Judy Garland

Judy Garland (b. Frances Ethel Gumm on 6/10/22 – d. 6/22/69) was an American actress and singer. While critically acclaimed for many different roles throughout her career, she is widely known for playing the part of Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz (1939.) She attained international stardom as an actress in both musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage. Renowned for her versatility, she received an Academy Juvenile Award, a Golden Globe Award and a Special Tony Award. Garland was the first woman to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, which she won for her 1961 live recording titled Judy at Carnegie Hall.

Early Life:
Garland was born in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. She was the youngest child of Ethel Marion (née Milne; 1893–1953) and Francis Avent “Frank” Gumm (1886–1935). Her parents were vaudevillians who settled in Grand Rapids to run a movie theater that featured vaudeville acts. She was of Irish, English, Scottish, and French Huguenot ancestry, named after both of her parents and baptized at a local Episcopal church.

Musical Beginnings:
“Baby” (as she was called by her parents and sisters) shared her family’s flair for song and dance. Her first appearance came at the age of two, when she joined her elder sisters Mary Jane “Suzy/Suzanne” Gumm and Dorothy Virginia “Jimmie” Gumm on the stage of her father’s movie theater during a Christmas show and sang a chorus of “Jingle Bells”. The Gumm Sisters performed there for the next few years, accompanied by their mother on piano.

She was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a teenager. She appeared in more than two dozen films for MGM.

Discography:

Studio albums	7
Live albums	6
Compilation albums	31
Singles	67
Soundtrack albums	14

Filmography:
In a career that spanned more than forty years, Judy performed on stage, screen and television. She appeared in 34 feature films.

Other things to share:
On June 22, 1969, Garland was found dead in the bathroom of her rented house in Cadogan Lane, Belgravia, London. At the inquest, Coroner Gavin Thurston stated that the cause of death was “an incautious self-overdosage” of barbiturates; her blood contained the equivalent of ten 1.5-grain (97 mg) Seconal capsules. Thurston stressed that the overdose had been unintentional and no evidence suggested that she had intended to kill herself. Garland’s autopsy showed no inflammation of her stomach lining and no drug residue in her stomach, which indicated that the drug had been ingested over a long period of time, rather than in a single dose. Her death certificate stated that her death was “accidental.” Supporting the accidental cause, Garland’s physician noted that a prescription of 25 barbiturate pills was found by her bedside half-empty and another bottle of 100 barbiturate pills was still unopened.

After Garland’s body had been embalmed and clothed in the same gray, silk gown she wore at her wedding to Mickey Deans, Deans traveled with her remains to New York City on June 26, where an estimated 20,000 people lined up to pay their respects at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel in Manhattan, which remained open all night long to accommodate the overflowing crowd.

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On June 27, James Mason gave a eulogy at the funeral, an Episcopal service led by the Rev. Peter Delaney of St Marylebone Parish Church, London, who had officiated at her marriage to Deans, three months earlier. “Judy’s great gift“, Mason said in his eulogy, “was that she could wring tears out of hearts of rock… She gave so richly and so generously, that there was no currency in which to repay her.” The public and press were barred. She was interred in a crypt in the community mausoleum at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York, a town 24 miles (39 km) north of midtown Manhattan. However, at the request of her children, Garland’s remains were disinterred from Ferncliff Cemetery in January 2017 and re-interred 2,800 miles (4,500 km) across the country at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles.

Official website: here

Sources:
wikipedia