Born in 1922, singer and actress Judy Garland was undisputedly one of the most talented performers of the 20th century. Throughout her short but illustrious career that began at the early age of two and ended at age 47 in 1969, she appeared in nearly 40 films, recorded hundreds of songs, and performed thousands of concerts across the globe.
Judy Garland’s fan base was extensive to say the least during her lifetime, and still today, 46 years after her death, fans from nearly every part of the world congregate online and in person to discuss their favorite singer and the many ways she has impacted their lives.
I am one of those people.
My mother gave my first Judy Garland CD when I was around five years old, and I played it daily on my pink Hello Kitty CD player while coloring, playing with dolls, and while lying in bed at night. I loved all of the 20 songs on the aptly titled album Judy Garland At Her Best, especially the up beat number titled “The Trolley Song”, which would send me dancing across the room or clapping my hands and stomping my feet in time with the “clang, clang, clang” of the trolley bells.
As I got older, my love for Judy Garland was pushed to the back of my mind and forgotten about. Overly concerned with fitting in with friends at school, I frequently transformed my likes and interests to conform to those of my peers in a desperate, and often futile, attempt to fit in. My favorite musicians fluctuated based on whoever was most popular at the time, ranging from country singer Reba McEntire to indie/pop band Never Shout Never and even to a brief interest in Justin Bieber.
Reaching high school was a turning point. Following freshman year, I decided that I no longer cared about fitting in. I made new friends, I joined clubs, and I explored interests and topics that for once actually interested me. I had grown up with Rogers and Hammerstein musicals and remembered how much I loved them, so I decided that I would explore the world of Old Hollywood movie musicals a little more. I started with Singin’ in the Rain, and decided that I would like to see more movies starring Gene Kelly. One of my friends bought me a collection of Gene Kelly movies for Christmas, and I picked one of the four movies randomly as my first conscious foray into the world of Old Hollywood – it turned out to be a movie from 1942 called For Me and My Gal.
Little did I know that this movie was the beginning of something more, I was about to fall down the rabbit hole. Putting the movie into my DVD player I settled in on to my bed and was immediately entranced. Gene Kelly was as amazing as was to be expected, but the female lead was the one that really caught my attention. Something about her voice, the way she looked, the way she danced was extremely familiar to me, extremely captivating. I paused the movie to look her up – it was Judy Garland.
I watched the movie again immediately after it finished, and again I was a little girl listening to Judy Garland sing as she fell asleep. The next day after suffering through yet another day of high school I came home to do some research – I fished out my old CD, and I began to listen to Judy Garland again. I listened to every song I could find on YouTube, rented all of the movies I could find on OnDemand and iTunes, watched documentaries, and started reading biographies. I bought a 700-page biography on Amazon and devoured it in a week by lugging it to school with me, not worried about the judgment from others that would certainly occur when they saw what I was reading, and read in between classes, during lunch, and while walking through the halls.
Something about this woman, this tiny 4’11’’ woman with a huge voice, a huge personality, and even bigger problems captivated me, and connected with me. Even before arriving at MGM Studios to begin making movies, Judy was medicated by her mother than later the all-powerful studio to ensure that she could work the long hours required of her and other movie stars. She would be given pills to sleep at night, pills to wake her up in the morning, and more pills still if she still didn’t have the energy the studios demanded she have. She was put on restrictive diets, told she was ugly, told she was fat, and was told who she could and could not associate with.
Because of this mistreatment, throughout her life she faced bouts of extreme anxiety and depression, and felt isolated from and abandoned by those around her. Despite her own personal feelings and emotional state however, Judy was a trooper – she worked as much and as hard as she possibly could, working to please her audiences, wanting to give everything she possibly could to those that came to see her that she bared her soul for them, and the world, to see. She loved those around her dearly, bringing joy to those who knew her personally with her sense of humor and sensitivity, always striving to provide for those around her, whether it be her children or an acquaintance, the nurturing and support that she had so longed for.
But Judy Garland was in no way perfect. Her mood would swing from happiness to the deepest sadness quickly, and the pills she took only exacerbated these fluctuations. There were times when her mood would spiral so low that she would refuse to perform, angry at those around her who had mistreated her, and unwittingly or even intentionally harm herself or those around her.
Her voice, her singing, served as an outlet for these emotions, allowing Judy to display her feelings openly to those around her, and allow these emotions, whether they were jubilant or devastating, to be felt by the audience alongside her. Her voice could soar with optimism then be leaden with tears and sorrow, never failing to elicit a similar response from her audience. While singing her arms would be outstretched towards this audience, as if she was trying to take the crowd of strangers into her arms and embrace them as they shared in this experience of true emotion together.
Perhaps this is why I have always been so drawn to Judy Garland. As someone who has also suffered from anxiety and depression, seeing someone who struggled with their own personal demons act so selflessly, be so willing to aid others when she could not help herself, and be so unafraid to show the world how she was feeling inside is endlessly inspirational. Despite her shortcomings and personal setbacks, of which there were certainly many, she ultimately left the world a better place than it was when she entered it, although she was occasionally too depressed to even rouse herself from her bed, or to believe in her ability to go on living.
Giving herself freely to the world through her voice and her performances, and inspiring those like me to keep going, to give more of ourselves to others, to share our feelings, to try and to never give up are her gifts to myself and to everyone like me, and for this I am eternally grateful to Judy Garland.
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