Judy Garland on Judy Garland (4 page)

Broadcast from the KFI Studios in Los Angeles, NBC's
Shell Chateau Hour
was a relatively new musical variety series in the fall of 1935 when Judy made her national radio debut on the program. With parents Frank and Ethel Gumm and sister Jimmie in the front row, host and M-G-M star Wallace Beery (subbing for usual host Al Jolson) declared Judy to be “only twelve years old,” when in fact she had turned thirteen some four months prior. In what may have been an effort to magnify their daughter's already prodigious talents, Frank and Ethel listed Judy's birth date as January 10, 1923, on initial studio paperwork. It also seemed to be common practice for Metro's publicity department to intentionally misrepresent ages and birth dates in hopes of keeping their actresses seeming younger than they actually were.

Although the
Shell Chateau Hour
was Judy's first official appearance under the auspices of M-G-M, she was presented as a fresh discovery with no mention of the recent contract signed with the studio. Scripted chitchat with Beery gave way to the little girl with a big voice bursting forth with gusto in a tour de force execution of “Broadway Rhythm,” the Arthur Freed-Nacio Herb Brown tune from Metro's
Broadway Melody of 1936.

Wallace Beery:
Now for the surprise of the evening, this is the opportunity spot of the show, one portion of the show we donate each week to someone whom we feel has exceptional ability and we want to help along. We have a girl here whom I think is going to be the sensation of pictures. She's only twelve years old, and I take great pleasure in presenting to you Judy Garland. Wait until you hear her.
[Audience applauds.]
Twelve years
old. Come on, Judy. Come on. There you are. Here, Judy, if you're scared, you hang right on to me, honey.
[Judy laughs.]
I'm right with you. Now come on, we'll talk a minute. Now, where did you learn to sing?

Judy Garland:
My mother taught me.

WB:
Your ma, huh? Never had any regular music lessons at all, huh?

JG:
Well, I did take some piano lessons.

WB:
Well, can you play it pretty good?

JG:
Oh, I don't know. Mom says I play pretty well.

WB:
Well, of course. Mom would. All right, Judy, now tell me this. Now what do you want to do when you grow up to be a great big girl, huh?

JG:
I want to be a singer, Mr. Beery. And I'd like to act, too.

WB:
Well, you'll do it, Judy. Don't worry. Now, I'll tell you, you just stand here and sing that piece you sang for me the other day and show these folks what a singer you are. Now go right to it, and if you need me I'll be standing right there, you hear?

JG:
[Laughs.]
All right.

WB:
Step right on it. Go ahead, Judy. I'll be right here.

[Judy sings “Broadway Rhythm.”]

WB:
That was marvelous. That was marvelous. Imagine … only twelve years old. We've got to get her back again.

Judy returned to the KFI Studios three weeks later, this time accompanied only by Ethel. Frank Gumm had been hospitalized at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital earlier that day, diagnosed with virulent meningitis and given little chance of survival. Judy was not aware of the severity of her father's illness, but sensed the urgency in the voice of family doctor Marcus Rabwin when he phoned her at the studio prior to the broadcast. Rabwin told her that a radio had been placed at Frank's bedside and he would be listening.

Judy's performance of “Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart” outdid the rendition of “Broadway Rhythm” she'd sung several weeks earlier. Knowledge of her father's condition likely fueled the intensity with which she sang on this particular occasion, for it was one of the few early performances to foreshadow the force and potency of what was to come in the Judy Garland concert experiences of the 1960s. “I sang my heart out for him,” she later recalled, “but by morning he was gone.” By Sunday, November 17 (Ethel's birthday), Frank was in a coma. He died around 3:00 that afternoon. He was 49.

Wallace Beery:
Now the little lady standing here beside me isn't exactly a celebrity
yet.
She's only twelve years old. She probably won't be famous, oh, maybe for a couple of years. Her name is Judy Garland, and I'm sure that you remember her singing here about four weeks ago. Well, since her last appearance here she signed a seven-year contract with the M-G-M Studio. Isn't that great? Gosh! And the minute she was signed, Sam Katz wrote her into his new picture
Yours and Mine.
*
I knew that Judy would
make good. The last time she was here she was the cause that everybody said to me, “Wally, why, you've got to have that little Judy Garland back again.” So here she is, and I'll tell you right now that we're very proud of her. Wait until you hear her sing. All right, Judy, whip along.

[Judy sings “Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart.”]

WB:
That was marvelous, Judy. Oh, how you can sing! Ladies and gentlemen, that was Judy Garland. That wasn't me singing. [All
laugh.]
I want to thank you for that, Judy. It was marvelous.

Judy Garland:
Wait a minute, Mr. Beery. I wanna thank you!

WB:
Oh, no, no, no.

JG:
Yes, really, I do! I want to thank you for giving me two chances to come here and sing at
Shell Chateau
and for all the other things you've done for me.

WB:
Oh, I'm so proud of you, Judy. I bet your mother's proud of you, too. Isn't that your ma sitting right down there in the front row?

JG:
That's her!

WB:
Mmm.

JG:
Well, do you think my mother would care if I gave you a great big hug?

