(the not so) Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Today I'm joined by Cass of Hollywoodland Photos to deep dive into the life of Judy Garland. Child prodigy, star of the Wizard of Oz and victim to the Hollywood studio system, her life is a mish mash of terrific highs and terrifying lows which ultimately took her life.

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• 1:00Speaker 03

  Hello, guys, and welcome back to a brand-new episode of Pod History. I am so excited to have you all listening along as we talk about all the things in history that you probably should know, but don't. In today's episode, we are covering the equally terrific and tragic life of one of Hollywood's biggest movie stars. Star of The Wizard of Oz, mother of Liza Minnelli, and a certified cultural legend, Judy Garland's story is full of just as many twists and turns as the Yellow Brick Road itself. So, to help us on our journey today, I am joined by my fabulous friend Cass from Hollywoodland Photos. And with a mammoth 294,000 followers on Instagram, Cass is an Aussie actor

• 1:43Speaker 03

  whose love of Hollywood and history runs deep. And I couldn't think of anyone more suited to chatting us through Judy's life. So, let's get into it.

• 2:07Speaker 03

  Hi Cass, thanks so much for joining us here as our very first guest on Pod History.

• 2:13Speaker 04

  I am so honoured to be your first guest and I can't believe it. Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here talking about this exciting topic.

• 2:20Speaker 03

  I know, me too. It is the hottest thing. I am so blessed to have you as my first guest. I feel like we've just been like moving through some of the big figures, trying to like, you know, mark some people off the list. So it's cool to be able to do a deep dive with you on the fabulous Judy Garland. But first, I want to talk about you. Tell the listeners who you are. Tell us about Hollywoodland Photos. Give us your rundown.

• 2:45Speaker 04

  Oh my gosh, I always, it's always like when you get asked, who are you at a new job or are you sitting in a circle like, I don't really want that anymore. Who am I? So I've always been a massive old Hollywood movie buff. I've, I've loved, I love history. And so movies, history, old Hollywood kind of hold hands together. Um, so I've been passionate about old Hollywood since I was a teenager. And so I started an Instagram page in 2015, thinking it's just for me. I want to post pictures of Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn, just so I can look at them. Yeah, literally that was all it was for, but it kind of grew and I realised that I'm not the only person that deeply loves these people and this time in

• 3:26Speaker 04

  in Hollywood history. So it's grown to a really, really big amount and it's, it's lovely. And um, yeah, it's, it's just such a nice thing to have. Cause I mean, who doesn't love escaping into an old movie?

• 3:40Speaker 03

  I know. I love your content so much. I always like come across it. I feel so like sophisticated.

• 3:44Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 3:46Speaker 03

  All right. Shall we get into the duty of it all?

• 3:49Speaker 04

  Yes, let's do it.

• 3:50Speaker 03

  Fab. So let's jump back in time today, guys, to June 10th, 1922.

• 3:58Speaker 03

  So guys, on June 10th, 1922, Frances, later Judy Harland, is born in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, as the youngest of three daughters to Ethel Marion, she is a pianist, and Frances Frank Gumm, a vaudeville performer and theatre owner. So, as the background suggests, guys, the entire Garland family were deeply rooted in the world of live performance, which makes it no surprise that young Frances would soon find herself on stage. But even the youngest of musical prodigies would be blown out of the water when she made her debut. She was

• 4:39Speaker 03

  two years old and was singing at her father's Christmas show. The crowd, along with her parents during her performance, realised that this talent was not only singular. She was a genuine prodigy. Even Mozart, like, he doesn't have anything on duty, two years old, can you believe it? Soon, guys, she was performing regularly with her older sisters, Mary, Jane and Virginia, as the Gumm sisters. Their mother, like I said, Ethel, she managed the group closely, ensuring that they always had nearly really polished routines. But it was the youngest Frances, aka Judy, who outshined both of her sisters, not just because of her

• 5:22Speaker 03

  natural talent, which, as I said, is obvious and immense, but also because of her undeniable charisma. Now, audiences were drawn to her and the emotional punch of her singing even at such a young age, which really set the foundations for her to become such a young star. The family then toured throughout the 20s and 30s during the Great Depression, meaning that Frances spent much, if not all, of her childhood on the road. And where most children her age were playing with toys or making friends, Frances was rehearsing routines, memorising songs and performing in smoky, filled theatres. This really cast made the stage both her playground and her classroom. So, I want to hear from you.

