Judy Garland: A Biography Page 5

  Frost asked Miss Taylor how Como’s career was affected by this incident.

  “He was blackballed from every studio in Hollywood for four or five years—maybe more,” she replied.

  Frost pressed on, asking her if she thought it had been worth it.

  “Oh, you bet it was worth it! I think that was one of his [Perry Como’s] golden moments,” she said.

  The one party Judy apparently did not object to appearing at was given for Clark Gable. She was, in fact, very much excited about it, as Gable was her idol. She spent a good deal of time rehearsing with Roger Edens the number she was to sing. Her selection had been “Drums in My Heart”—a Merman song. Edens insisted she drop it, as it was not for a fourteen-year-old girl. Reluctantly, Judy agreed to sing, in its place, a preface—“Dear Mr. Gable”—composed by Edens for “You Made Me Love You.” It told the story of a teen-ager who had a crush on Gable. At the party, Judy was placed inside a huge birthday cake, and as Edens began the song, she popped out. (According to Judy, years later Gable told her, “Judy, I had a birthday the other day and I hid. I was afraid you’d jump out and sing that song again!”)

  Mayer liked the song and the way Judy sang it. With Judy, it was included in Broadway Melody of 1938 (made in 1936 and released in 1937). Before the film was released, Judy was cast in three others—in one, Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry, opposite Mickey. The studio, feeling certain Judy’s star was in the ascendant, wanted to be prepared.

  Metro’s Broadway Melody series had begun several years before and primarily introduced new contract talent. Paramount did the same thing with the Gold Diggers series and Fox with George White’s Scandals. Robert Taylor was the star of the ’38 Broadway Melody, while Eleanor Powell, George Murphy, Binnie Barnes, Buddy Ebsen, Sophie Tucker, Robert Benchley, Billy Gilbert, and Judy supported him.

  Bosley Crowther’s review of Broadway Melody of 1938 in The New York Times confirmed their confidence:

  There are individual successes in the film . . . the amazing precocity of Judy Garland, Metro’s answer to Deanna Durbin . . . Miss Garland particularly has a long tour de force in which she addresses lyrical apostrophes to a picture of Clark Gable. The idea and words are almost painfully silly—yet Judy . . . puts it over—in fact with a bang.

  Her best review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter, which had as a headline:

  NEW “B’WAY MELODY OF ’38” PEAK OF EXTRAVAGANZAS

  TUCKER, GARLAND, MURPHY HIGHLIGHTS

  The second paragraph of the review carries these accolades for Judy:

  The sensational work of young Judy Garland causes wonder as to why she has been kept under wraps these many months. She sings two numbers that are show stoppers and does a dance with Buddy Ebsen. Hers is a distinctive personality well worth careful promotion.

  Judy was a hit, but not yet a star. Nearly two years were to pass before she would be considered one. In the meantime, in Judy’s words, “Metro thought they were raising me. They were just dreadful . . . They had a theory that they were all-powerful and they ruled by fear. What better way to make young persons behave than to scare the hell out of them every day? That’s the way we worked . . . that’s the way we got mixed up. And that’s the way we lost contact with the world.”

  At home she was being called Baby, Monkey, and Pudge. At the studio the image she saw of herself was short, fat, and unglamorous. Even Mayer referred to her as “my little hunchback.” At the same time, she was surrounded daily by the most beautiful women in the world; this made her painfully self-conscious. Doubts about her ability began to obsess her. Called to Mayer’s office, she was told by him that she had to stop cheating on her diet procedure (she would sneak off for a malted or an ice cream cone at the corner drugstore, but studio spies always turned her in); that the studio had a big investment in her; and that without the studio she was nothing. She was, therefore, immediately placed in the hands of a studio doctor and started on a new diet pill. She began slimming down, but as a side effect had trouble sleeping at night. The Metro doctor had a cure for that: Seconals before bedtime.

  She was fourteen years old, and her lifetime battle with pills had begun.

