To an outside observer, Judy Garland epitomized Hollywood glamour — but there was a dark
side, too.
In Judy, Renée Zellweger throws herself into the titular role in a film that depicts Garland's
tumultuous life in 1968.
This is the untold truth of Judy.
It was only a matter of time before someone asked Judy Garland's eldest daughter Liza
Minelli to weigh in on the film Judy.
Unfortunately, her reaction wasn't exactly two thumbs up.
In a June 2019 interview with Entertainment Tonight, Minnelli claimed she hadn't watched
any of the trailers.
Although she sounded altogether ambivalent about the project, she did say some kind words
about the film's star, Renée Zellweger.
"I think she's a wonderful actress.
And I just hope they don't do what they always do.
That's all I've got to say."
It's an altogether softer stance than the sentiment expressed in a since-deleted Facebook
post from June 2018.
According to Vanity Fair, Minelli's post read:
"I have never met nor spoken to Renée Zellweger . . . I don’t know how these stories get
started, but I do not approve nor sanction the upcoming film about Judy Garland in any
way.
Any reports to the contrary are 100% Fiction."
Convincingly portraying one of Hollywood's all-time legends is no small feat, and actress
Renée Zellweger certainly rose to the challenge.
According to People, her preparation for the role was intense and meticulous: She read
every book about Judy Garland that she could get her hands on.
To transform Zellweger into the late star, the makeup team used every trick at their
disposal, including various prosthetics, wigs, and contact lenses.
The process took two hours every day, but it was certainly worth it: As you can see,
the end result is uncanny.
And then there's the singing.
We've known Zellweger could carry a tune ever since she starred in the 2002 film adaptation
of Chicago … but her work in Judy is something else altogether.
Zellweger sings every song herself — and the trailer gives us a tantalizing taste of
her interpretations of "Over the Rainbow," "Come Rain or Shine," and "The Trolley Song."
As director Rupert Goold points out:
"All the vocals in the film are live."
And perhaps wisely, Goold advised Zellweger against trying to replicate Garland's voice.
He revealed in a statement:
“I made it clear to Renée that I wasn’t looking for an impersonation of Judy Garland’s
inimitable voice, but what I wanted was for Renée to make the songs her own.”
Although Judy is a biopic, Renée Zellweger thinks the film offers more than just a superficial
peek into the life and times of Judy Garland.
According to Vanity Fair, Zellweger hopes the film will help viewers understand Garland's
difficult life — and all the ordeals she endured in order to succeed in showbiz.
As Zellweger puts it,
"[This was] a time when women didn't necessarily feel that they had power over their own lives."
Zellweger was troubled to learn how Garland's self-esteem was often trounced by the words
and misdeeds of managers, studio heads, and industry people — and she hopes the film
sheds light on this troubling aspect of Garland's experiences in show business.
And since Judy focuses on one of the most stressful phases of Garland's life, she believes
the film will highlight a whole new side of the entertainer.
As she explains it,
"When there's a better understanding of what it takes for a person to continue under certain
circumstances, there is a level of empathy and respect that you can't help but feel."
Viewers who only know Renée Zellweger from the Bridget Jones films may not realize what
an immense talent she is.
"Fine, I will go home and de-bunny."
In 2003, she won an Academy Award for "Best Actress in a Supporting Role" for her work
in Cold Mountain.
“I know your plight."
"My plight?"
"Am I hard to hear?
'Cuz you keep repeating everything.”
Meanwhile, she has plenty of other honors to her name — including three Golden Globe
Awards, a BAFTA Award, and two more Academy Award nominations.
But Zellweger took a six-year hiatus from the movie business in 2010 after working herself
to the ground.
As she told Vulture in September 2019,
“I wasn’t healthy.
I wasn’t taking care of myself.
I was the last thing on my list of priorities.”
Her comeback film was 2016's Bridget Jones' Baby, which received mixed reviews.
Since then, she's only made two other films — Here and Now and Same Kind of Different
as Me -- along with her memorable performance in the Netflix series What/If.
