Dowlin's "Judy Garland was too Pure for this world" and Broadway Melody of 1938

I was taken by some of Joan E Dowlin’s thoughts and comments in her blog entitled “Judy Garland was too pure for this world” on the Huffigton Post.  I’d always felt that many of Judy’s problems came about because she trusted people too much.  She was too sweet, loving and sensitive to survive in this harsh world. But no matter what slings and arrows she encountered her natural pureness never waived.  She picked herself up from the batterings she received from MGM, “Annie,” “Star,” and TV series, Group V and embraced life with joy and spirit.

Dowlin’s use of the phrase “essence of Garland” reminded me of my talks with Lorna Smith (Lorna, knew Judy very well over many years and particularly during the last 6 months of her life) and commented to me “They don’t understand the essence of Judy” (we may have been talking about the dreadful new play in London and now NY about Judy).   The essence of Judy was pure and loving; there were times the frustration of the latest bruising would overcome her and she would rail against the world but moments later her good nature would return. 

Dowlin also talks of how Judy threw her whole self into every film, tour, television special she did to the detriment to her heath.   This is true; Judy had a great need to share her music and art with her audiences.    

At the time I read this blog I happened to view an early Judy movie, Broadway Melody of 1938- and this may have been the first time I had seen the whole movie, apart from the many Judy excerpts--it was surprisingly good!  George Murphy was a good old standby “song and dance man”, without the grace or flare of Astaire or Kelly.  I read he was downhearted because he didn’t get the lead in “For Me and My Gal”, but I digress...  I always enjoyed the grace and talent of Eleanor Powell and imagined how Judy would have been on the set of the filming of the big musical numbers.  And, of course, she met Sid Luft for the first time as he was around, escorting Powell.  I thought how he must have enjoyed the horse racing scenes!   Again I am digressing…

The first thoughts upon seeing Judy in the first scene was her freshness and vitality and then I noticed the lollipop she was sucking.  Now Judy was fifteen then--was MGM trying to make out she was twelve years old?  I doubt many twelve year olds go into an audition with a lollipop!  I noticed she wore ankle socks in all scenes.   Judy overcame these obstacles, of course, had some magnificent songs which have gone down in history.  As I watched Sophie Tucker sing her classic “Some of these days” I realized how perfectly Judy had recreated this in her Broadway tribute, down to the exact phasing and pauses.  As she often said, “I have seen the best.”

Lorna Smith and me at Victoria Station, I believe

Did everyone see the posting by Joan E Dowlin on Huffington Post?

Joan is a musician and posted a beautiful piece titled: Judy Garland Was Too Pure for This World.

My sentiments entirely, and the article or post is well worth reading. I will write more about her posting later.   So now I have signed up to blog on Huffington Post because I guess this is where I found her article.

The whole technology thing is out of hand.  How can I find time to write when I've got to keep blogging?

People keep asking about the next blog?  I'm still putting together a package for the university presses.  The requirements for university presses are really quite exciting and so much more specific than regular book proposals and I'm leaning a lot.

Really I'd like to get on and write about Chairman Mao or Billy Joel instead of these book proposals.

Oh well, back to the drawing board as they say.

Happy Birthday to Gary Horrocks today - did I get the spelling right??  

Entertaining the Troops

I consider myself lucky to have some lovely Judy friends, and one of them is Amanda, whose specialty is Judy's recording career.  A while ago I asked her if she had any material on Judy entertaining the troops because I am trying to emphasize Judy's war time work and to bring out Judy big heart and caring nature-she was one of the first artists to participate on ratio programs to British in the early days of the war.

Well, Amanda sent me today a 5 page article from Modern Screen, February 1944 about a tour called the Hollywood Bond Cavalcade.  Others participating were James Cagney, Betty Hutton , Jose Iturbi, Astaire, Kathryn Grayson, Dick Power, Kay Kyser and Mickey Rooney of course.  It must have been a blast.  I'm going to incorporate it into my chapter on Entertaining the Troops.    Thank you Amanda.

Hollywood Cavalcade

I'm being inundated with emails and phone calls from the self-publishing people - I assume they must make a lot of money by how anxious they are to have my business.  Been reading so many books on publishing and these people are classified as the vanity press!!

Going to have a try the university press field as I feel my book is more academic than sensational - not that it is boring because nothing could be boring to do with Judy.  

It is suggested in several places that I give chapters to friends to read and comment on and so if anyone is interested, let me know.   I'm covering everything, early childhood, MGM years, concert years (including my write-ups which I'm sure many of you have already seen) television etc.

Thanks for your support and encouragement.   joan

 

The Last Chapter -

I had just finished "The Last Chapter" - with the observation that there would never be the last chapter for Judy, when I realized I had not finished because I had to write about what has been happening since Judy has left us.

