It was there in the summer of 1950 that she met and fell in love with producer Sid Luft
11:11who would become her third husband.
11:13Sid encouraged her to return to the concert stage.
11:16Judy hadn't performed before a live audience in more than 15 years.
11:20You made me love you.
11:31Actor Jack Klugman fondly remembers Judy's energy on the stage.
11:35Judy's performance was 150% in how she could survive.
11:42Belting and caring and if the audience gave her any kind of love, she went all out.
11:47She made every person in the audience feel as though they were sitting in her living room.
11:53And when she sat down on the apron to sing Summer of the Rainbow.
12:03There's never been anything like it, ever.
12:05Judy's 1951 world tour was a phenomenal success.
12:09In 1952, just two days before Judy's 30th birthday, she married her producer Sid Luft.
12:14A year later, daughter Lorna was born.
12:17Former president of Capitol Records, Alan Livingston.
12:20Sid, in his own way, managed to keep her going.
12:25And keep her away from the things that she shouldn't have, whether it was alcohol or drugs or whatever.
12:30And he made a career of it.
12:32Sidney and Alan King often opened for Judy.
12:35Sidney was great for her. As difficult as the marriage was, he knew how to get Judy to work.
12:41Suddenly she was hot again and Warner Brothers took her up for the movie The Star Is Born.
12:47And that was to be a great comeback movie.
12:51The critics raved at early screenings, but because the movie ran over three hours, theater owners complained.
12:56So Warner Brothers recut the film a week before its release.
13:00What remained was a mangled piece of work. The Star Is Born died at the box office.
13:05The 32-year-old Judy, however, was still considered a shoo-in for the 1955 Academy Award.
13:10On Oscar night, Judy was in a hospital having just given birth to her third child, Joey.
13:15What they did is they had a crane and a platform outside the hospital window.
13:20And that when they announced, and the winner is Judy Garland, they just shoot to the outside of the hospital.
13:29I remember vividly, brought the envelope, and the winner is Grace Kelly for Country Girl.
13:36And America, everybody in America went, because everybody I know was rooting for Judy.
13:44Within 10 seconds, just like that, the cameramen had gone, the microphones had gone, and she was left all by herself.
13:50In fact, the cameramen seemed kind of demoralized.
13:53After the failure of A Star Is Born, Judy was depressed and she was taking more pills than ever.
13:58This, of course, was a recipe for disaster.
14:00I went into the kitchen. There wasn't even a can of Campbell's soup. There was nothing.
14:06Now, that's how bad she was that she couldn't even know that her children needed something to put in their tummies.
14:13She was unaware that drugs would swipe her.
14:17She was a total contradiction. She was the most loving mother. She worshipped those kids.
14:24You see, women were capable of, as I said, highs and lows. Not cruel, but outrageous behavior.
14:32Clearly, family life was difficult, and Sid was spending more and more time away trying to resuscitate Judy's career.
14:38He was trying too hard and being less of a husband, I guess, more of an agent.
14:44In 1960, Judy and Sid legally separated, but Sid continued to find bookings for his estranged wife.
14:50Judy needed to work.
14:52She had squandered her fortune and was now being harassed by the IRS for back taxes.
14:57By the end of 1965, 43-year-old Judy had been through four husbands.
15:02She was broke, exhausted, and completely drug-dependent.
15:06Judy again became suicidal. Dr. Mark Rablin was often called to the rescue.
15:11Usually, it was Liza who would call and say,
15:15And she'd have her wrists all sore, or she'd have her throat sore.
15:21And she just did this habitually.
15:24It's estimated that Judy attempted suicide more than 30 times.
15:29Was there any hope left after so many years of torment?
15:32Could Judy make yet another comeback, or had she lost her way for good?
15:36Straight ahead, what would the final crushing blow be that would send Judy Garland not over the rainbow, but over the edge?
15:45You don't know what it's like to see somebody you love crumble away in front of your eyes bit by bit and day by day.
15:58In the early 1960s, Judy Garland, now in her 40s, was the highest-paid concert performer in the world.
16:04Judy toured the globe from Hong Kong to Sydney to Athens.
16:08Audiences couldn't get enough.
16:10But what the public didn't know was that behind the curtain, Judy's life was falling apart.
