Judy Garland's Gay Life Story
By Judy Garland (as told to Gladys Hall)
Screenland 1941

PART II [Editor's note: Some day... Part One will come]

I wanted to die. And, of course, being young, I thought I would, most any moment. But Mickey is a very understanding boy, as boys go. After about two days, he didn't hold it against me any more.

As a matter of fact, Mickey was the first boy I ever let kiss me without slapping him down. It was a birthday party kiss, only a kind of kid kiss, but still--gosh, though, when I remember how we used to talk at Lawlor's Professional School, about how we'd be big stars on the stage someday and about how rich and famous and glamorous we would be--well, that's what's so amazing we wound up together like this! Anyway, Mickey is my best pal. He always was, even when he teased me, he will always be, even if I do have to listen to him rave about other girls.

Right about now, along comes my first big break! Both my sisters got married, as girls will, and although I worked hard at school, was on the baseball, volley ball and basketball teams, had a lot of friends now, who didn't snoot me, still and all, I was lonely. I missed the girls. I missed the days when we were all in the theater together, so warm and cosy [sic]. Daddy sensed the way I felt. So he sent Mother and me to Lake Tahoe for a little vacation. I really do owe my break to Daddy. Because if he hadn't been thoughtful, if he hadn't sent us on that vacation--when I think--!

Well, so one night we were sitting around the campfire and I sang for the bunch. As Fate would have it, a talent scout was among the guests. He told Mother he wanted to take me to M-G-M studios. He said I should be in the movies. Well, it was just like his words were dynamite. They blasted Mother and me right out of that hotel and onto the train and home. I kept saying, "Oh, he'll forget it--oh, he didn't mean it--oh, they won't want to see me!" but between us, in my bones I felt IT! It was what you call a premonition. I believe in premonitions.

And why not? For the call came. My first studio call! It just so happened that Mother wasn't home, so Daddy took me to the studio. It was the first time he'd ever done anything in a business way with us girls. He'd always left the bookings and interviews and such to Mother. I'm glad now, that he did go with me. I like to feel he brought me luck.

Well, we got to the studio and went into the casting office and there they stopped me, dead in my tracks! They said "No Babies Today!" I told them I was Judy Garland (they looked blank). I told them I had been sent for (they let me in).

I sang for half a dozen people. And finally I was sent to Mr. Mayer's office. I sang everything I knew for him, every song I'd ever heard in my life. Like always, you couldn't stop me! When I had exhausted my repertoire, and myself, and Mr. Mayer, he asked me if I could sing Eli, Eli. I said yes, and proceeded to wail my head off. When I got all through, Mr. Mayer didn't say one word, good or bad. He didn't smile or saying anything. He just said, "Thank you very much," and I walked out. And I thought, another false alarm!

When I got home and told Mom where I had been, she gave one loud, piercing scream, and said, "You didn't go to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer looking like THAT?" I said I did and I think she would have fainted, had she been the fainting kind. But three days later, the phone rang. I was told to come to Metro and sign my contract. I was just thirteen then. And it was the biggest day in our lives. I remember how, that evening, Mom an Daddy and I just stayed at home. We didn't even have one of our usual celebrations. We didn't need ice-cream and store cake to make that evening a party! We were only too happy to celebrate. I'm glad we were like that, that night, just the three of us, alone. For it wasn't to be the three of us, much longer.

Of course I went around in a daze, thinking, What would my first day be like? Will I play love scenes with Clark Gable? Who will I meet? Will everyone realize I'm a movie star? Where will I go first?

Guess where I did go first, for Pete's sake? Right to school! Much to my rage and disgust and amazement (I've always detested school) that's where I went! It helped a lot to have Mickey there. "Hi, you again!" that's the way we greeted each other. And Deanna Durbin was there, Gene Reynolds, Terry Kilburn, quite a few of the kids. But especially, of course, it was fun to be with Mickey again. I remember how, that first day, he took me on a tour of the studio lot.

On our tour we saw Myrna Loy, Joan Crawford, Bob Young--and Clark Gable! Mickey practically had to support my tottering footsteps after I saw Mr. Gable. I remember him saying, "Gosh, dames are awful silly!" just because I acted up over Mr. Gable, as who wouldn't?