• 6:07Speaker 03

  Tell us all please, how did young Frances become Judy? And how did she find herself going from the stage to the screen? Like, there's not really that normal, like Disney kid, Nickelodeon pipeline for child actors back then. So how did it all happen?

• 6:24Speaker 04

  So, yes, exactly. There wasn't really that kid star pipeline like Disney or Nickelodeon, like a Miley Cyrus, Hilary Duff sort of thing back then. But like you said, from the time she could barely walk, the stage was her playground. So in nineteen twenty-six, her family relocated to California after rumours about her father's private life forced them to leave their hometown. Her dad, Frank, yeah, her dad Frank bought and ran another theatre in California while her mother focused on managing Judy and her sisters. Ethel was determined to get her daughters into motion pictures. So maybe like, kind of like an early Kris Jenner vibes here I'm getting, which, you know.

• 7:06Speaker 03

  I love that. But it's like, uh, uh, uh, a really like nineteen twenties, like Abby Lee Miller situation.

• 7:13Speaker 04

  Yes, exactly right, yes. She was, she was the midwife of this. Um, so Judy was essentially being groomed for Hollywood from the moment she was conceived, thought of. And when Judy made her very first film appearance with her sisters in a short film called The Big Review in nineteen twenty-nine, which is crazy, she was only seven years old. And over the next few years, the sisters appeared in several short films, even a Technicolor short film, which is crazy for MGM in nineteen thirty-five. And while they're performing, the sisters were performing in Chicago, their names got some laughs because the audience has thought the Gum Sisters, so G U M M, sounded funny, thinking they were the Glum Sisters, G L U M.

• 7:58Speaker 04

  So it was George Jessel, who was then a big theatre star, who encouraged them to change it. And that's how they became the Garland Sisters. And soon after, Frances became Judy, inspired by a popular Hoagie Carmichael song called Judy, of course, makes sense.

• 8:16Speaker 03

  It's so much better, like, no, no offence to all the Frances's in the world, love you all. But if it's Frances or Judy for Hollywood, we're going with Judy Garland, Frances Garland, Judy Garland.

• 8:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, Judy Garland, so much more.

• 8:33Speaker 04

  So by the time MGM, the the uh production, this the big production company signed her, she was just thirteen. But she wasn't a newcomer into this industry. She'd already been on stage for a decade, toured America and even made films. So she wasn't discovered in the way that we think stars discover today. She literally grew up in the business and her extraordinary voice made her stand out every single step of the way.

• 8:58Speaker 03

  So that's kind of through MGM there that she really came into the first contact with The Wizard of Oz, right? Through MGM.

• 9:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, so kind of. It was a bit of a process to get there. So when she signed with MGM, the studio didn't really know what to do with her at first. She wasn't a child anymore, even though at thirteen, she was still definitely a child. But she also wasn't the glamorous leading lady type yet. So I was kind of looking at this talent going, where do we put her? Her real breakout role came out in Broadway Melody of nineteen thirty eight. It's an average movie. I rewatched it recently. But she sings a song called Dear Mister Gable about Clark Gable. And it absolutely stopped the show. When I watched this film, it was definitely the best part of the movie. And you can see why this young teenager, literally captured audiences in the thirties, was like, whoa. This voice and this little thing, where has she come from?

• 9:48Speaker 04

  Uh, that number proved to both MGM and audiences that she wasn't just another teenager on the lot. She was a genuine star in the making and it gave the studio the confidence to push her to bigger roles, which is where The Wizard of Oz comes in. Although, of course, in casting, even today's casting world, it was not straightforward. MGM didn't immediately see her as Dorothy. In the book, she is no older than ten. In the movie, she's about twelve, which is crazy to me.

• 10:18Speaker 03

  That is crazy. I never knew that.

• 10:19Speaker 04

  No, I know. She's twelve. What twelve year olds going through this and having this maturity?

• 10:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:25Speaker 04

  Um, and Judy was sixteen, okay? So like, there was a lot of hesitation. Shirley Temple, who was America's sweetheart at the time, was considered because she was the biggest child star in in America. But she was contracted to Fox, contracted to Fox, and they wouldn't let her out of that contract. So.