16:14Despite all the money she was bringing in, Judy was broke.
16:17She was being hounded by the IRS for back taxes.
16:19And, of course, there was her ongoing battle with prescription drugs.
16:22Judy was losing.
16:24So how did one of the world's greatest entertainers end up penniless?
16:28Many suggest that Judy's agent, David Beigelman, embezzled millions of dollars from Garland.
16:33The money that Judy earned was sometimes picked up in Las Vegas by David, by David Beigelman, and carried out in a satchel.
16:42And Judy probably never saw any of it.
16:45Financial insecurity was an ongoing frustration for Judy.
16:48And they had to leave hotels because she didn't have the money to pay.
16:52And the immunizer has described to me how they put on all their clothes, everything they owned.
16:58They put a thing on top of the oven that put a coat on top.
17:01And they'd go stroll through the lobby and get in a taxi cab and go to another hotel.
17:07Never paid the bill.
17:09She called me at the office and she sounded quite terrible.
17:14She said, Alan, I want to come in and make records.
17:18I said, fine, Judy, you come on in.
17:20She said, I want a million dollars first.
17:23And I said, Judy, I can't do that.
17:25But come on in, let's make some records.
17:27She said, I want a million dollars, Alan.
17:29I'm a legend.
17:30I'm a legend.
17:31You've got to give it to me.
17:33In 1968, it looked like another comeback was underway when 46-year-old Judy was offered a coveted role in the film The Valley of the Dolls.
17:40These are the actual costume tests for the film.
17:43Longtime friend John Carlyle.
17:45The character of Nellie O'Hara supposedly was Judy Carlyle.
17:49Whereas Judy was signed to play the sort of Ethel Merman, older, tougher part.
17:54I think she was terrified because she would shut herself in that dressing room and not come out.
18:00You'll pardon me, but I do get the giggles.
18:04Because of her erratic behavior, Fox executives fired her from the movie after just one week.
18:10There were months in the late 60s when she had no money at all.
18:15She would stay in other people's apartments.
18:18So it was a desperate time.
18:20Having Judy stay over two or three nights was wonderful.
18:25Having her stay over for a few weeks would have killed me.
18:28Judy was not one to be alone for very long.
18:31In 1969, she married her fifth husband, discotheque manager Mickey Deans.
18:3620 years her junior.
18:38If you see pictures of her at her wedding to Mickey Deans in London in March of 1969, just thin was the thing.
18:46Overweight was no longer a problem then.
18:49She looked emaciated.
18:50I called her on her 47th birthday.
18:53She was all by herself and she was in bed.
18:56And I said, happy birthday, my love.
18:59And she asked me how my cat, Judy, was.
19:02I had two cats. One was named after Judy.
19:05Judy was very sick. My cat.
19:08And she said, oh, darling, put her up on the bed.
19:11And I did.
19:13And Judy sang Somewhere Over the Rainbow to that cat.
19:18And the cat lived longer than Judy.
19:24Judy Garland was found dead of a drug overdose in a London apartment on the morning of June 22, 1969.
19:31Despite her many suicide attempts, the coroner called Judy's death unintentional.
19:36She was just 47 years old.
19:38Judy Garland's funeral was unforgettable.
19:41And the funeral, of course, was very dignified and very beautiful.
19:44And then six strapping, six-foot men picked up the coffin and held it over their heads.
19:53And slowly walked up of the funeral.
19:57It was the most impressive.
20:00Much more than sad, it was impressive.
20:04Even beyond her illustrious accomplishments as an entertainer,
20:07Judy Garland's greatest legacy is the way she captured people's hearts.
20:11The honesty and vulnerability in her work made people feel as though they were looking into her soul.
20:15And they were.
20:17Judy will live on forever as Dorothy, a lost little girl trying to find her way home.
20:20But Judy Garland never would.
20:22That's a sad end for a woman who deserves so much better from life.
20:25I'm A.J. Benza.
20:27Join me the next time we take a stroll down the flip side of the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
20:33You know, I watch television a lot.
20:37And I enjoy it very much.
20:40But I always have the weird feeling that the people up there who are singing and smiling
20:46can see me actually sitting in my living room.
20:51But that's not true.
20:53Because I can't see anybody.
20:58It's not important though, because I can feel you're there.