Althouse: Judy Garland is 100.

June 10, 2022

Judy Garland is 100.

27 comments:

Narr said...: What kind of people know who July Garland is? I barely do (mid-Boomer) and thought, "Wait, isn't she dead?"

Had to look. Still dead.; 6/10/22, 3:11 PM
rcocean said...: A rather odd way to phrase it. Amazing how unfair life is. Kirk Douglas just died, and Judy died, what 50 years ago. Yet Kirk was 5 years older. Its too bad she didn't have a long career like Mickey Rooney.

So many good movies in such a short career though.; 6/10/22, 3:20 PM
Michael K said...: Had a tortured life.; 6/10/22, 3:26 PM
Richard said...: TCM is currently showing her movies.; 6/10/22, 3:28 PM
MikeD said...: Not big into "musical numbers" outside of the movie/play they're a part of. However, speaking of Ms. Garland, I just watched a great little movie she starred in, "The Clock". I'll highly recommend it as a cleanser for today's "media".; 6/10/22, 3:44 PM
Readering said...: Would have been....; 6/10/22, 3:47 PM
Yancey Ward said...: Judy Garland isn't 100, she would have been 100.; 6/10/22, 3:52 PM
FWBuff said...: Thanks so much for posting this, Professor. What an amazing talent!; 6/10/22, 4:02 PM
gspencer said...: 100 years old?

Judy would drink to that.; 6/10/22, 4:11 PM
Humperdink said...: Judy Garland "would be" 100. Reading the headline I thought she was still alive.; 6/10/22, 4:13 PM
Joe Smith said...: Ummm...her rotting corpse is 100...; 6/10/22, 4:19 PM
Dagwood said...: She is timeless. Has there ever been another who displayed such vulnerability on the screen, or brought so much joy?; 6/10/22, 5:12 PM
Rory said...: That's a remarkably sensible list.; 6/10/22, 6:04 PM
William said...: Judy Garland and Over the Rainbow. Nat King Cole and Stardust. Doris Day and Que Sera Sera. Bing Crosby and White Christmas. These songs go beyond nostalgia. They create their own happy memory. Extra poignancy points if they also had special poignancy for your parents.; 6/10/22, 6:51 PM
Kate said...: We have watched "Meet Me In St. Louis" so many times I can't count. We call it, for short, "Ketchup" because of the opening scene. Every other minute has a in-joke for us.

That tennis outfit is one of the ugliest garments ever put on film.; 6/10/22, 7:00 PM
gspencer said...: Other happy memory songs associated with a particular artist,

Goldfinger, Shirley Bassey
I Left My Heart in San Francisco, Tony Bennett
Margaritaville, Jimmy Buffett
Alfie, That’s What Friends Are For, Dionne Warwick, plus a bunch of other Burt Bacharach songs
Piano Man, Billy Joel
The Gambler, Kenny Rogers

as for Nate King Cole, I'd choose Autumn Leaves or Unforgettable; 6/10/22, 8:44 PM
Ann Althouse said...: I chose to write the post title that way, knowing that at least somebody would make that pedantic objection.

If you only had a heart…; 6/10/22, 8:45 PM
Ann Althouse said...: The meaning is: she is immortal.; 6/10/22, 8:46 PM
stephen cooper said...: My favorite scene in a Judy Garland movie is the way she is totally mean and dismissive to three guys who want to dance with her at a small local cotillion in Saint Louis - one of the guys has ugly glasses, the other looks like a badly dressed Italian immigrant, and the third looks like her husband, the not-very masculine director Minelli.

She is also really mean to the Cowardly Lion - I think she slaps his face and laughs right in his face at one point.

In real life, she was probably a very kind and nice person when she was not strung out, but she did have a talent for playing mean people in the movies.; 6/10/22, 9:25 PM
Narr said...: Sorry to live down to your expectation, but don't be so touchy. I didn't disparage her or her work, and had to look up her dates. Honest.; 6/10/22, 9:40 PM
s'opihjerdt said...: If Judy Garland was alive today she would be 100. If Jack Benny was alive today he would be 39.; 6/10/22, 10:23 PM
Yancey Ward said...: No, she is dead. Memory of her is likely going to be immortal.; 6/10/22, 11:33 PM
Education Realist said...: Not just one but three songs from Easter Parade should have made the list, along with Atchison Topeka and the Santa Fe (which won an Oscar).

I was just watching Elaine Stritch's one woman show with her great Judy Garland impression of the two of them partying after her Carnegie Hall show.

"Elaine," she said. "I never thought I'd say this, but....good night!"; 6/10/22, 11:47 PM
Readering said...: Immortal for as long as gay men feel misunderstood.; 6/11/22, 12:20 AM
Lurker21 said...: In the Sixties, The Wizard of Oz was on every year, and families watched it together. Maybe it still is, though there may not be as much familial togetherness. Her other pictures were also shown in prime time.

I can understand if those born at the end of the century don't know who she was. Maybe they don't know who Hope and Crosby or Abbot and Costello or Martin and Lewis were. But Oz was a part of growing up 60 years ago.

It's unfortunate that she became a way of snidely referring to homosexuals at a time when America barely knew what homosexuals were. She was, from what I can tell, as talented as any of the major male performers of her day.; 6/11/22, 8:55 AM
stephen cooper said...: What Education Realist said. Also, if you ever get a chance, watch on TCM or on one of the recent videos that are closer to the original - she was one of the first performers to really get how to perform for the cameras of the early "movies in color" years. And while my prior comment about her being mean was an attempt (as usual, a mostly failed attempt) at humor, she was either a really good actress in her later darker roles, or else she really meant what she was saying when she was in character (I don't and never have acted, but I am guessing they are different things).; 6/11/22, 10:42 AM
Narr said...: Now I'm wondering about the connection between (cultural) immortality and technology.

Will the tech-enabled immortality of Garland and other 20th C performers be a different kind of immortality than say, Jenny Lind or Sarah Bernhardt enjoyed?

Who?

Exactly.

I'm only familiar with the hard-to-avoid (back then) Wiz, myself.; 6/11/22, 11:30 AM