• 10:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:45Speaker 04

  Judy stayed in the mix. The studio tried to mold her into what they thought Dorothy should be. So this is where things get murky. They put her on a strict diet. Remember, she's just sixteen. They put her on a strict diet. They gave her pills to control her weight and even bound her chest to make her look younger. At one point, yeah, yeah. At one point, they tested her in a blonde wig to mimic Shirley Temple, which was a complete disaster. There are photos out there.

• 11:11Speaker 03

  Oh, are they really?

• 11:13Speaker 04

  Yes, look it up. Like, she's got really long blonde curly hair. Yes, Google this. So what ultimately won them over was her authenticity. Judy has had a warmth and a natural relatability that really couldn't be manufactured and was totally right for the role of Dorothy.

• 11:30Speaker 03

  I love that. So before we kind of deep dive into Judy's big break, how it all went down, all the filming fiascos, all of the juice, all of the sugar, all of the spice. I just want to take us back once more to nineteen hundred because I want to dig into the history of the Wizard of Oz book itself. I feel like with Wicked coming out now, there's like so much lore about the wider Oz universe. So let's go back to nineteen hundred, guys. We are here, it is nineteen hundred, and there is one man, the name of L. Frank Baum, who published a book titled The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

• 12:09Speaker 03

  But he was not always a writer, guys. Before writing Oz, he worked in a wide variety of professions. At one point, he was running a store. The next, he was raising chickens, while also dabbling in theatre and writing, with his real breakthrough coming when he began telling stories to his children and their friends. He was really encouraged by their enthusiasm and he began to write them down with the help of illustrator W. W. Denzil, who collaborated with Baum on earlier kind of children's works that he had worked across, including Father Goose, which was his book from eighteen ninety-nine. And it was Denzil who provided the artwork for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the book itself.

• 12:55Speaker 03

  Together, Baum's world and Denzil's bold illustrations brought Dorothy, Toto, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion to life. From the get-go, guys, Oz the book, very importantly, Oz the book, was a roaring success with the first edition selling out really quickly. And by the end of the year, tens of thousands of copies had been printed. And this is like well back, like very, very early twentieth century. This kind of success, like in a single year's worth of print run was incredible. The success of this first book was so immense that readers begged Borm for more.

• 13:35Speaker 03

  Initially, he was really reluctant, but he eventually came in and wrote thirteen more Oz books. Did you know this, Cass?

• 13:43Speaker 04

  No, I didn't. What?

• 13:44Speaker 03

  I know. I was, I was looking into this. I'm like, whoa, it's giving like Marvel. It's giving like

• 13:52Speaker 04

  Early Marvel.

• 13:54Speaker 03

  Literally. So he created a sprawling literary universe out of his characters. There was titles like The Marvelous Land of Oz from 1904, Ozma of Oz 1907, and The Emerald City of 1910, which really worked to expand mythology and introduced new beloved characters. And this really expanded the world. And like I said, it is primarily this expanded kind of universe led to the 1939 MGM film adaptation. So Cass, please take us through how this cinema classic first came to life. How did we go from like, this is like really, I feel like it was always like the OG book to film

• 14:39Speaker 03

  pipeline adaptation. Like, how did it happen?

• 14:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:45Speaker 04

  I'm just listening to you say all that, just quickly. It's so crazy that this book that was written 125 plus years ago is still, even today, moviegoers are so excited about still exploring this world. It's just, that's the power of story. It's why I love it so much. And the power of history. It's just amazing. It's the best. Anyway, yes, the making of The Wizard of Oz was insane. I think anyone that watches it kind of knows that this movie making process was one of the most chaotic in Hollywood history. The first problem was in the director's chair. So we had four different directors working on this film.

• 15:23Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 15:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, four different visions on one film. It's surprising.

• 15:29Speaker 04

  It's a lot, it's a lot. So first we had Richard Thorpe, but MGM didn't like his footage and after two weeks they scrapped it, so he was out. Then one of my favourite directors, George Cukor, came in to briefly advise. And then Victor Fleming came in and took over and directed most of the movie until he was pulled away to finish Gone with the Wind. Another epic movie, like my gosh, going from Wizard of Oz to Gone with the Wind, that's a lot. And then King Vador stepped in at the very end and shot the black and white sepia Kansas sequences, which included Judy Garland's Over the Rainbow. So that's the first kind of, that's gonna make any movie set chaotic. One director's enough, four, that's a headache.