"Mm, I don't like to drink alone.
Pour yourself a whiskey."
With Judy, Zellweger might be taking on the meatiest role of her career — and outlets
like Variety and IndieWire are already predicting another Academy Award nomination.
Guess we'll just have to wait and see.
As the Judy trailer shows us, the movie will be touching upon Judy Garland's experiences
filming The Wizard of Oz — inarguably her most famous film.
It's highly unlikely those scenes will be happy ones.
"No, it was an accident.
I didn't mean to kill anybody."
According to Biography, Garland signed a contract with MGM in 1935 when she was just thirteen
years old — and the studio reportedly didn't treat her well at all.
MGM allegedly controlled Garland's weight with ruthless diet programs that included
amphetamine-based prescription pills.
And once she became popular, they reportedly piled more and more work on the actress — with
little to no regard for her health.
"The working schedule … you know, we just did one picture after another."
Making 1939's The Wizard of Oz was reportedly a particularly dark time for Garland.
The disastrous project was marred by numerous setbacks, injuries, and behind-the-scenes
meddling — and 17-year-old Garland was in the middle of it all.
Meanwhile, in the book Judy and I: My Life with Judy Garland, the performer's late ex-husband
Sid Luft claimed that Garland was assaulted by the actors playing the Munchkins:
"They would make Judy's life miserable on set by putting their hands under her dress."
According to the Irish Independent, Garland wasn't MGM's first choice for the role of
Dorothy — but Shirley Temple and Deanna Durbin weren't available.
The film's various directors all had radically different ideas about how Garland should look
and act — and the studio reportedly gave her hell.
It's been reported that Garland's closest cast members were jealous of her, and she
failed to get any support from the actors playing The Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion,
the Tin Man, or the Wizard.
Ironically, she was reportedly on great terms with Wicked Witch of the West actress Margaret
Hamilton.
"The Ruby Slippers… what have you done with them?
Give them back to me or I'll…"
"It's too late.
There they are and there they'll stay."
There's no arguing with the fact that Judy Garland is a gay icon.
It remains to be seen how the film Judy will address this fact.
While some people believe her death was the impetus for the Stonewall riots in 1969, experts
disagree with that prevailing myth.
As David Carter wrote in Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution:
"[The] only account written in 1969 that suggests that Garland’s death contributed to the
riots is by a heterosexual who sarcastically proposes the idea to ridicule gay people and
the riots.”
David Shipman's book Judy Garland: The Secret Life of an American Legend claims that the
actress was bisexual herself.
The book asserts that she had an impressive number of affairs, even bedding down at least
one woman who worked at MGM — though the book doesn't name names.
In an interview from the late '60s, Garland reacted to a notorious article in Time that
read in part:
"Judy Garland, for some reason which was not clear to me, attracts a lot of homosexuals."
"Oh, I think that is the most ridiculous thing because I have in my audience, I have, little
children."
She goes on to say that her audience is rounded out by teenagers and people her own age, and
then describes the author of the Time story like this:
"Talk about homosexuals.
Well, she… she…
Well, she was a fella."
Well.
It was a different time.
Drugs were a big part of Judy Garland's life from an early age.
Judging by the trailer, Judy certainly doesn't shy away from this fact: Renée Zellweger's
Garland can be seen popping pills even in the presence of her own children.
"Mom, please don't go to sleep now."
"No, no, no, these are the other ones."
Garland's own mother Ethel Gumm reportedly started feeding her so-called "pep pills"
in order to keep her performances reliably perky at a young age.
Meanwhile, MGM-affiliated doctors continued the practice in order to control her weight
and energy.
Speaking to biographer Paul Donnelley, here's how Garland described the daily routine that
she and fellow child star Mickey Rooney would follow:
"They’d take us to the studio hospital and knock us out with sleeping pills­ [...]. Then
after four hours they’d wake us up and give us the pep pills again so we could work 72
hours in a row.
Half of the time we were hanging from the ceiling but it was a way of life for us."
