Judy, Judy, Judy!

Oh, wow - a very special centenary indeed almost passed us by - that of Miss Frances Ethel Gumm, better known, of course, as the immortal Judy Garland!

I'll have what she's having...

From an article by Christina Newland in I news:

Frances Ethel Gumm was born, 100 years ago, to a pair of entertainer-musicians in Minnesota, with an unprepossessing name that did not deter her from the stage. By the time she was 12, she had changed that name to Judy Garland. By the time she was 17, she had changed the world...

...Nicknamed “Baby”, the youngest of the three Gumm sisters sang and danced with her siblings constantly, and her showbiz-savvy parents moved to Los Angeles when she was just shy of four years old.

Enrolled in children’s talent schools from a young age (her ambitious mama embodied the stereotypical stage mother, even feeding her girls “pep” pills to keep them dancing and auditioning when they were tired), Judy auditioned in front of studio execs in Hollywood to little effect, until she was coached to sing a sentimental old Yiddish tune to the head of MGM himself, mogul Louis B Mayer. He hired the adolescent to a then-standard seven-year studio contract on the spot.

In a series of standout roles over the next decade, Garland would distinguish herself not only with that unmistakable voice, but with her ability to transmit a wholesome girl-next-door persona so believably: real innocence and wide-eyed vulnerability. She would later prove that her dramatic abilities were up to the task of less lighthearted fare, as she did with her comeback film A Star is Born (1954) – George Cukor’s classic tale of one rising and one falling star, locked in a doomed romance...

Humble, Midwestern and perhaps not unlike the sweet 16-year-old girl in plaits and pastoral gingham who sang Over the Rainbow in that lush, tremulous voice, Garland would strike deep into the vein of small-town yearning. The Wizard of Oz – which of course sees sepia give way to a Technicolor fantasyland – must have only transmitted that yearning more in 1939, an era when technology had not yet spanned vast distances in the way it now can. The film would become one of the greatest box-office hits of all time.

She was, for very many reasons, probably "The Greatest Star" - and she certainly ascended the pantheon of "Patron Saints" to be the original, the most famous "gay icon" of them all...

We adored her.

Judy Garland (born Frances Ethel Gumm, 10th June 1922 – 22nd June 1969)

More Judy here and loads more here