But to jump ahead a little (I told you I wouldn't be able to write a proper autobiography) my first real beau was Jackie Cooper. My first real crush. The first time I ever counted daisy petals and read poetry and sang sad songs with a "meaningful" look in my eyes was over Jackie Cooper. I had to maneuver ways to get to see him. And I did. Just the way I maneuvered with Galen Rice, when I was very young. Like I found out that Jackie was going to a party at Edith Fellowes' house. now, I hadn't seen or talked to Edith for ages. But I soon fixed that! I called her on the phone and was just too chummy for words. And I talked and I talked. Every time it looked as though we'd just have to hang up, I'd think of something else I just had to tell her. I talked until I am sure she invited me to her party just to shut me up.

Well, Jackie took me home from the party! It took me all evening to work that, lots of songs and sad eyes and such acting as I have never done on the screen! And boy, when he took me out to his car and I saw it was a chauffeur-driven car, did I ever feel like Lady Vere de Vere!Whoops, I thought, this is the life, a boy with a car and a chauffeur. We got home and, Jackie being a perfect gentleman, he escorted me in. What was my horror to walk into the living room and find my Mother and Dad down on the floor, counting the nickels and dimes which were Dad's box-office "take" for the evening! Jackie said, in a whisper, "What do your folks do, run a slot-machine?" I was SO mortified.

My first grief came soon after I'd signed my movie contract. it was my Dad's leaving us. Something I never thought could happen, something I know would never have happened, for any lesser reason than Death. He had meningitis. we went away in three days. One of the things that hurts now is knowing that if it had happened to him a little later, he might have been saved. Because now sulfanilamide is a cure for meningitis. But then, there was nothing they could do for him, they didn't know what to do. I had thought I was heartbroken many times before that. Now I knew what heartbreak really feels like. It makes you grow up, a thing like that, a loss that's deep and forever.

I did my first broadcast the night Daddy went to the hospital. We didn't know, of course, that he was anything like as ill as he was. It was on KHJ, Big Brother Ken's Program, and I sang Zing go the Strings of my Heart [Editor's note: Of course that's Zing! Went the Strings of my Heart]. I didn't have any mike fright at all. I never have any fright, mike or camera or stage. Anything that's entertaining, anything that's theater makes me feel right at home.

Well, my first screen appearance, as I am afraid some people will recall, was a short called "Every Sunday Afternoon," which Deanna and I made together. Deanna sang opera. I sang swing. We both would like to forget that sorry little shortie--but I am putting down all of the first things in my life, I can't skip that, much as I should like to. Then I made my first, full-length picture, "Pigskin Parade." I should also like to have amnesia when I recall that! I was loaned to 20th Century-Fox for that picture and it was in that I saw myself, for the first time, on the screen. I can't TELL you! I was so disappointed I nearly blubbered out loud. I'd imagined the screen would sort of "magic" me. Well, I never got it, I hated it so badly! I'd expected to see a Glamour Girl, as I say, and there I was, freckled, fat, with a snub nose, just little old kick-the-can Baby Gumm! And I tried so hard, I acted so forced--ohhh, it was revolting. It didn't help a bit that Mom and the director and lots of people said I was good.

But I get over things pretty quickly. Someone once told me I have a "volatile element" in me, whatever that means. Anyway, I started to work very hard. The studio began "Grooming" me, I learned how to walk, how to carry myself better, I got to know the other players on the lot. And I began to work with Mrs. Rose Carter, who was engaged by the studio as my private tutor.

For the first time in my life, schoolwork became a pleasure. For instance, I had never been able to do geometry, it was plain nightmare to me. Well, Mrs. Carter found out how I love art, drawing and all, and she explained that geometry is nothing but a series of drawings work out in figures instead of colors. I soon discovered I could solve angles, no matter how intricate. Then, thanks to Mrs. Carter, I learned to appreciate Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Verdi. Now I have a collection of 2500 records, including the classics and swing. It was Mrs. Carter who put me wise to the fact that modern fiction is pale compared with history. She encouraged me not only to love art but to do something about it, to sketch and a print and draw. That first year, on Mother's Day, my gift to Mom was a portrait of Dad that I made from an old tintype.

It's skipping way ahead to tell you about my graduation--anyway, last June, right after I was eighteen, I went into my dressing room (which was also my schoolroom) one day and there was Mrs. Carter, packing away books and portfolios and things, like mad.

"What are you doing, Rose?" I asked.