• 16:09Speaker 03

  My god.

• 16:11Speaker 04

  Yes, a lot. But then, more to that, there was casting dramas. So Buddy Ebson was the original Tin Man. He had such a severe allergic reaction to the makeup that he nearly died.

• 16:24Speaker 03

  No.

• 16:25Speaker 04

  Two weeks in critical condition from the makeup from the Tin Man, which is, that's dedicated to your craft right there. So of course he had to be replaced. And he was replaced by Jack Haley. And Haley himself developed an eye infection from the same makeup. Can they take this makeup off?

• 16:42Speaker 03

  I know, oh my god.

• 16:43Speaker 04

  It's killing these people, killing these Tin Men. And of course, one of my favourite bits, well it's not my favourites, the most interesting, The Wicked Witch. We're all a little bit obsessed with The Wicked Witch. Well, that role had a lot of drama even before those cameras rolled. Gail Sondengard, an Oscar-winning actress, was originally cast.

• 17:07Speaker 04

  Because the first Wicked Witch was imagined as sly and glamorous, kind of think about Disney's Snow White's evil queen, like that stunning, beautiful.

• 17:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was gonna say, like a Snow White tangled sort of like Mother Gothel thing.

• 17:20Speaker 04

  She wasn't, she wasn't the green look they ended up with, she was gorge. But when MGM decided to make the witch a more, I hate saying these words, these are their words, grotesque, frightening character. Sondengard withdrew, not wanting to play, this is not my word, not wanting to play an ugly hag.

• 17:40Speaker 04

  Such a horrible thing to say.

• 17:43Speaker 03

  I feel like the like, I feel like the mythology of the like witch and the hag throughout Hollywood is so prolific. Like, I remember there's an interview, so I fucking love Graham Norton, there's a Graham Norton interview with Meryl Streep saying when he turned forty, she was offered like three different witches. Like all of them.

• 18:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, I feel like it like the whole kind of like witch manifesto in Hollywood really started with the wicked witch, the rest, right?

• 18:11Speaker 04

  It really did, like, there was nothing really like it before it. So the idea that we have of of witches came from uh Wizard of Oz, just like Frankenstein's monster. Came from Frankenstein in um nineteen thirty, the Universal picture. Like, before that, we had no kind of clue of that. That monster, same with Dracula, like these, these icons came from these early movies. Anyway, I got distracted. I could talk about this stuff. Right, that's exactly where like this had witch look came from this movie. So, Flanagan Gadd didn't want to play that. She wanted to be the pretty glamorous evil witch from Snow White sort of look. And she was replaced just two days before filming by Margaret Hamilton, who was a contract player at MGM.

• 18:57Speaker 04

  Two days, you have two days to prepare for this film, which is crazy. Right? That's, that's anxiety inducing. But Margaret Hamilton paid a real price for the role. During her fiery exit in Munchkinland, a trapdoor misfired and her copper-based green makeup caught fire, burning her face. And hands, I know, it's horrible, right?

• 19:21Speaker 03

  Oh, I'm like, which one would I rather like than be like drowned in the Tin Man makeup or set on fire from the copper green makeup?

• 19:29Speaker 04

  Can we just like not have like dangerous makeup? Like, what is happening here?

• 19:36Speaker 04

  So she spent weeks in hospital as well, like they just should have had like a Wizard of Oz ward happening in this hospital. And when she returned, of course, she refused to do any more stunts. She's like, no, I'm done. I've already spent weeks in hospital. I'm not going back. So her stunts were passed on to her stunt double, Betty Danko, who actually ended up in even greater danger. Danko was seriously injured during the witch's famous skywriting scene when she flies across the sky spelling out surrender Dorothy. The crew had rigged up a broomstick with a steel saddle and a pipe underneath that emitted smoke. On the third take, the pipe exploded beneath her. She was blown off her broomstick, suffered a two deep.

• 20:17Speaker 04

  Uh, sorry, suffered a two inch deep gash around her leg and landed in hospital for eleven days. The injuries caused lasting internal, internal damage that required a hysterectomy.