  Footnotes

  * All of the Chicago mobsters mentioned were finally brought to justice in 1941 and convicted and imprisoned on extortion charges. Nitti committed suicide the day the indictments were returned. Bioff was blown to bits after his release from prison by an explosive device wired to his car’s ignition system so that it was detonated when he stepped on the starter. Giou and Maritote were shot to death after their release.

  * In 1935 the studio listed the following as stars: Lionel Barrymore, Freddie Bartholomew, Wallace Beery, Joan Crawford, Nelson Eddy, Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, Gladys George, Helen Hayes, Charles Laughton, Myrna Loy, Jeanette MacDonald, the Marx Brothers, Robert Montgomery, Eleanor Powell, William Powell, Luise Rainer, Norma Shearer, Robert Taylor, Spencer Tracy, and Warren Williams. Still considered supporting players were, among many others, Melvyn Douglas, Judy, George Murphy, Maureen O’Sullivan, Walter Pidgeon, Mickey Rooney, Rosalind Russell, James Stewart, Franchot Tone, Sophie Tucker, Johnny Weissmuller, and Robert Young.

  8“Oh, the early days at MGM were a lot of laughs,’ Judy once told an interviewer. “It was all right if you were young and frightened—and we stayed frightened. Look at us—Lana Turner, Elizabeth Taylor, Mickey Rooney, and me—we all came out of there a little ticky and kooky.”

  To coin a cliché, the studio was a great place to visit, but not to live. It was very exciting, but no part of life there was real. Consider the impact of being faced with an army of cavalry in full attire upon leaving a schoolroom; and behind the cavalry, the infantry—followed by a circus. Imagine the result of, at the age of thirteen, living daily with truckloads of soap flakes to simulate snow, ketchup for blood, cupboards filled with cardboard food, celluloid swans in front of cellophane waterfalls, buildings with no backs, jungles made of paper, rocks of plaster—and everywhere you looked, the baroque, the outdated, the discarded.

  It is quite easy to speculate that Judy, having lost her father and being insecure in this unreal environment and needing acceptance, would do everything in her power in a desperate desire to please Ethel. From this point of her life until the end of her Metro days, she was forced to suppress her own personal needs and desires. For one solid decade she was to eat what others wanted her to eat, wear what they set out for her, see the people they desired. Her day was ruled by the studio, her private life policed. She led a robot existence, controlled by Ethel and by Mayer. Mickey Rooney was an outside force, but he fed her dreams of fame and fortune that seemed to substantiate Mayer’s and Ethel’s philosophies.

  But one person—Roger Edens—was contributive to her growth. A brilliant musician, a sensitive man, Edens was the only one to truly extend compassion during those painful years of her adolescence. And all he wanted from her was for her to be the great artist he believed she was. She trusted him completely, always bowing to his artistic and musical knowledge, confiding the most personal things in her life, confident he would never betray her—and he never did.

  He was a genuinely beautiful human being, but he lacked a fighting spirit. He was always in Judy’s corner, ready with the towel, the comforting words, the caring; but he did not know how to send her out into the ring with advice on how to win—nor was he able to step in and do battle for her. To the frightened, insecure girl he gave his devotion; he represented all that was good in life.

  Another man, Arthur Freed, now came into her life. Freed was a songwriter on contract and had written the lyrics of “Singin’ in the Rain,” “I Cried for You,” and “You Were Meant for Me,” among other songs. But songwriting did not satisfy his ambitions. He wanted to produce film musicals. There is no question that Arthur Freed recognized Judy’s potential, but first and foremost he saw his own future in that talent. Not powerful enough to get on another star’s or director’s bandwagon, he concentrated, and indeed chanced Judy’s eventu
ally having one of her own.

  Freed coauthored songs for most of her early films. By his own admission, no one else, before or since, ever was able to interpret and phrase a lyric of his as Judy did. “She got into the hearts of her audience,” he said. Freed, however, never won Judy’s heart. She trusted him because Edens assured her of his musical know-how.

  After her part in Broadway Melody of 1938, Judy was cast in a happy, unpretentious racing film—Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry. The film had been written for Freddie Bartholomew, but Bartholomew was tied up in the unfortunate sequence of custody trials between his parents and his Aunt “Cissy.”* The film was delayed, the studio waiting as long as it could for Bartholomew. Finally, another English boy—Ronald Sinclair—was cast in the role of the son of a lord who brings his horse to America to recoup the family’s fortunes.

