Forty years ago on July 22, 1969, one of the world’s brightest stars went dim and the  LGBT community lost one of its most cherished  icons when Judy Garland passed away.

Born Frances Ethel Gumm on June 10, 1922, and through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years, Garland attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, a recording artist, and on the concert stage. Respected for her versatility, she received a Juvenile Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for her work in films, as well as Grammy Awards and a Tony Award.

After appearing in vaudeville with her sisters, Garland was signed to MGM as a teenager. There she made more than two dozen films, including nine with Mickey Rooney, and of course, the film with which she would be most identified, 1939′s The Wizard of Oz.  It took 15 years, but Garland was released from the studio and gained renewed success through record-breaking concert appearances, including a critically acclaimed concert at the legendary Carnegie Hall, a well-respected but short-lived series on television , and a triumphant return to the silver screen beginning with 1954′s A Star is Born.

Despite her professional triumphs, Garland battled personal problems throughout her life. Insecure about her appearance, her feelings were compounded by film executives who told her she was unattractive and overweight. Plied with drugs to control her weight and increase her productivity, Garland endured a decades-long struggle with addiction. Garland was plagued by financial instability, often owing hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes, and her first four of five marriages ended in divorce. She attempted suicide on a number of occasions. Garland died of an accidental drug overdose at the age of 47, leaving children Liza Minnelli, and Lorna and Joey Luft.

The Grammy Awards posthumously awarded Garland the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997 Garland was posthumously awarded and several of her recordings have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. and in 1999, the American Film Institute (AFI)  placed her among the ten greatest female stars in the history of American Cinema.

Garland always had a large fan base in the gay community. The reasons often given for this status (especially by gay men) are her ability as a performer, the way her personal life struggles mirrored those of gay men in America during the peak of her fame and her value as a camp figure.  Also, coincidental or not, the timing of her death and funeral in June of 1969 and the Stonewall Riots (which for most marked the starting point for the modern day Gay Liberation movement) has become a part of LGBT lore.

Of an up-coming feature film based on the life of Judy Garland (who would have turned 87 on June 10) called “Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland” and starring Anne Hathaway in the leading role, Garland’s daughter, the equally as legendary Liza Minnelli has urged the makers of the film to not just depict the dark side of her mother’s life by focusing primarily on her drug addiction phase, and though Minnelli has no problems with Hathaway playing the role of her mother in the movie, her mother’s talent and virtues should be highlighted.

“Well, I love Anne Hathaway. And I hope it’s a good movie and I hope that it’s true.  You know, they just don’t concentrate on crap like they used to”, says Minnelli.  People usually end up talking about her mother’s problems and forget to talk about the real Judy Garland, like her doting mother quality and how wonderful a human being she was.

“I Hope”, says Minnelli, “that they talk about her the way she should be talked about which was she was a fabulous entertainer, a great mother and just a wonderful human being.”

We ALL hope for the same thing, Liza. And we STILL love and miss you Judy!!

Until Next Time,

Michael Queenstown

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