• 20:28Speaker 03

  Oh my god.

• 20:32Speaker 04

  I know, it is horrific. For all of that risk, she was only paid seven hundred and ninety dollars for her work on the film.

• 20:40Speaker 03

  That is.

• 20:41Speaker 04

  A hysterectomy and oh, here's seven. Like it's just, the making of this film was as interesting as the film, I swear to god.

• 20:49Speaker 03

  I feel like that's way more like interesting.

• 20:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, I kind of.

• 20:55Speaker 03

  Way, but like, yeah, cool, like a evil wizard and Yellow Brick Road and like whatever, some like. Tin man align and whatever, like.

• 21:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:04Speaker 03

  This.

• 21:05Speaker 04

  This is like real life.

• 21:06Speaker 03

  I'm actually surprised someone hasn't picked this up and made some kind of like live action. Like dramedy series, you know the Ryan Murphy one, like where he does all of the like. Obvious in trial and all them, like I'm surprised no one hasn't made some sort of like retelling of. The actual set.

• 21:25Speaker 04

  They actually.

• 21:26Speaker 03

  I'd watch that.

• 21:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'd, I'd make it. Let's put it out to the universe.

• 21:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, Netflix hit us up. Um, but of course, we have to talk about what Judy Garland went through because Judy really went through it. She was under, remembering as well, she was only sixteen, which, can you imagine going through this at sixteen? I, I, oh my gosh. She was under relentless pressure from MGM. She was placed on diets, giving, given stimulants to keep her energy up and sleeping pills to bring it to her down, all the while carrying the weight of this massive blockbuster film at just sixteen years old. So when you look at it all together, the multiple directors, major recast, the onset injuries, the drama, even the studio's treatment of Judy, it's astonishing that this film got made.

• 22:14Speaker 04

  And when it was made, it was so brilliant. Truly, it's shocking.

• 22:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was properly fucked. I feel like this is like the OG Hollywood scandal. Like, there's so many, like, old Hollywood scandals. I feel like this is, like, the notorious, like, prolific one.

• 22:30Speaker 04

  One of the first, definitely. Yeah. If you wanna go, if you wanna go right back, the twenties have some even more fucked up stuff. Go have a look, it'll blow your mind. But the studio system that came into place, like the code, when the code came into place, this is like one of the most crazy film sets, definitely.

• 22:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, wow. I mean, we have to address the elephant in the room. When we talk about The Wizard of Oz, when we talk about Judy, there are so many conspiracy and YouTube deep dives, I've gone down them, um, on some of these scandals from drug use to asbestos drama and even potential unalivings. So Cass, can you help us once and for all go through what is fact and what is fiction? Because I need to know what the hell went down on the set at The Wizard of Oz.

• 23:22Speaker 04

  Yes, I'll try.

• 23:24Speaker 03

  So firstly, was there substance misuse on the set by producers and managers?

• 23:30Speaker 04

  This is definitely a fact, not necessarily in the way that we think about it today. There weren't producers or managers openly using illegal substances in front of people. But MGM absolutely kept Judy Garland on a cocktail of pills. At just sixteen, she was given amphetamines to keep her energy up. And then Barbie she wants to help her sleep at night. They also gave her, this is the most disgusting thing. They gave her tablets to keep her weight down, to keep her looking like the twelve year old girl that she was meant to be portraying, not the sixteen year old woman that she was becoming. But this wasn't unique to Judy or the Wizard of Oz. This was kind of standard practice in those days on sets, which is just, it's fucked, basically, but that's.

• 24:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, crazy. Um, okay. Was there asbestos used in the snow clips? I feel like this one I see all the time.

• 24:19Speaker 04

  Yes, and you know, I never believed it until I researched it and it's it's fact. Uh, it's one of the.

• 24:25Speaker 03

  Oh my god.

• 24:26Speaker 04

  It's horrible, right? The famous Poppy Fields field scene where Dorothy and her friends fall asleep and then wake up under a gentle snowfall. Looks magical and so pretty. It's such a pretty scene. But the snow wasn't snowy, it was pure asbestos. Back then, it was commonly used in film productions and even in Christmas decorations for the general public because it looked fluffy and it would have melted under heavy studio light.

