Human Flower Project
Falling for Judy Garland
“Over the top” is, for some, an acquired taste—a few trips through the wringer may help get you there.
Judy Garland singing before a wall of roses
“Born in a Trunk” from “A Star is Born,” 1954
Agony has its rewards.
For some fine people (“fine” we can call them now) it builds character; for everyone, it changes capacity.
Like the capacity for Judy Garland. Back when the entertainment industry was still “show business,” she was IT, and we were very young – pre-agony. Her big stagy gestures, bow-shaped mouth painted red, the emaciated body and dyed black hair were horrifying to a ten year old in the suburbs of Louisville, Kentucky. How freaky. How needy! We were trying to acquire a completely different cultural temperature: cool. To be loved while gliding under the radar, not tap-dancing, arm-flinging, hair-twisting for approval. Judy’s blatant cravings – and vaudeville aesthetic – were side-show bizarre. We were kind of embarrassed for her, but mainly we were grossed out.
Stoking the star maker machinery, Hollywood execs had Judy Garland open her own flower shop at age 15, 1939. We don’t know how long Judy Garland Flowers was open.
Photo: Bettmann
It was Jean Bergstrom who turned us on to Judy about 10 years ago. An actress and singer herself, Jean never hit the big time. In fact, she never really hit the small time and stuck there. She had been a torch singer somewhere along the line and had the publicity shots to prove it. But we gather that era didn’t last long. Instead, she became a young bride, muscled her way through several marriages, had a couple of children. Her daughter, named Judy, predeceased her.
From bits and pieces, we surmise that Jean had run with a fairly rich crowd awhile in Houston, then operated a restaurant in a small Texas town. She cared for her parents until both of them died and then buried the last husband beneath a giant pair of granite dice in the La Grange cemetery.
Her final act? Living solo, always dressed up and made up, Jean became more introspective and peaceful, losing none of her brass. “There’s good pride and there’s bad pride,” she used to say, something gleaned from a fellow in the Austin Detox center. “I’ve forgiven everybody.” She told us that more than once, as if doing so required some continuing effort.
We never admitted to Jean our opinion of Judy Garland. Instead, we listened. And we watched “A Star Is Born.” That, and Jean, plus some agony, changed our feelings. (If you still have doubts, check out “The Man that Got Away.”
Ever since this world began,
there is nothing sadder than….
It’s not that misery loves company – it just loves in a way that non-misery hasn’t learned how to, yet.
Some additional Human Flower Project connections:
(1) Although there are several other, less widely accepted competing explanations for the origin of the singer’s show business name “Garland,” most think that Judy’s mother replaced her girls’ earlier theatrical name “The Gumm Sisters” with the more flattering name “The Garland Sisters” when comedian George Jessel announced at the Oriental Theater in Chicago that the trio of singers (her daughters)…“looked prettier than a GARLAND OF FLOWERS.”
(2) In 1939, Judy opened a flower shop called “Garland’s Flowers.” Few people know that Judy was also quite proud of the fact that she had taken a COURSE IN FLOWER ARRANGING, and she enjoyed this creative outlet.
(3) There is a JUDY GARLAND ROSE—a yellow blend with red edges and an apple-rose fragrance. http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/pl.php?n=3547