And I thought it was over and I just had to tidy up....not more research....I said a few choice words, we English have some lovely words at our disposal which helps with frustration...So it is back to the drawing board as they say.

But this chapter is important, perhaps one of the most important in the book because it talks about the new fans and admirers of Judy and how her magic has continue all through the years and will continue for 100, 200 and even 500 years in the future--as I said in the presentation at Jan Glazier's Judy in Hollywood meeting.

I'd been out of the Judy world for many years living and working in Silicon Valley and it wasn't until I attended the Grand Rapids in 1997 that I realized there was an active Judy world out there.  I became reacquainted with the Lufts and met teenager fans, Elizabeth and James.

Many books have been written about Judy, many not worth the paper they are written on but there are exceptions.  John Fricke, who has become the great Judy historian, has produced several large, beautiful, coffee table books and a new one Judy: A Legendary Film Career.   Lorna Smith's Judy with Love is much sort after and difficult to find.  Coyne Steven Sanders covers the CBS television series excellently in his book, Rainbow's End: the Judy Garland Show.   Another worth while book is Ronald Haver's A Star is Born.  I also enjoyed David Dahl and Barry Kehoe's Young Judy - again probably hard to find.


There are many web pages devoted to Judy.  TheJUDYList --members comment on Judy activities and keep in touch.   It was manned for years by Mark Harris, a dear man, who sadly departed this world.  It is now ably run by Steve Jarrett, southern gentleman with a great sense of humor.

I think of other Judy friends who have left us, dear, dear Sonny Gallagher. Sonny had his own Judy magazine for many years and attended all her concerts and kept Lorna Smith and British club up to date with Judy's activities. I met him in 1998 at the request of Lorna Smith and we attended the big Judy Celebration at Carnegie Hall that year together. I remember he once drove four hours - there and back - one Easter weekend to come and meet me at a friend's house in Reading, Penn. A very special Judy person.  It was Sonny who made the comment, a few years after Judy had gone, that there would be a big revival and love for Judy in the future; and he was right, Sonny was right about many things.

This summer there has been two big Judy events in New York City; many of her television performances have been shown at the Paley Center for Media Collection and the film Society of Lincoln Center presented nearly all of Judy's movies.  Martha Wade Steketee attended many of them and beautifully documented these occasions in her blog: http://msteketee.wordpress.com

Lorna Smith of the UK club, wrote two books about Judy and produced a beautiful tribute to Judy and retired.  After some ups and downs, the club is now excellently run by Gary Horrocks and Justin Sturge. It is now called  The International Judy Garland Club and has over 300 members all over the world, hosts two events and publishes two magazine a year.  www:judygarlandclub.org.

There is more but I have started writing again.   Always for Judy,  Joan    PS If I have got any of these web pages wrong, sorry, let me know.

Judy and Vaudeville

 We cannot begin to understand who Judy was until we realize how important were her parents and their vaudeville background.  Vaudeville (or Variety as it was known in the UK) had been the family entertainment since the 19th century.  It really became popular at the turn of the twentieth century and remained so until about the 1930s.  The shows would include Irish tenors, bold flirtatious female singers with loud voices, such as Sophie Tucker, dancers, comedians, acrobats and jugglers.  Every town had a theater and the entrance fee a modest five cents. Vaudeville singers always needed new material and songwriters kept turning out new songs.  The audience could buy a sheet of their favorite music and play and sing in their own home.  Frank and Ethel (Judy's parents) grew up in this atmosphere and they were both enamored with show business.  

            The silent movies came along and would eventually bring about the demise of vaudeville but for several years the two media worked along side by side with one another and this is where Judy’s parents thrived.  Many of the new movies were just short and simple ten or fifteen-minutes in length and vaudeville entertainment included to fill out the program.  They needed a person to play the piano and this ideal for Ethel because of her experience at home.   While the reels were being changed another person entertained the audience hence the position of song illustrator was introduced.  This was a perfect job for Frank, who had a tenor fine voice.  The song illustrator would lead the audience into song and then, hopefully, sell them the sheet music.  Jack Warner had done this in his father’s movie house and also Eddie Canter and Al Jolson had also started out as song illustrators.  In addition, there were still photographs projected onto the screen by the Edison’s Vita scope.    

In many of Judy’s movies are examples of vaudeville performances.  In “The Zeigfeld Girl” Judy and father are a vaudeville act and when Judy is auditioning for the Ziegfeld Show, he tries to show her how to punch out a number in the old style.  Judy managed to get the orchestra to play slower tempo and we see and hear the beautiful, “I’m always Chasing Rainbows.”   There were many more examples in the movies Little Nellie Kelly, and For Me and My Gal as well as her movies with Mickey Rooney.  .

