Judy Garland on Judy Garland (7 page)

“So then I was taken right out of the movie mothballs and given a chance in
Broadway Melody of 1938.
And I like myself pretty well in that. The only thing I didn't like about me was the first line I had to speak. It was so precocious. I hate anything precocious. I am not precocious at all. I think like a grown-up and I like to be with older people and talk to older people but I am not a grown-up and I don't want to be. So, I didn't
like the first line but after that it was all right and I think the song about Clark Gable (which I meant) sort of evened things up. Now I am playing in
Thoroughbreds Don't Cry
with Sophie Tucker and Mickey Rooney and after that I am to play in
The Ugly Duckling
with Allan Jones.”

Judy doesn't want to be a singer. She doesn't want to place emphasis on the mezzo-soprano voice, which is a natural (she never studied voice). She says, “I want to act. I want to be a dramatic actress like Bette Davis and Margaret Sullavan and Norma Shearer, who are my favorites.”

Judy, by the way, is one of the very, very few screen players ever to obtain a contract without having to undergo the formality of a screen test. The only others on record are Ramon Novarro and Janet Gaynor. And they were of the silent era. Since talkies came in Judy is the only “testless” player to be given a contract.
*

“As I say,” Judy was saying, “my favorite movie actresses are Bette Davis, Margaret Sullavan and Norma Shearer. When I grow up I want to be a little like all three of them. My favorite movie actors are Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable, Robert Donat and Charles Boyer. If I ever get married, which I do not intend to do until I am thirty because when I marry I intend to give up my career, I would like my husband to be a mixture of these four men.

“I love to go to the movies. I go almost every night of my life. I go with Mummie, with my sister Jimmie, who is twenty and my very best friend. Jimmie, by the way, takes a doll to bed with her every night, too. I hope you won't think we're all imbeciles. It's just being companionable, I guess. Anyway, I also go with Betty Jane Graham, my very best friend outside the family. Betty Jane and I play Ping-Pong, too, and ride and roller-skate and swim. Sometimes Mummie takes us to lunch at the Pig 'n Whistle. Then we go to a show afterwards and Betty Jane comes up with me and spends the night. Betty Jane has done things in pictures, too, and is a Very Fine Actress.

“Well, people have asked me about the Biggest Thrills I've had since I became a motion picture actress myself. Of course, as I've said, the first
Big Thrill was when Mr. Mayer, whom I've come to love very much in Any Mood, sent me my contract the very day after I sang for him. Then there was the Coney Island thrill. Then the next one was meeting Benny Goodman. I got goose-flesh over that because I admire Benny Goodman beyond most men.

“The first picture star I ever met after I came to M-G-M was Jimmy Stewart. If anyone should ask me what I thought about him then I would answer: ‘Just what I think about him now—he is wonderful.' He has a lot of fun with me, I guess. He keeps asking me when I'm going to marry him and I say that I am too young and he says that pretty soon he will be too old. Which is ridiculous because of course he's very young and is the type who will never be old.

“But speaking of the first movie star I ever met in my life—well, it was when I was three years old and we first came to Hollywood. My father being a theater-owner and all we visited most of the studios. One day we came to this studio, to M-G-M. After our visit during which we saw Frances Marion and her husband, Fred Thomson, who were awfully nice and jolly to us, we went to a little restaurant across the street to have lunch. As we went in I saw an earring lying on the sidewalk, quite an Oriental earring. I picked it up and took it to a waitress and she said: ‘Oh, yes. I know who that belongs to. It belongs to that girl over at the counter having her lunch.' Well, I gave the earring back to the girl having lunch at the counter. And it was
Myrna Loy
!

“Then, another very Big Thrill was the night I was invited to Norma Shearer's for dinner. I got all dressed up for that. I met Carole Lombard there and also Charles Boyer and his wife and Basil Rathbone and his wife. The next day Miss Shearer sent me a beautiful makeup kit with my name on it. Which certainly goes to show you how big stars are in Hollywood.

“Another B. T. was when Clark Gable gave me a charm bracelet. One of the charms is a little sort of book with Clark's picture in it. I suppose he sent it to me on account of the song in
Broadway Melody [of 1938].
I have also sung that song for him here in the commissary and on the sets and places. He always gets very red in the face when I sing it but I think he likes it.

