Judy Garland

Judy Garland, born Frances Ethel Gumm, on 10 June 1922 in Grand Rapids (Minnesota) and who died on 22 June 1969 in London, was an American actress, singer and dancer. She achieved international fame and was renowned for her versatility. She received a Golden Globe, a special Tony Award, and is one of only twelve people in history to have received a Juvenile Academy Award. She was the mother of singer and actress Liza Minnelli.

She began performing as a child with her two older sisters in the vaudeville troupe The Gumm Sisters, and signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a teenager. She appeared in around twenty MGM films, including The Wizard of Oz (1939), Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), The Harvey Girls (1946), Easter Parade (1948) and Summer Stock (1950). Garland was a recurring on-screen partner of Mickey Rooney and Gene Kelly, and regularly collaborated with director Vincente Minnelli, her second husband. In 1950, after 15 years at MGM, she was released from her studio contract amid a series of personal problems that prevented her from fulfilling its terms.

Although her film career became intermittent afterwards, she gave two of her most critically acclaimed performances: in the musical film A Star Is Born (1954), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award, and in the courtroom drama Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). She was also a singer who gave concerts that drew record audiences, released eight studio albums, and hosted her own Emmy-nominated television series, The Judy Garland Show. At 39, she became the youngest (and the first woman) recipient of the Cecil B. DeMille Award, for her overall contributions to the film industry.

Throughout her career, she recorded numerous songs, including Over the Rainbow, which became her signature song, the Christmas classic Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, and the Saint Patrick's Day anthem It's a Great Day for the Irish. She won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year for her 1961 live recording, Judy at Carnegie Hall, becoming the first woman to win that award.

Garland faced difficulties in her personal life from a very young age. The pressures of early fame affected her physical and mental health from adolescence onward. Her self-image was shaped by constant criticism from studio executives who considered her physically unattractive and who manipulated her on-screen appearance. She had financial troubles, often owing hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes. Throughout her adult life, she struggled with substance use disorders involving both drugs and alcohol. She died of a barbiturate overdose in 1969 at the age of 47. In 1997, she posthumously received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Several of her recordings have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, and in 1999, the American Film Institute ranked her 8th among the greatest female stars of classic American cinema on its AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars list.