Free Judy Garland on Judy Garland by Randy L. Schmidt Page A

laughing all day, but when she starts sitting around waiting for the telephone to ring we know she’s in the midst of another romantic crush. Probably the person she has a crush on never knows it—but mothers can always tell. I never worry about her, for these schoolgirl crushes never last long. Judy’s very proud that she’s a young lady now. The other day she went shopping by herself and came home with her first pair of high-heeled slippers. They really look so much better than the flat-heeled slippers that I let her wear them and buy some more. Judy’s still girlishly plump—and she wants to be pencil-slim like her two sisters, but I tell her she’ll slim down in another year. My other girls did.
    â€œYou should have seen Judy when she picked up this morning’s paper. There was an article saying that Judy Garland, the youngster, would now step into Deanna Durbin’s shoes—for Deanna was now definitely a young woman. Judy felt terrible at being classified as a youngster. ‘You’d think I was Jane Withers’ age,’ she said.”
    Judy came on stage then, and the applause was terrific. She looked sweet-sixteen and appealing; she sang several songs and then told the audience how she’d broken into the movies. A talent scout heard her sing on a lodge program at Lake Tahoe and sent for her. Louis B. Mayer of M-G-M heard her audition and promptly signed her on the dotted line.
    On the way back to the dressing room her mother continued, “Judy’s an unselfish child. She wants to do so much for her family. Though bothof her sisters are married, she insists that they stay home and live with us. She wants us all to be together always. We have a new eleven-room house and there’s plenty of room. Judy adores her two older sisters.”
    Judy was going through a handful of fan letters and mash notes sent back to her from out front. She was smiling over some and suggested to her mother that she really ought to see the writers and greet them since they were so nice to write back and ask to see her. At the stage door there were hundreds of them milling about—all waiting to get a glimpse of her. A high-school youth was carrying a florist’s box and another had a box of candy—Judy’s suitors!
    Judy returned home the other day and so I dashed right over to her house in Beverly Hills to check up on her, as it were. And darned if the telephone didn’t ring, right while I was there—and it was New York calling. Judy talked sweetly for five full minutes and then with sudden concern, “Oh, we’ve talked for five minutes—just think how much that will cost! I guess we’d better hang up!” And after she’d placed the receiver on the hook, I asked her point-blank, “Well, which one was that?” And Judy replied, “He’s a boy I met in New York. He took mother and me out to dinner and to see Katharine Hepburn in
The Philadelphia Story
[the play]. Really he’s a wonderful boy. So thoughtful.” Meaning probably that he’s another one of Judy Garland’s romantic crushes!

“I’VE BEEN TO THE LAND OF OZ!”
JUDY GARLAND AS TOLD TO GLADYS HALL | September 1939,
Child Life
    This is the first in a series of Judy’s “as told to” stories by prolific Hollywood fan magazine writer Gladys Hall. Based on Hall’s personal interviews and meetings with Judy (and in all probability some of M-G-M’s press material, too), this
Child Life
feature gives a charming look at
The Wizard of Oz
through the eyes of its “Dorothy.”
    It is, of course, impossible to determine how much of these stories were made up of direct Judy quotes versus amalgamated passages shaped by Hall and other writers. Regardless, the idea of a sixteen-year-old Judy communicating the joys of her experiences on the
Oz
set—even if by proxy—makes for a rare and delightful reading experience.
    I’ll