  Mickey Rooney appeared as a jockey (a forerunner of many future roles) and Judy as the teen-age daughter of the woman (Sophie Tucker) who ran a boardinghouse for jockeys. It was the first time Judy and Mickey were onscreen together. The chemistry was unquestionable. The film was appealing, but little more. Judy sang one Arthur Freed-Nacio Herb Brown song —“A New Pair of Shoes.” She gave it all the heart and all the energy she had. She was above the material, and MGM now knew they had a property. Further, they decided they had a team. But Rooney was lined up for another film. There would be a four-to-five-month hiatus before they could appear together again.

  Judy was cast in two films without time to breathe between them or after the one she had just completed. Both were strenuous films and the hours grueling, and Judy had to slim even more for the roles. Surviving on Mayer’s dictate of a chicken-soup diet and diet pills, she was to faint several times from hunger. It was suggested that she needed more sleep, but all the pills she took were “uppers” (pep pills). A new system was inaugurated. Between setups and other performers’ scenes (time lags of one to three hours), Judy would be escorted to the studio hospital and given a strong enough dosage of Nembutal to put her immediately to sleep. Fifteen minutes before she was to appear before the cameras, she was awakened, fed a handful of uppers and sent back onto the stage.

  Footnote

  * Aunt Cissy had brought the boy to America with his parents’ consent; but when he was earning thousands weekly, his parents and his sisters wanted a whopping percentage of his earnings or custody. The boy chose to remain with his aunt. After several years of costly court appearances, Aunt Cissy won custody—Bartholomew being ordered to pay his parents 20 percent of his weekly earnings and an additional 15 percent to the support of his sisters.

  9Everybody Sing came next. Harry Rapf produced the film, which co-starred Judy with Allan Jones and Fanny Brice. It was the first time she received stellar billing. Advertising for it stated: “Here comes the funniest musical comedy of 1938! It’s MGM’s star-packed swing treat! Funny Fanny Brice brings her famous Good News radio character, Baby Snooks, to the screen! Allan Jones sings those love songs as only he can! Adorable Judy Garland zooms to stardom on wings of song!”

  Everybody did sing in the film—too often, and with inferior material. But Judy, aided by Roger Edens’ arrangements and “interpolations,” displayed her talent as a superb vocal technician. Expert cameraman Joseph Ruttenberg photographed the film and, using extra closeups, captured the essence of Judy’s appeal. The trembling lip, the mouth that was fighting despair to laugh, the quivering chin, the dewy about-to-cry eyes filled the screen. Judy was no longer just a prodigy voice. She was a vulnerable young woman who registered pain and past indignities. She was insecure and humble, but never down. She was plain, uneducated, a brown sparrow who had a natural golden voice that made her feathers gleam and the world take note. Audiences walked out of the darkened theaters forgetting both the film and the other cast players; forgetting their own private post-Depression blues. What they remembered was the throb of the small sparrow heart, the quick glad-to-be-alive smile, and the voice that contained both laughter and tears.

  Rosen and Ethel were aware of what had happened and that Judy’s contract, though providing for semiannual raises, did not pay well enough for her new position. The front office was implacable on the terms, but Rosen did obtain a $200-a-week salary for Ethel as compensation. Supposedly Judy’s coach and manager, Ethel was now on the Metro payroll, owing her first allegiance to Mayer.

  For Judy, there was little time to think about what was happening to her. Listen Darling began shooting within twenty-four hours of the roll-up of Everybody Sing. Once again Edens was by her side. Directed, as the last picture had been, by Edwin Marin, Listen Darling was superior material in all areas. The script was natural and sensible; the cast excellent (Mary Astor, Freddie Bartholomew, Walter Pidgeon and Alan Hale); and the songs—“Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart,” “On a Bumpy Road to Love,” “Nobody’s Baby,” and “Ten Pins in the Sky”—tailored for Judy, who was also given more of an opportunity to act.

