Monday, March 19, 2012

Judy Garland and the great city of Sydney, Australia

Australia’s first and largest city is Sydney established in 1788. One can tell a great city by its buildings, museums and infrastructure and Sydney fulfills all these expectations.  When I was about eight years old in England, I spent a year in a geography class studying Australia and I remember at the end of the year I could draw the outline of the coast freehand.   In the 1970s my daughter spent her year at an English school on the geography of New Zealand.  I wonder if these studies continue at this time.  Certainly the young people in England are still fascinated with these countries “down under” and many of my friends and relatives have young relatives immigrating and starting new lives there. 

In February this year I spent five days in Sydney, Australia.  I had always wanted to visit this city after Judy’s successful concerts in 1964.

The following is an extract from my book “Always for Judy”

Judy at press reception
Judy’s television series had ended and she planned shows in Australia.   On May 11 1964 Judy and Mark Herron, her companion, arrived in Sydney along with conductor, Mort Lindsey and others. There was a large press reception at the airport and Judy seemed relaxed and happy.  In the evening she gave a press reception at the Hilton Hotel for about forty reporters, including interviews for radio and television.  
On Wednesday, May 13th she gave a successful concert for 10,000 people at the Sydney Stadium and on May 16th she gave an even more successful concert;  performing for more than 90 minutes singing about 23-24 songs including ‘The Man That Got Away’, ‘Swanee’, ‘When You’re Smiling’ and ‘As Long as He Needs Me’.
Performing before 10,000 people at Sports Arena

It is reported that the Immigration people confiscated Judy’s medicine.  Medicine stays in the body for a few days and Judy was fine during the Sydney concerts but she had not been able to obtain her regular medicine, probably Ritalin, in Australia.  Judy went by train to Melbourne on May 19th which was probably a mistake and she arrived exhausted.  She attempted to give a concert the next day but it was not a success because she was unwell although she managed to get through fifteen songs.
The Melbourne Sunday Herald reported on May 20, 1964 how kindly the staff at the hotel thought of her, so the trip to Melbourne was not all bad.  They presented her with a toy koala bear and card from maids to manager, saying, “A very small Australian mascot, but a lot of good wishes.” They found her quiet, polite and agreeable and when she left she told assistant supervisor, Mr. Clarry Crew, “I really appreciate what everyone has done for me.  I think you’ve all been wonderful.  I’ve never had service like it anywhere in the world.”  These comments are important because they show how charming Judy was when she was treated with kindness.

As I lived and worked in many of the places where Judy performed, I needed to be in Sydney and understand the city and people who gave her such a great welcome.  I know you cannot understand a people until you are actually on the ground in their city.   So finally I was in Australia with Cathy and Chelsea.   Immigration and the officials are smiling and friendly.   We must seem an unlikely trio.  Cathy and Chelsea have passports from New Zealand, I have a U.S. passport but I am obviously English.  Cathy and I have the same coloring and could be related, but Chelsea is exotic with dark, dark hair and a very pale complexion.  Somehow we don’t have the correct entry forms and rush to try and fill them in standing in front of the Immigration Officer.  Now I have gone through many Immigration check points and the officials are usually very formal and impersonal.  This man was very tolerant of our confusion and it was as much as he could do not to laugh out loud.   
In the fifties about 90% of the population were from Britain and Ireland – the rest being the first immigrants, the Aborigines.   After this time the government made a concerted effort to increase immigration and many people came from Eastern Europe and Asia.  But when Judy performed in Sydney the majority of the people would have been British.  These were the same people who had greeted her in London in 1951, 1957 and 1960; the same people who had loved her in the MGM musical and listened to her recordings through the years.   No wonder her concerts were so successful.
But then there is Melbourne.  There has always been animosity between the two cities, particularly on the part of Melbourne.  I caught an example of this attitude at Sydney airport on my way home.  I was waiting with a lady who had flown up from Melbourne and when I asked about her town, she said, “Oh I love it, so such a beautiful civilized city so cultured, not like Sydney” which she dismissed as being rough and uncouth.  This might help to explain why the people of Melbourne did not welcome her with open arms the way Sydney did.  If Sydney liked her, they would not.   But the main entry point into Australia was Sydney in 1964, as it is now and so it was logical for the first concerts to be there.   We spent the next few days exploring the exciting city with a bus and ferry pass from our hotel at Potts Point and Kings Cross Station (all stations, trains and buses are clean and well run).  
My first impression as we leave Kings Cross Station is that it reminded me of New York with beautiful trees everywhere; later I revise this to San Francisco when I see all the many beautiful bays.  
  