Garland's steady drug use led to a lifelong struggle with addiction and, ultimately, her
untimely death by accidental overdose in 1969 — the year after the events of the film.
As legendary actress Bette Davis said,
"For a talent like Miss Garland, it's just tragic — they don't come around like that
very often."
As we mentioned, the bulk of Judy takes place in 1968, when Garland was performing some
of her final concerts while trying to deal with a host of personal and professional problems.
In the trailer for the film, it looks like Garland's relationship with Mickey Deans — played
by Finn Wittrock — is one of the few positive things in her life at the time.
"Surprise!"
"Mickey!
Aah!"
Nevertheless, many aspects of their relationship were rather dark.
According to People, the couple first met in 1966 when he was delivering some pills
to her — uppers, to be exact.
Perhaps that's not the optimal start to a healthy relationship, but there's no way to
know whether their marriage would have worked out in the long run.
On June 22th, 1969 — only three months after Deans became Garland's fifth husband — he
found her lifeless corpse in the bathroom.
"A British coroners report says that Judy Garland died Sunday from accidentally taking
too many Seconal sleeping pills."
Garland was only forty-seven years old at the time of her death.
Judy is based on the musical drama End of the Rainbow by Peter Quilter, which has had
successful runs on both Broadway and London's West End.
"I was looking in the mirror just now and uh, it wasn't me looking back."
The play, like the film, is set in 1968 and finds Judy Garland performing a series of
shows at a London establishment called Talk of the Town.
As we mentioned, Renée Zellweger has expressed hope that the film portrays Garland in a positive
light.
But in its less-than-flattering review of End of the Rainbow, The Hollywood Reporter
wrote:
"[The portrayal of] Garland is vulgar and volatile, favoring the spiky side over the
fragility.
She’s also a clown, notably when panting and rolling over like a dog after downing
a handful of pills meant for canine consumption."
That same review says that Mickey Deans is also portrayed in an unfavorable light:
"[He's] a one-dimensional opportunist."
Hopefully, the film will be a more well-rounded portrayal of the iconic and incredibly complex
woman.
As her daughter Liza Minelli says,
"I don't think people wanna hear necessarily sometimes about her humor.
I think they'd just rather know the sad side of her."
Garland's early years were full of acting and dancing lessons, as well as performances
in the family act The Gumm Sisters alongside her two older siblings.
Garland reportedly wasn't thrilled about how her mother Ethel Gumm pushed her toward stardom.
Gumm forced young Garland to perform at nightclubs and other venues that were incredibly inappropriate
for a young child … just one of the many reasons that Garland apparently referred to
her as, quote, "The real Wicked Witch of the West."
Garland certainly didn't speak fondly of her mother in interviews:
"I don't think I liked her well enough to learn and…
I was just scared."
Speaking to Barbara Walters In 1967, the actress had this to say about her mother:
"When I was a little girl, If I didn't feel good, if I was sick to my tummy, she'd say,
'You get out and sing or I'll wrap you around the bedpost and break you off short!'"
Even the Wicked Witch of the West didn't do that.
Judy Garland's marriage to producer Sid Luft lasted the longest.
Garland got together with Sid Luft after she'd been dropped by MGM and was recovering from
a suicide attempt.
According to The New Yorker, their relationship was as much professional as it was romantic:
Luft felt extremely protective of Garland, and their marriage ultimately lasted for 13
years.
Luft was a driving force behind Garland's successful comeback, which consisted of live
performances in New York and London in the early fifties — as well as her Oscar-nominated
performance in the 1954 remake of the 1937 film A Star Is Born.
And yes, that's the same film Bradley Cooper remade in 2018 with Lady Gaga in the title
role.
Unfortunately, Garland's addiction to drugs and other issues eventually took a toll on
their relationship.
By 1962, their marriage was beyond salvation.
However, Garland's self-destructive tendencies might not have been the only contributing
factor to the collapse of the marriage.
In their 1965 divorce hearing, Garland reportedly told the judge that Luft had been abusive
on a number of occasions.
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide
Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).