  Mickey was now preparing a new Andy Hardy film. He was Metro’s leading boy star. The studio had cast him opposite Bartholomew in two films—The Devil Is a Sissy and Captains Courageous. The contrast of personalities served him well. The scrappy, tough kid who also had heart was a crowd pleaser. Metro put him in every film that had a role for him. He was all over the lot—doing impersonations; singing; dancing up a storm; being tough and rough with a heart of pure butter; being mischievous, moving and merry. In 1938 he won a miniature Oscar as the outstanding boy juvenile (Boys Town) that year. It is incredible how fast his star had ascended. In 1937 he had placed 104th in the Motion Picture Heralds annual popularity poll. By 1938 he was number 3, topped only by Clark Gable and Shirley Temple.

  Mickey made the first Andy Hardy film, A Family Affair, in 1937. It was a low-budget picture based on an old play, Skidding, by Aurania Rouverel that Metro owned and dusted off in its harried efforts to keep Mickey before cameras and public. No matter what the studio anticipated as audience reaction, it did not expect the clamoring for more following the release of the film.

  Immediately the studio fed to exhibitors Judge Hardy’s Children and Out West with the Hardys. The series had caught on and was snowballing. It was proving to be, among other things, a great showcase for new young talent. It was natural for Mayer to want Judy to make her second appearance with Mickey in a Hardy film. Love Finds Andy Hardy was quickly readied. In this film, Judy, the daughter of a musical-comedy actress, was a young girl visiting the Hardys’ next-door neighbors. Andy finds her a nuisance until he discovers she can sing. But even then he is torn by his feelings for his high school sweetheart (Ann Rutherford) and a teen-age vamp (Lana Turner). It was the best of the series to that point, although Judy’s role was the least effective. In order to allow her to sing several numbers, the scenario suffered.

  In many respects it was a backward step from Listen Darling. But once more electricity crackled when Rooney and Garland were onscreen together. Confident that it had found a golden team—double moneymakers like Eddy and MacDonald, Beery and Dressier, Rogers and Astaire—the studio sent out its order: line up a series of starring vehicles for these two.

  Mickey was Judy’s first attraction to a boy in her own age category and her oldest friend and confidant. They had shared much, knew each other well—yet Mickey was squiring other girls to parties and restaurants, all of them more glamorous than Judy. The insecurities, the inferiorities became more ingrown.

  At the same time, she was attending the studio school with a select few—Lana Turner, Ann Rutherford, June Preisser, Ava Gardner—and surrounded on the lot by the most beautiful women in the world. Garbo, Lamarr, Colbert, Myrna Loy, Luise Rainer—the list seemed endless, and beauty and glamour appeared endowed upon all but herself. Never in her lifetime did she consider herself a beautiful woman, always very conscious of the absence of two ingredients she equated with beauty: a good figure and lovely thick, long hair. Forever starving herself and being harassed about her figure, she also was continually attendant to the “faults�
�� of her natural hair. It was thin, and onscreen she wore pieces and falls; a naturally mousy brown, it was reluctant to curl or grow. Sitting in the small MGM schoolroom surrounded by the luxurious and lovely tresses of Turner and Gardner—both girls Mickey dated—could not have helped raise her desperately flagging ego.

  For over a year Arthur Freed had buttonholed Mayer whenever and wherever he could and spoken to him about the possibility of his producing a film. Freed lacked charm and even a cultural veneer—qualities Mayer admired in men who did not have power or money. Although Mayer thought the young man was capable, he was not swayed to play God in his case or to make it easy for him. “You find a property, a story—maybe then,” he said in passing.

  Freed took the bait. Two things appeared certain. His first film had to be a musical, in which he would be sure of his footing, and it had to have a star role for one of the young contract players. It was natural that he should think of Judy Garland.

  Employing the help of readers, secretaries, friends, and family, he scoured the available properties. Nothing. But then, someone mentioned The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. It was owned by Sam Goldwyn and had been for several years, but Goldwyn had shelved the project. To Freed’s credit, he saw the tremendous musical potential of the property, which Goldwyn had not. And from the moment he read it, he could visualize Judy as Dorothy.