We have a nice clean room with two double beds and a small kitchen stocked with tea, coffee and milk.  We quickly take off with our bus pass to explore.  The 311 bus goes past our hotel and we catch a bus; where to, who knows?    Chelsea has eagle eyes and spies the Circular Quay and we get off and catch the first ferry we see, which is going to Darling Harbor
I am sure that if we had been on an organized tour we would have been brought to the highlights of the city quicker, but I wanted to savor the place and try to understand the people.  Our bus rides in the next few days took us all over the city, through the beautiful Royal Botanic Gardens once or twice a day.  We rode the ferry boats and talked to people; or at least I did.   Towards the end of our few days, when I had asked an old lady about the walker she used and tried it out, Chelsea commented, “you really do like to talk to people!”   People interest me and so no one is a stranger; one can learn so much from people.  One such woman talked to me for half an hour on a bus one day and I learned so much about the city.  She came from Chile and was half Spanish and half Irish; with no Indian blood she insisted with a smile.
Another day we make our way by bus to Haymarket as Chelsea wants to shop - well me too, I can always shop.  We plan to meet in 90 minutes.  I find a backpack on wheels to replace my old one - determined to travel with only this bag in the future.  At the end of 90 minutes I am completely lost and realize there are several entrances to this market and I have no idea which was our entrance.   Luckily, I had taken some photographs on the way down and someone identified our entrance.  Chelsea has bought some food.  Cathy wanted to find her nursing friend who she had not seen for twenty years, but remembers that she has a dress shop on Williams Street the Paddington area.  This is a very old area of the original city and at one time was depressed but recently has become very fashionable with haute couture dress shops.  I insist that we take a taxi because to navigate the city of Sydney as inexperienced as we are will take too long.   I’m glad because I always like talking to taxi drivers.  Sydney taxi drivers, as rather like London taxi drivers, have to be natives to navigate the haphazard streets, which go off at peculiar angles with no rhyme or reason and obviously no overall plan.   I commented on this and the taxi driver explains that we are following the paths of the old carriage roads when travel was by horse and buggies (the new immigrants are bus drivers).    He tells me that the trees were planted 2000 for the Olympic Games.  The trees are beautiful and line every main street and many side streets consequently there is shade everywhere and one can walk without sunglasses.  The taxi driver finds Williams Road and puts us down literally outside the shop of Cathy’s friend.  There is a joyful reunion with Ruth we arrange to meet the next evening.  Ruth had given up nursing a few years ago and took a clothing design course and obtained a four year degree.  She was in the haute couture business which meant she designed and hand made clothes for special customers; many of her dresses costing over $3,000 each.   This was a world I was unfamiliar with.    
  