• 24:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, because it's going into your fucking lungs and giving you.

• 24:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's not melting, you're inhaling it. So the cast and crew had absolutely no idea how dangerous this really was and they were covered in asbestos dust. It's kind of chilling now to think about it. But of course, we know, we know how toxic it is, but back then they were just like, yeah.

• 25:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, literally. Um, that is so disturbing. When I did my house, we had to get like full asbestos removal and like all the like. The suits and like this whole thing and I always the whole time was thinking about it. I'm like. What on earth were the people on that set like inhaling if it was asbestos? So that's crazy. Um, okay, was there a potential un-aliving included in the final cut of the film? This one is chilling. I also see it everywhere.

• 25:43Speaker 04

  Yes, and thankfully this one is in fact fiction.

• 25:48Speaker 04

  There's a longstanding rumor that if you look closely during the Tin Man scene in the forest, you can see a munchkin hanging from a tree in the background. People have claimed it was a self-unaliving that accidentally made it into the final cut, which is just a horrific thought. Uh, but the truth is thankfully much less sensational. What you're actually seeing is a large crane bird, which is crazy, that MGM had borrowed from the Los Angeles Zoo to make the forest look more alive. So it was a bird, it was a bird flapping its wings. And over time, the grainy VHS copies and imagination turned it into something much darker. But thankfully, no, it was not an unaliving captured on film. It was the crane bird flapping its wings.

• 26:31Speaker 03

  Oh, thank God. Cause I, I like, it's the asbestos, it's unaliving, and it's this one. Were there orgies on set of The Wizard of Oz? Those are like the big three I always am hearing.

• 26:46Speaker 04

  I had to really research this one because I've never really quite known. And I've come to the conclusion that the answer's kind of murky. So over the years, The Wizard of Oz has attracted all kinds of weird, weird, weird rumors. Uh, and one of the most persistent is that the munchkin actors were actually having orgies on set, which I, is just crazy to me. This is, this is a children's movie. The truth is, many of the munchkins were staying at hotels together during filming. And stories of rowdy behavior, drinking, partying, and a little bit of chaos definitely circulated. But the truth is, to this day, we don't really know.

• 27:26Speaker 04

  There are many reports of crazy stories what happened at the hotel where they were staying, and orgy rumors were getting quite loud at the time. There were even rumors that Judy Garland was groped by the munchkins on set. But yeah, but Margaret Pellegrini, who played one of the munchkins, refuted the rumors in two thousand and nine, saying that nothing got out of hand. So the truth, I'm not so sure. Maybe it lies in between.

• 27:50Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 27:51Speaker 04

  The no and the yes.

• 27:53Speaker 03

  Perhaps like a bit of propaganda to sell as well.

• 27:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, maybe. It got, it got people talking.

• 27:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. Okay, so eventually Cass, despite all the drama, The Wizard of Oz is filmed and released in cinemas mid-August nineteen thirty-nine. But it was not, unlike the book, an immediate success, right?

• 28:15Speaker 04

  No, you are very, very correct. Because there was actually, you're thinking that nineteen thirty-nine as, so this is me going on my little gold, uh, olden Hollywood nerd talk. Nineteen thirty-nine was, was one of the, it is still one of the greatest years in Hollywood history. They released so many classic films, like, it's hard to, it's hard to compete with what they released that year.

• 28:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, a hundred percent. And like, there's, you know, obviously, um, the, like you said, nineteen thirty-nine, the greatest year in Hollywood, there was Gone with the Wind.

• 28:45Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 28:45Speaker 03

  Mister Smith Goes to Washington, Wuthering Heights, The Stagecoach, they're all released in the same year. Um, so The Wizard of Oz did struggle to stand out commercially. Um, but there was also the fact that MGM spent nearly two point eight million US dollars at the time making The Wizard of Oz, which made it one of the most expensive films of that year. Um, and that really came from like the amazing Technicolor sequences, the special effects, musical numbers, again, all of what makes The Wizard of Oz, The Wizard of Oz. Um, but it, it did earn a lot of cash at box office. It just like barely, barely broke even. And again, like we said, competition, there's also the fact that we were on the brink of World War Two.

• 29:26Speaker 03

  So that, you know, we were really impacted by the international numbers. Um, and I think as well, the perception that it was a kid's, a kid's movie, right?

