The monkeys used to scare you a lot.
The Wicked Witch was one thing but those flying simians with their booming voices? Ugh, they gave you nightmares for weeks. And despite that you knew how things would end – you’d seen the movie annually, for heaven’s sake – let’s just say you spent a lot of time covering your eyes. So now be like a Lion. Get uncowardly and find “Judy Garland: The Voice of MGM” by Scott Brogan.
When most people think about Judy Garland, two images come to mind: the teenager in pigtails or “The one-dimensional image of an always suffering and always tragic Garland…” Neither one, says Brogan, is totally correct. In reality, Garland was “positive, joyful, and funny.”
Her parents, Ethel and Frank Gumm, were performers who moved their little family around Michigan and Wisconsin before landing in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, where their youngest child, Frances, was born in 1922. An adorable baby, little Frances loved an audience almost from the time she could walk; her parents happily added her to the family troupe.
In 1926, the Gumms performed their way across the country to Los Angeles, where Frances and her sisters appeared in many shows, but critics were not entirely impressed. Still, Ethel pushed and the girls toured with Paramount Circuit in the northwest, and then in Chicago in 1934 where Frances had “one of [her] biggest career milestones.”
By 1935, she was formally using the name “Judy Garland” onstage and she’d secured informal representation. That same year, she signed a contract with MGM, a studio which took a near-total control it “would exert over Garland’s personal life” and her schedule, denying her wish to be with her father at the end of his life and dictating what she ate or didn’t eat.
Still, says Brogan, their methods worked: by the time Garland was 20 years old, her “career seemed to know no limits.”
Page through “Judy Garland: The Voice of MGM” and you’ll instantly know that you’re in for a treat: this book is loaded with photos, stills, publicity shots, and newspaper recreations. There’s a lot to look at here, but what there is to read is better.
Author Scott Brogan makes Judy Garland his raison d’ȇre in this book, but it’s not entirely all about her. Brogan shares an overview of the movie studio that made her famous, including what is arguably her most top-of-mind film, the gossip that surrounded it then, and the mythology that still lives on. There’s a comprehensive list of World War II-era appearances that Garland made, and what happened at each one. If you’re expecting dirt-dishing, you’ll read about her father’s secret, her marriages, and her addictions, but not in an over-the-top scandalous way. Brogan is factual, inclusive, and respectful, just as you’d want.
If you’re planning on having guests soon, put “Judy Garland: The Voice of MGM” away or your guests will want to read, rather than mingle. It’s the kind of coffee-table book that, for fans, will make you Get Happy.