"Doing!" said Rose, "why, I'm getting rid of these pesky school-books! Isn't this a sight your eyes have been sore to see? Don't you realize you are through with them forever?"

And then, of all things, I began to cry! If anyone had ever told me I'd cry at the sight of some vanishing school books I'd have committed them to the loony-bin [sic]. But I just blubbered, "I'm sorry I'm through and--but--well, if I have to be through, I want to graduate with a--with a class. I want to be like other girls my age, at my graduation, anyway!"

So, I did graduate with other girls, like other girls. On June 26th, 1940, I was a member of the graduating class of University High School. And I wasn't one speck different from any of the other 249 girls! I wore a plain blue organdy dress, like they all did, and carried a bouquet of sweetheart roses, just like the others. The flowers were provided by the school and I've got one of them pressed in my scrapbook. I almost missed my place in line, too, because Mother sent me a lovely corsage of mystery gardenias and Mickey sent me a cluster of orchids and I had to dash into the audience and explain to Mom that I loved the corsages but I just couldn't wear them. "I can't be different from the other girls, Mom" I said, "Please don't be hurt, but that's the way it is" Mom understood, like always. I would even let Mickey come to my graduation. I certainly would be "different," for Pete's sake, if I'd had Mickey Rooney at my graduation! And I wouldn't have any cameramen there, or anything--and it was all wonderful.

But now I have to go back three years, just a little hop, to lots of first things that began to happen then. The first time I met Mr. Gable, in particular! Well, the way it happened, I was in Roger Eden's office on day (roger is a musical coach at the studio, and my instructor) and I begged him to let me sing Drums In My Heart which he had arranged for Ethel Merman. He told me I was too young and unsophisticated to sing a song like that. Now, I have a quick, flary temper and you know how a girl hates to be told she is "unsophisticated," not to mention "young," migosh! So I just stormed out of his office and then cooled off, right off, like always and came meekly back again. And Roger suggested that we compose a song just for me. He said, "Now, what or whom, would you like to sing about?" And I said quick like, "Mr. Gable!" And Roger looked as if he was trying not to laugh and so then we made up the song, Dear Mr. Gable.

Well, it was Mr. Gable's birthday, the first day I met him. Roger took me onto the set of "Parnell," which Mr. Gable would like to forget but I have to just mention it, and I sang Dear Mr. Gable to him--and he cried! Imagine making Clark Gable cry! Imagine being able to! And then he came up to me and put his arms around me and he said, "You are the sweetest little girl I ever saw in my life!" And then I cried and it was simply heavenly!

Just a few days after this, came my first pieces of real jewelry--my charm bracelet from Mr. Gable. It's all tiny, gold musical instruments, a tiny piano, tiny harp, drums, violin and so on--and the only other charm is a teensy [sic] golden book which opens and there is Mr. Gable's picture in it and an inscription which says "To Judy, from her fan, Clark Gable." As long as I live and no matter how many jewels life may bring me I will always keep that bracelet, along with the little diamond cross my Dad gave me on my last birthday before he died, and my first wrist-watch which was from Mother.

My first premiere came along about this time, too. It was "Captain's Courageous" and it was at Grauman's Chinese Theatre and I went with Mickey! I wore my first long dress and my first fur coat, a gray squirrel, which I wore for daytimes and evenings, too. When I was seventeen, Mom gave me a ruby fox which I was only allowed to wear on special occasions and when I was eighteen she gave me my wonderful, white fox cape, full length! I got my first car on my seventeenth birthday, too, a red job, like I'd dreamed.

But I was talking about my first premiere--Mickey sent me a pikaki lei instead of just a commonplace corsage. Pikakis are like small, white orchids, only with a heavenly fragrance, and they grow only in the tropics and Mickey'd had them flown by Clipper from Hawaii!

I suppose I'd call that first premiere my first date, too. And if there is anything more important than a first date in a girl's life, I don't know what it is.