Julie Andrews came out of Variety background in England and toured for many years as a child with her parents.  I remember hearing her on the radio in the 40s, and 50s.  In the United States, many of the well-known entertainers came from a Vaudeville background, such as Bob Hope, Burns and Allen, Mickey Rooney, Donald O’Connor and more.  George Burns wrote in his book, Gracie: a love story about life on the vaudeville stage, and being on the road performing three or four shows day. (Burns, 1988, p.60)   Although they were earning $125 - $250 a week, by the time they paid their agent, transportation, food and hotels there was little money over.  Of course they were doing the work they loved.   Burns and Allen did not really begin to be financial solvent until they found their opportunities in radio, movies and eventually television.   Ed Sullivan’s television shows in the 1950s and 1960s were examples of vaudeville, except we were watching the shows on television.  Eventually folk and rock music came into being in the late 1950s and 1960 and influenced the music of that era.  

            This vaudeville background gave Judy the edge, poise and ability to be comfortable and handle an audience.  Although she might be nervous before walking on stage, the second she was there she was AT HOME.  This was when she was most alive and happy interacting with her people; she loved them giving them pleasure.  She felt of herself as an entertainer, this was her role in life, to make people happy.  I was lucky enough to be present at many of her performances in London in 1951, 1957 and 1960 and was honored to witness her recording four songs at EMI in 1960.  I remember once being at CBS when Count Basie was a guest on one of her television show.  Some of the numbers had been pre-recorded and so the audience was watching monitors.  Judy obviously felt they were being short changed not to see a live performance and so she dragged Mel Torme out with her and they did their songs alongside the monitors.  So we had two Judy Garlands and two Mel Tormes, we certainly were not short changed!   

Judy had seen and witnessed so many acts (as she was to amuse audiences in her later television appearances) and was able to incorporate these aspects into her performance.  Many of the musicals of the 1940s and 1950s made in Hollywood, not only from MGM, had a vaudeville background because this was the business which most entertainers came from.  Judy incorporated vaudeville into her movies, think of  “Be a Clown” from the movie, The Pirate, “We’re a Couple of Swells” from Easter Parade and the beautiful and haunting “Clown” number and “Here’s to Us” from the last CBS television show of her 1963/64 series and one cannot forget “Swanee” from The Star is Born.

Copyright©2011[Joan Beck Coulson] All Rights Reserved

BBC radio show

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b012r97j

Entitled: Dear Judy. 

You can still listen to this program for a few more days and every Judy fan should do so. 

Mostly it was very pleasant with Gary Horrocks doing a good job, and nice to hear from Jerry Herman and Max Prevo.....but why did they allow Rufus to sing, "Over the Rainbow" all the way through?  This was a program about Judy--she was the star and not Rufus--and we only got short clips of her songs. 

As Liza said, many years ago, in answer to why she did not sing "Rainbow" - "it has been done" or something like that.

In a positive note I must say I enjoyed hearing from Judy's drummer (the bongo man in "Come Rain and Come Shine") I shall have to listen to it again just for his name and comments. 

I don't mind listening to Rufus talk about Judy but when he starts to sing....I had to go out onto my patio in 100 degrees and wait till it finished--sorry Rufus but that is the way I feel.  

Judy's sense of humor!

I'm bogged down with the whole business of finding an agent versus publishing on my own and for two pins I'll print about 100 copies of my book and give to my friends and wash my hands of the whole affair!  

But I'm not writing for me; I'm writing for Judy because I feel there needs to be a book out there which gives some understanding of her life; she deserves nothing more.

So back to my discovery of the lady called Judy Garland.  

I often wondered why it was the "Judy"  in Strike up the Band that captured my attention.  Just recently I watched all the Mickey/Judy movies in sequence and when I got to Strike up the Band I understood!  It was Judy's sense of humor which caught my attention; the wry funny looks she give Mickey has she listens to his latest crazy plans; the wistful "Our Love Affair;" the beautiful "Nobody" sang in the library--amongst all the lovers of the world--and she has no one.   

In checking in Emily R Coleman's book, "The Complete Judy Garland" I see one of the sscreenplay writers was Freddie Finklehoffe.  Of course!  Freddie was devoted to Judy and probably loved her all his life and certainly understood her.  He brought out her sense of humor in the scripts he wrote for her (also worked on Babes on Broadway, For Me and My Gal,  Girl Crazy, Meet Me in St. Louis and Words and Music) Judy was with Freddie in New York when she met Sid Luft in 1951.

So thank you Freddie Finklehoffe; one of the people behind the scenes who loved Judy and did everything he could for her.  He was apparently very disappointed when she met and fell for Sid. 

Always for Judy,  joan

P.S Has anyone seen a photo of them together?