WB:
Well, I don't know what she'd think, but maybe that little Carol Ann of mine might object. But go ahead! [All
laugh.]
Thanks, Judy!
[Audience applauds.]
That's awfully sweet of you. Now, come on. Just a little, little ditty … teeny weeny encore.

JG:
All right.

WB:
Go ahead!

[Judy sings “Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart” reprise.]

WB:
Isn't that marvelous? A child twelve years old. Now that she's with M-G-M, I hope they give me the opportunity of being able to support her in a picture someday.

*
Yours and Mine
was a project that never materialized.

In concurrence with the release of
Broadway Melody of 1938, Modern Movies
was one of two national fan magazines to feature Judy on its cover during August 1937 (the other was
Screen Juveniles).
Though it seems she was thirteen at the time of the interview, Judy was fifteen by the time of its publication.

Tradition turns topsy-turvy as this thirteen-year-old jostles her elders for first place

Judy Garland, child wonder of the screen, bursts upon an astonished world. She's the cutest little dancer and blues singer that's ever been seen or heard. She is only thirteen
[sic],
but already has years of professional life behind her.

Judy comes of a theatrical family and has been in almost every city in the United States with her parents “on the road.” There were brief stays in Grand Rapids, Mich., Chicago and other cities. But she considers Los Angeles her home. Judy's stage work was as part of a trio, with her two sisters, Virginia and Suzanne.

She was born Frances Gumm in Murfreesboro, Tenn.,
*
but when George Jessel signed the trio for his act at the Oriental Theatre in Chicago,
he changed the last name—and Frances went him one better by switching over to her present “Judy.”

“I had to fight for the name,” she says. “But mother finally agreed to let me change.”

Judy, for a child who has lived more or less in a world of make-believe, is striking in her lack of affectation. Her large, wide-set brown eyes are shy, yet they dance with interest, and smile. She is quite a movie fan, admiring particularly Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable and Jeanette MacDonald. The world of pictures, which was opened to her two years ago, is exciting and full of promise. Yet she views it tentatively and gratefully—not as one who has come and conquered.

For nearly two years she was under contract before having a part. She had been seen while singing at Lake Tahoe, and an agent brought her to the attention of M-G-M.

“I didn't think I had much of a chance,” she confesses, “I was just at the awkward age. It is funny, but even though there are lots of people my age in the world, few were interested in them. There's a big difference between Shirley Temple and Maureen O'Sullivan. But up until just a little while ago, there wasn't a place in between.

“That's why I'm grateful to Deanna Durbin. Her work proved to the public that people were interested in actresses or talent of the ‘between age.' That was a break for all of us in our early ‘teens.'

Judy is frankly thrilled with her role in
Broadway Melody of 1938.
In it she portrays Sophie Tucker's daughter. Sophie, in the film, is an ex-famous actress, whose vogue is passe. She tries to further the interests of her daughter, so the child can carry on where she herself left off.

In
Broadway Melody
Judy is given an opportunity to show her stuff. She sings, she dances—and acts. One of the big numbers in the picture features her coming onto the stage in a white streamlined car, lined in padded pink satin with a chauffeur and footman. Buddy Ebsen greets her in the middle of the stage, and off they dance.

The studio wisely made no attempt to push or retard her age. She is just a kid of thirteen with short dresses and bobby socks. And she has filled a place long vacant on the screen.

“I get so many letters from people my own age, saying how they enjoy seeing a person just like them on the screen. They get tired of seeing only small children or grown-ups, they write.”

Judy admits she is at a confusing age. “You are all twisted up. Sometimes you'd like to make mud pies, or play with dolls, but think you're too old. At others, it would be fun to put on high heels and go dancing. Then you're ashamed, because you know you are not old enough. Oh, well, thirteen is a lot of fun, anyway. I've adopted it as my lucky number.”

You cannot help admiring someone her age suddenly thrust into the glamorous world of films, who has remained balanced. Judy doesn't try to be “girly girly.” And she is too smart to try to appear old, as do so many other girls her age.

“There are about fifteen years that you can be young,” she philosophizes. “All the rest, you are grown-up. I think you appreciate being grown-up much better, if you don't try to be that way too soon.

“So I don't mind being teased now and then for my short skirts and flat heels. I tried some long hose and longer skirts once, but it wasn't any fun. Now I'll wait until I am ready for them instead of looking silly.”

As for her career, the height of her ambition is to go into real dramatic parts someday. She'd like a picture in which she didn't sing even so much as one number—“just to show she didn't get by on her voice.”

*
Judy was, of course, born in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. Upon signing with M-G-M, she supposedly listed her birthplace as “Murfreesboro, Tennessee,” later explaining she thought it sounded more “glamorous.”

At thirteen, Judy Garland is a veteran performer. They couldn't keep her off the stage!

At two, she determinedly held up proceedings for twenty minutes on amateur night in a little movie theater in Minnesota, while she lustily rendered “Jingle Bells” again and again.

She had climbed down from her grandmother's lap, and made her way behind the footlights to “put on her act.”

First the crowd was amused, then restless, then annoyed.

It mattered not a bit to Judy.

She was singing, and she had an audience. Right then, the show business got her, and she's been at it ever since.

This, and a number of other things, I learned as bright-eyed, bubbling Miss Garland and her charmingly reticent little mother and I chatted over lunch in the huge Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer commissary recently.