Here's what I think about a first date: first of all, a girl should act her age. I mean, if you are fifteen or sixteen, you shouldn't go out looking as though you had just graduated from kindergarten, of course, but neither should you try to look like a senior at a Glamour Girl School. If you are wearing your first long dress, or even any new dress, I think it's a swell idea to try it on several evenings before your date, just to sort of get acquainted with it. So that you can practiced being nonchalant. So you won't fall on your face when you go into a theater or restaurant. And I don't think First-Daters should overdo the make-up stuff, either. I know I just used a little, thin powder, just a touch of rouge because the excitement made me look like the ghost of my grandmother. And a very light dash of lipstick. and NO MASCARA! 'Cause if you forget an drub your eyes or laugh until the tears come, your face gets all smudged up. Most of all, on a date, I think a girl should be herself. It's a temptation not to be, I know. I've had my moments when I thought I'd try to act like Marlene Dietrich or even Garbo. And then I'd figure that it was my natural self, such as I am, that attracted my date in the beginning, so why take a chance on changing into something he might not like as well?

Well, anyway, lots of first things were happening, three years ago, like I said--I played in "Broadway Melody of 1938" and that was the first real step forward in my Career. Not to mention that it was then that I first met Robert Taylor!

Then I made "Love Finds Andy Hardy" and I really believe that's my favorite of my pictures. Mickey and I had lots of fun together while we were making that, same as we had fun making "Strike Up the Band"--we'd tear down to the beach on week-ends and "do" the amusement piers, and we'd come home loaded to the gills with Kewpie dolls and Popeyes. Mickey is an expert aim with baseballs, so we'd be pretty even-Stephen on prizes.

We had our "crowd" by this time, too. Mickey of course, Jackie Cooper, Bonita Granville, Bob Stack, Rita Quigley, Helen Parrish, Ann Rutherford, Leonard Suess, most of them were in our gang then and now--and in the evenings we'd get together at my house or one of the other kid's houses and we'd play records, dance, "feed" on hot chocolate, chili, and beans, wienies, brownies, pop-corn, cokes, our favorite items of "light" refreshment!

We had jolly times, we still do--it was mostly all fun and nothing very serious. We'd all sort of date each other, I'd go out with MIckey, with Jackie, later with Bob Stack; the other girls would go out with them, too; there were very few jealousies--we were pretty deadly in earnest about our work--of course, I often thought I was in love--but I used to worship people from afar more than those who were dunking their doughnuts in my hot chocolate. I'd have crushes on people who thought I was a little girl--my doctor, for instance, I was insane about him--he's fifty, I think! And every time I'd have a crush, I'd think, this is real love! But in saner moments I know I have never really been in love, I always recover too quickly. Columnists and gossip are always trying to make out that I'm serious, about Bob Stack, for instance, or Dan Dailey, or this one or that. But I'm not, I never have been and I don't intend to be, for quite some time to come!

Now, let's see--dear me, I hope I'm getting what serious biographers call "Chronology" into this manuscript! Well, after I was fifteen, first things happened to me so fast and furious, I get addled. ANyway, two very important first things comes in here, I know--I played Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz" and since that was a dream I'd dreamed ever since Daddy read the "Oz" stories to me, back-stage, when I was just a kid. And just before I stopped being Judy and became Dorothy, I built my own home! It's sprawling and it's white and it's surrounded by trees and flowers and a tennis court and, this year, we put in a swimming pool which is the rendezvous, every Sunday afternoon, for the crowd. My bedroom is all done in chartreuse and brown and the walls are lined with my favorite books. I have my own dressing room and bath, too.

Well, when I made "The Wizard of Oz" not only did I actually live in the Emerald City, not only did I pinch myself black and blue every day to make sure I was awake, not dreaming, but also Dorothy won me my first Academy Award for a performance by a Juvenile Actress! And Mickey presented me with the golden statue. Mickey and the statue looked like they were swimming, because of the tears in my eyes.

Next I think of "Babes In Arms" and, especially, of the preview which was at Grauman's Chinese and which was the first premiere of one of my pictures that I ever attended. Again with Mickey, naturally. And that was the night I was invited to put my foot-prints and hand-prints in the forecourt of the theater. Mickey's were already there and, of course, Clark Gable's, Harold Lloyd's, Shirley Temple's, oh, all the big stars'!

I wanted to look glamorous that night, as I had never wanted to before, or since. Well, I bite my fingernails and I felt sick because I couldn't have long, glittering ones like Joan Crawford's. So the manicurist fixed me up with artificial ones. After I placed my hands in the wet cement I went into the theater and after a while I thought a creeping paralysis had set in, beginning with my fingers! They felt all numb and heavy. I was in cold sweat until we left the theater and then I realized some of the cement had got under my nails and hardened on the false ones! I went to a party afterwards feeling like Dracula's daughter, with talons! The next day I had to have them chopped off! That was my first and last attempt at being glamorous.

