THE EXPLOITATION OF JUDY GARLAND - PART TWO

According to Paul Donnelly’s remarkable 2007 biography, Garland was a lost child from an early age. When her beloved father Frank Gumm, a flagrant homosexual, died in 1935, the 13-year-old Garland lost her best friend and was left to the mercy of her despicable mother. “My father’s death was the most terrible thing that happened to me in my life,” she repeated over the years. The traumatic period created an unhealthy desire in the girl to seek out older men for love and marriage, many of whom turned out to be homosexual.

“I was always lonesome,” Garland later recalled. “The only time I felt accepted or wanted was when I was on stage performing. I guess the stage was my only friend; the only place where I could feel comfortable. It was the only place where I felt equal and safe.”

She certainly didn’t feel safe in the MGM offices of Louis B Mayer. “In our house the word of Louis B Mayer became the law,” Garland said later. He took to groping her in his offi ce, telling her as he put a hand on her left breast that she “sang from the heart”.

“I often thought I was lucky I didn’t sing from another part of my anatomy,” she once quipped. Blackmailed into a hectic work schedule by the constant fear that their contracts would be torn up, Garland, along with other young stars, were given adrenaline shots, followed by downers like Seconal.

Mayer even sent people to spy on her to see if she was sticking to her daily diet of chicken soup, black coffee and 80 cigarettes to curb her appetite. Cheating would result in a reprimand and a trip to a doctor to be given diet pills, which gave her insomnia.

When songwriter Arthur Freed approached Mayer with The Wizard Of Oz, the mogul immediately saw the potential of the book as a major musical. Although Garland was Freed’s fi rst choice for the role, Mayer preferred Shirley Temple, under contract to rival studio 20th Century Fox. When Fox refused to loan Temple to MGM, Garland won the part. While it was the break she (and Ethel) were waiting for, it was also to initiate the long slow decline that ended with Garland’s death at the age of 47 in 1969.

The child was forced to lose weight and was put on a special diet. Mayer’s spies followed her day and night to make sure she kept to it. Whenever she was caught in a soda fountain eaing one of her favourite sundaes she would be severely reprimanded. Even so, her breasts were bound with tape and she was made to wear a special corset to flatten out her curves and make her appear younger.

Worse still, much of the rest of the adult cast of The Wizard Of Oz resented the attention given to the teenager and were afraid she would upstage them in the movie. Instead of giving the insecure girl the support she desperately needed, she was shunned by the four male leads Bert Lahr (The Cowardly Lion), Ray Bolger (Scarecrow), Jack Haley (Tin Man) and Frank Morgan (Wizard of Oz). Ironically her one lifeline and adult friend on the set was Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West.

Although it seems incredible now, the song that was to make her famous, Somewhere Over The Rainbow, was nearly dropped from the film for being “too sentimental”. One can only imagine how Garland’s career might have progressed if the song had been removed.

Garland received a special juvenile Oscar at the 1940 Academy Awards for her performance in The Wizard Of Oz and her subsequent fi lm, Babes In Arms. It made her one of MGM’s most bankable stars and the most exploited.

Thanks to a deal struck by Mayer with her agent, a former bootlegger and pimp called Frank Orsatti, Garland was earning $500 a week. Her friend at MGM, Mickey Rooney, was on $5,000 a week. It was, as she remarked later, the beginning of the end.

At 17, Garland was a mess; her life was totally controlled by Mayer and Ethel. Even her love life, such as it was, was carefully monitored. Having lost her virginity at 15, Garland was in constant need of male companionship, especially after the death of her father. She had been linked with child stars Freddie Bartholomew, Jackie Cooper and Frankie Darro. Rooney was her best friend but when she began a putative romance with Tyrone Power, Mayer stepped in and scotched it.

Garland could not escape Mayer’s clutches even through a legitimate marriage. In May 1941 she got engaged to band leader David Rose. Despite planning a big wedding, the couple eloped to Las Vegas and married during the early hours of the morning on July 28, 1941, when Garland was 19, with just her mother Ethel and her stepfather Will Gilmore present.

When Garland discovered that she was pregnant in November 1942, Rose and MGM persuaded her to have an abortion in order to maintain her good-girl image. Her “inhumane actions” haunted for the rest of her life...