“Then there was the time when I had my picture on the cover of a fan magazine. I let out a shriek when I saw that.

“The preview of
Broadway Melody [of 1938]
was a very Big Thrill. I got dressed about five hours before it was time to go. I always do that, get dressed five hours before it's time to go anywhere and then when it is time I'm all mussed up.

“I don't care very much for society, though. And I
hate
dances. I simply hate them. You dance and dance and no sooner do you stop dancing then someone grabs you and says: ‘Come on, let's dance.' And you're off again. I went to a dance with Jackie Searl a few weeks ago. He and another boy took my friend Betty and me. They sent us corsages and everything. It was their School Dance. Mummie waited up for me at Mrs. Searl's house. They sat up for us together, Mummie and Mrs. Searl. Well, we got home about twelve thirty and I just kicked my shoes off then and there and thought, though I didn't say it on account of Jackie being so nice and polite and all, ‘No More Dances For Me!'”

Judy had, I knew, “gone out” quite frequently with Jackie Cooper. They had been seen lunching at the Brown Derby, coming out of movie matinees, swimming and playing tennis together. I asked Judy about Jackie. She said affably, “Oh, I don't see him anymore. He's got another girl.”

I said then: “Is there—I mean, are you interested in anyone else?”

Judy looked, for the first time, slightly embarrassed. She said to her mother, “Do you—do you think I ought to mention it? Do you think I ought to mention—
him?”

And Judy's mother said, “Why not, dear? You like him and admire him and there's no harm in saying so.”

“Well,” laughed Judy, a little constrainedly, “for one thing, he's a—younger man, you see. That makes it rather awkward. But it is Freddie Bartholomew.”

There was a slight pause during which I thought, sentimentally, that I could hear young Judy's warm heart beat a little faster. I felt, too, a little ashamed that I had asked her. You could tell that it was, with Judy, Kind of Sacred.

Then she said, changing the subject with great finesse: “Another Thrill will be the house we're going to build. It's being built from my plans, plans I drew up all by myself. And I have my room all planned out. The walls will be a sort of pale wood and there will be a beige rug and a big bed, the studio couch kind, done in brown corduroy and the hangings will be pale green.

She still plays dolls. Sophie Tucker calls her, “the next red hot mama.” She is standing, though with eager, not reluctant feet, where the brook and river meet. She is a wise child, but a
child.
And she is bursting with “promise,” all kinds and sorts of promises. She “sees” Hollywood as a Surprise Package. It is. And one of its most continuous “surprises” is going to be, I make bold to prophesy, this same Judy Garland.

*
Judy's audition for Metro occurred on September 13, 1935. “Please prepare contract covering the services of JUDY GARLAND as an actress,” read the inter-office communication memo dated three days later, September 16. It should be noted that this bit of misinformation appeared in numerous articles published throughout her career.

*
Although Judy was said to have been the only person ever signed to M-G-M without a screen test, similar claims have been made in reference to other Metro stars, too.

The New York City appearance referenced in the first paragraph of this
Modern Screen
feature took place on February 10, 1938, exactly four months prior to Judy's sixteenth birthday. In support of the film
Everybody Sing,
which proclaimed the up-and-comer as “the nation's new singing star,” this was Judy's debut at Loew's State Theatre on Broadway, where she performed four shows a day and reportedly grossed $10,000 more than the theater's average weekly gross at that time.

“Youngster is a resounding wallop in her first vaudeville appearance [as Judy Garland],” decreed
Variety.
“Comes to the house with a rep in films … Apparent from the outset that girl is no mere flash, but has both personality and the skill to develop into a box-office wow in any line of show business. Applause was solid, and she encored twice, finally begging off with an ingratiating and shrewd thank-you speech.”

Judy Garland figures that now is the time for boyfriends and lots of fun

Remember how it felt to be sweet sixteen? Judy Garland
knows,
for she's just turned it, and is the first to tell you what goes on. In fact, it was on the eve of this eventful birthday that Judy journeyed to New York where she broke Jack Dempsey's all-time record for attendance at the theater where she appeared.

Now this in itself is somewhat of a major accomplishment, but not nearly so much, Judy feels, as the passing of those first fifteen years! When
asked how it felt to be grown up, she grinned and said, “Oh, not much different. But gosh, everyone who knows me at all says I'm
not
grown up!”