After "Babes in Arms" the studio sent Mickey and me to New York on a personal appearance tour. We did six shows a day so, of course, we didn't have much time to sight-see. Mom said 10:30 as the curfew and Mickey kept to that schedule, too. But we did manage to spend one evening at the Rainbow Room. We wanted to know how it felt to dance "on top of the world." That trip was the first time I really shopped in New York, too. Boy, did I sweep in and out of Fifth Avenue's finest! It was the first time I bought semi-grown-up clothes.

And that was the time Fred Waring asked me to appear as a guest on his radio program. Of course I accepted, thinking he just wanted me to say "hello." Do you know what he did? He had his entire program dedicated to me! And his theme song for the evening was Over The Rainbow, which happens to be my favorite song. So I sang all the songs from "The Wizard of Oz" for him and a good time was had by all, most especially by me!

Oh, and I must tell about my sixteenth birthday. We had a party at my house and my brother-in-law, Robert Sherwood, brought along his La Maze orchestra. Mickey was the master of ceremonies and we staged an entertainment program of our own. I sang two numbers, and Jackie, Bonita, Ann, Helen, Buddy Pepper, all of them did turns. We had a ping-pong tournament, too, and Mickey walked off with the honors! At midnight we served a buffet supper. I wore a new white, shark-skin sports dress with flowers appliqued on the pockets. And in my hair I wore the gardenias, which Mickey sent me--oh, and in the midst of the festivities, two blue love-birds in a blue and white cage were delivered to me. And the card attached read "Happy Birthday to My Best Girl, Judy--Clark Gable."

But I guess the most important first thing that happened in 1938 was that, for the first time, I became an aunt! Jinnie says it's really a little more important that she became a Mother than that I became an aunt. I wouldn't know about that. I only know that I always wanted to be an aunt. And that the circumstances of my aunt hood befell me under circumstances which were pretty extraordinary! 'Cause I was in the hospital, too! It was right after my automobile accident. One bright morning, a few days later, my nurse told me she was going to take me "visiting." She bundled me into a wheel-chair and we headed for the "baby floor." There, for the first time, seen under glass, so to speak, I first beheld my first niece, Judy Gayle Sherwood, my name-sake as well as my niece! Born in the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital while I'd been recovering from my accident--both of us under the same roof!

So now, I guess, I'm pretty much up to the Present. I made "Andy Hardy Meets Debutante" and then "Strike Up the Band." And did we have ourselves a time, Mickey and I, while we were making that. After doing our "Conga" number, talk about being in a later! Between scenes, Mickey'd mostly play the songs he was writing to me, and I'd make recordings for him and all. I was just like the character in the picture, where Mickey was concerned.

And now I'm playing my first grown-up, dramatic character part in "Little Nellie Kelly." I even die in "Nellie." And--and this is a VERY important first in my life, I play my first grown-up love scene in this picture, too! I'm really blushing even as I write about it. I, who have said I was never embarrassed on the stage, in front of a mike or a camera, take it all back now. George Murphy plays my sweetheart (and my husband, I play a dual role, too!) in the picture. And he was certainly the most perfect choice, for he is so kind and tender and understanding--and humorous, too. But just the same, after we made that love scene, I didn't know what to do or where to look. I'd just kind of go away between scenes because I couldn't look at him. He kept kidding me, too, saying he felt like he was "in Tennessee with my child-bride!"

And well, my goodness, I guess that's about all! I guess a girl hasn't much of a Life Story when she's just eighteen because, of course, she hasn't had much life! Although I do think I've had quite a Past and I know I'm old enough so that it's been fun to Remember. And I also know that, at the end of my first eighteen years, as I write "Finis, The End" to my first Life Story, I'd like to say some Thank You's, quite a lot of Thank You's--first of all to Mom and Daddy, of course, for all the things they did for me, for everything they were and are to me; and to my sisters for their patience with me, and the fun we had; and to Mr. Mayer for believing in me; and to Mrs. Carter and Roger Eden and all the directors who have worked with me--and to Mickey, naturally--I don't know what for, just for being Mickey, I guess--and to all the magazine and newspaper people who have been so kind to me--and to my fans, who are my friends, and who have made me what I am today--to--well, to just about everyone and everything---yes, to everything and everyone who have made my first eighteen years of being alive so swell, and such fun!