• 29:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:36Speaker 03

  That's kind of what people had, had, had felt about it. But the real turning point did come, because as we know now, it is such a huge part of like all of our childhood, such a big cultural phenomenon. Um, that real turning point came when the film was re-released in theatres in nineteen forty-nine. And again, in the nineteen fifties, when it finally did make a profit for MGM. Later, it then became a part of the annual television broadcasts, which began in nineteen fifty-six, which is when it really became like the big cultural phenomenon that it did. And it introduced Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, The Wicked Witch of the West, all to a brand new generation. Really, you were probably our grandparents, right? Like as, back then, um.

• 30:20Speaker 03

  But I wanna know, coming back to Judy Cass, what's she up to in the wake of the film's release? What does life just post Wizard of Oz look like for Judy Garland?

• 30:32Speaker 04

  So we know that Judy is on the fast track to becoming a legend. So after the making of The Wizard of Oz, she's obviously still very, very young, but her personal life moved just as quickly as her career. She was only a teenager, but MGM kept her working non-stop. There were no child labour laws in these days. They had you working until you dropped. And to keep up with their schedules, obviously the studio kept giving her pills. This went on after The Wizard of Oz. That cycle really became a part of her daily life and it really shaped the struggles that she carried into her adulthood. At just 19, she married composer David Rose, although it was a short-lived marriage. They divorced within a couple of

• 31:15Speaker 04

  years, but not long after, she met director Vincent Minnelli, who directed her in Meet Me in St Louis, another fantastically beautiful film. He was older, more sophisticated and gave her the sense of stability that she really craved. They married in 1945 and the following year Judy gave birth to her daughter, the icon, the legend, the one and only Liza Minnelli. So she was kind of moving so far, she was so young and everything was happening so quick for her personally and professionally. I can't even, I can't even imagine that. No wonder it was too much.

• 31:50Speaker 03

  Oh my gosh, of course. And what, she won something pretty incredible post Wizard of Oz.

• 31:57Speaker 04

  Yes, like career-wise as well. I mean, the 1940s was her golden decade. In 1939, she won the Academy Juvenile Award, which sadly stopped being awarded in 1965. And after all of that success, MGM put her to work constantly. She was one of their most bankable stars. She became the wholesome girl next door in the Andy Hardy films with Mickey Rooney and then started carrying big musicals on her own. So one of the most important turning points for her was obviously Meet Me in St Louis, not only because she meant her husband, but because it was one of her biggest musicals of the decade and she also sang one of her most famous songs, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. And it really cemented

• 32:39Speaker 04

  her as MGM's top musical star. She could sing, dance, act and bring warmth to every role. But the success came at a cost. MGM controlled everything about her. You don't, like, people don't realise, these studios controlled everything about these actors, from who they were, who they saw, what they did at home, who entered there, everything was completely controlled by these studios. And I mean MGM was controlling her weight and her appearance to her s- her daily schedule. She was often working eighteen hour days and that's why the pills kept her going and became a way of life for her to survive these grueling days.

• 33:17Speaker 04

  But by the late nineteen forty, so ten years after The Wizard of Oz, the cracks started to show and she was missing shoots, her health was declining and she was exhausted. This is, by the way, only in her late twenties.

• 33:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's.

• 33:31Speaker 04

  All this happened to her. So quickly, like, what is this? But still, the nineteen forties is the Judy that people know the most. She was radiant, endlessly talented and one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. She was at the absolute peak of her career, even though she was really struggling behind the scenes.

• 33:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay, so coming kind of back quickly to the substance abuse, did she get any support in terms of things like rehab or anything like that?

• 34:03Speaker 04

  Later on in the decade, she, I think rehab was, was a constant for her, but it was never, it never, it never helped. She was really quite heavily to these pills until.