We walk up to the high street and see a bus to Watson Bay.   “Let’s go to the beach,” I suggest. 
 It is a lovely long ride through so many different neighborhoods.  We find ourselves at this pleasant area over looking a beach and small harbor.   We find an ice cream shop and talk to a couple from England visiting their children.  The place is full of grandparents visiting their children.  We find there is a ferry boat going back to the Circular Quay.  As always Chelsea is the leader.  At some point I turn to Cathy and say, “When was this child born? “   “August” she says.  Of course, she is a Leo, I should have known.  Leos are born leaders.  We eat at the Circular Quay.  I find a large sausage roll for $4 which is a complete meal in itself. 
There is a Picasso exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and of course we go.   It takes a big city with fore thought to bring such an exhibition from the Musee National Picasso, Paris.  The exhibition runs from November to the following March. 
Chelsea leads the way again from the bus and we walk near the beautiful Cathedral which we have passed so many times, and up the tree lined pathway to the Museum.  The exhibition is excellent and we have lunch in the museum cafe.
We find our way by bus back to Williams Street in charming Paddington, which so reminds me of New Orleans with its balconies. 
I meet two delightful Greek ladies who have been in Australia for over forty years.   One of them has a junk store set amongst the other fancy shops.  
When Ruth is finished with a client, because her customers are clients, we go down to a local pub and Chelsea and I enjoy listening to these two nurses reminisce about their training days.  They had both worked with elderly patients and very strangely Ruth turned to me at one point and started telling me this story about a patient on Ritalin. (She knew nothing about my interest in Judy and her drug problems). She told me that this poor lady had locked her medicine up for protection.  She lost the key and could not get into the box.  In her desperation for the drug she went completely mad and set herself on fire.  Ruth said it was ghastly and she considered Ritalin the most additive and most awful drug on the market.  I thought of Judy.
On our final day we take off for Taronga Zoo which is situated on 74 acres and one gets to it by ferry boat.  Most of the animals are in enclosures surrounded by moats with plenty of room to roam about in natural surroundings.  I was particularly impressed with the chimpanzees’ enclosure and I am sure Jane Goodall would love it. 
The ferry boat lands us back at Circular Quay and we are loathed to leave.  I find a sausage roll to eat again and we enjoy the atmosphere.  Cathy and Chelsea walk down to The Rocks where they can see the original houses of first settlers.  I sit and talk with a lady who lives inland and was just finishing a cruise, learning much more about life in Sydney and Australia.  We wander over to the other side of the Quay and Chelsea and Cathy talk with a Silver Man while I walk down the shops looking for some Wiggles toys for my grandson.  Instead of Wiggles I find a shop selling opals and of course I am in Australia and I must buy a necklace for myself.  I am so charmed by this city that I think I will frame a map so I can plan my next visit.

2 comments:

  1. Another wonderfully written and intelligent commentary on Judy, in the context of informed perspective. Knowing what would come next for Judy after the triumphs in Sydney...the Melbourne disaster (reported worldwide in Time Magazine, causing even more damage to Judy's reputation), due to her medication being confiscated...followed by the Hong Kong overdose, the damage to her throat and heart, etc. and perhaps some brain damage as was reported at the time as a possibly due to her Hong Kong hospitalization when on life support...Melbourne always seemed to be as the real turning point, the largely downhill slide, when everything started to unravel for Judy. Despite many triumphs later and overcoming great obstacles, I'm always left with a plethora of "what if..." questions...what if she hadn't gone to Australia, what if Freddie or David had gone with her instead of underlings, what if her medication hadn't been seized? Would all the rest have happened or those following years been very different, glorious and far happier for her? Or would it have happened later, at some other time in some other place? Of course, we shall never know but I will always wonder...the surviving audio tapes of Sydney support Joan's view that Judy was in great form, wonderful voice and commanded the stage. Thank you, Joan, for such exemplary writing and congrats on your upcoming 80th birthday...you are a force of nature and a joy for anyone in your orbit...!

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  2. Heey! I'm so glad you liked my city =D It is very lovely! I love it too =D I've been here for 11 years now so I guess I'm part of the "new immigrants" but I do genuinely love it =D One thing I should mention about Melbourne is that it is the "artistic capital" of this country, I went to Melbourne once and it is something you can just "see in the air", the whole city is an bohemian experience. I suppose that also had a little bit to do as to why they treated Judy that way... from what I understand, people in Melbourne weren't so willing to just fall at her feet because she was "Judy Garland", they wanted her to prove herself... so unfortunately it was bad timing, because she was sick =(

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