Judy Garland

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

She began performing in childhood with her two older sisters in the vaudeville troupe The Gumm Sisters, and signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in her teenage years. She appeared in about twenty MGM films, notably The Wizard of Oz (1939), Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), The Harvey Girls (1946), Easter Parade (1948) and Annie Get Your Gun (1950). Garland was a recurring 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 delivered two of her most critically acclaimed roles: in the musical 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 performer and held concerts that attracted 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 first woman) recipient of the Cecil B. DeMille Award for her overall contributions to the entertainment industry.

Throughout her career, she recorded many songs, including Over the Rainbow, which became her signature song, the Christmas classic Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas and the St. 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, and was the first woman to win this award.

Garland experienced personal difficulties from an early age. The pressures of early fame affected her physical and mental health from adolescence. Her self-image was influenced by constant criticism from film executives who thought she was not physically attractive and who manipulated her physical appearance on screen. She had financial problems, often owing hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes. Throughout her adult life, she struggled with substance-related 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 were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, and in 1999, the American Film Institute ranked her 8th on its AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars list.