• 34:14Speaker 03

  So pretty much like similar to Marilyn, the, the studios were just pumping her full of whatever they could to juice out of her as they could when, when she was really at her peak and young and beautiful and talented and famous and all the things. Um, okay, so I always kind of hear, and again, you've touched on the weight loss thing, um, you know, that she really became familiar with words like too plain and too heavy, um, and that played into her prolific drug use quite a lot as well. Really, it, it, it kind of had started post Wizard of Oz as a means to maintain her weight. Um, but you know, I think as she kind of grew older. That ability to kind of justify that as a reason deteriorated, as did a lot of her

• 34:58Speaker 03

  personal relationships and as you touched on her working relationships, you know, from, from kind of digging through and, and, and reading accounts from different people who had worked with her, um, you know, she became quite unreliable, quite erratic. Um, and from kind of the reason I asked the rehab question, I couldn't find any specifics on where she went, but it is alluded to that she did try rehab and go through periods of recovery. I think primarily. I'm pretty sure it was Liza. Yeah, primarily through Liza, who talks, who, um, had spoken about it, but she never really escaped her dependence, um, which led to her very, very, very sad and very, very untimely

• 35:37Speaker 03

  death in 1969 at just 47 years old. So such a tragedy. Very young. I know. And it's like so many of the big, amazing, you know, especially women, like Hollywood legends who are women died so young. Um, yeah. Or we jump into kind of our, our context and answering our, our final three questions. Cass, anything else you want to add on, on Judy?

• 36:01Speaker 04

  It's just funny. It was not necessarily about Judy, but I'm reading a biography on Elizabeth Taylor right now. And you're talking about how she was labelled heavy and too plain. Elizabeth Taylor, who was known as one of the greatest beauties of all time. Like that's undisputed. You look at her and she's breathtaking.

• 36:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:19Speaker 04

  When she was younger was labelled too heavy and, uh, had too much of an old lady face. And it's just like these standards that Hollywood set for these women, even Marilyn Monroe, I mean, had a dependency on, on pills because of what Hollywood said and did to her. It's unbelievable that these women who, I mean, taking aside how beautiful they were, that doesn't matter. Their talent and, and what they gave to these movies and this industry, torn down by these studio executives and gossip mongers and, and this, the public who thought they could say and do what they wanted about women. It was the women, the men went, the men were probably told, but not to the extent that women were. And their diets and, and their bodies weren't controlled like these women were. It just infuriates me in reading, hearing you say that about Judy after

• 37:00Speaker 04

  just reading what I've read about Elizabeth Taylor. It's just, we've come so far in a lot of ways in history and in Hollywood and how we perceive women, but really, really, we haven't in so many other ways.

• 37:11Speaker 03

  We really have not. I know.

• 37:12Speaker 04

  People say things about me online. I'm like, someone said to me the other day, do you have dentures? Your teeth smack when you talk? I'm like, oh my God, leave me alone. What?

• 37:21Speaker 03

  Oh my god, people are in.

• 37:23Speaker 04

  Yes. People think they can tell the like about anybody. It's like, oh my god.

• 37:28Speaker 03

  So bad. I know. I, um, there's a fab, speaking of child stars, um, Drew Barrymore on her TV show, she was interviewing Julia Fox, who was, and she asked, you know, how do you deal with like internet trolls and, you know, people commenting on your body and what you wear and how you look and, um, you know, like, do you, do you hide the comments or delete the comments or do you have filters set up? And she goes, you know, I leave them up there because I think they're so embarrassing that like you have to live with them forever. So she's like,

• 37:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:59Speaker 03

  I never delete anything because it's so embarrassing for your soul that you said it, that I think it has to live on the internet forever. That's what I do. I'm like, ew, you're such a.

• 38:08Speaker 04

  I love that way of thinking.

• 38:10Speaker 03

  Literally, I'm like, this is like, this is history that you're like, you're putting out into the world and into history that you're such a fucking loser. This is archaeology at this point. It needs to remain like.

• 38:22Speaker 04

  I'm gonna do that now. I'm gonna keep the comments. Okay, thank you for.

• 38:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, literally just, I'm like, this is archaeology. Like, you're such a loser.

• 38:30Speaker 04

  Name will be to this.

• 38:31Speaker 03

  Confirm everyone forever that you're a loser.

• 38:34Speaker 04

  You're an idiot.

• 38:35Speaker 03

  Um, okay, Cass, so we have covered nearly fifty years of history when looking at the life of Judy Garland. And again, pre dating that woman, looking at the, the Wizard of Oz, the book itself, bomb and all of that. But who else is kind of kicking around the same time as Judy as that peak of kind of that old Hollywood glamour, you know, the studio system? Um, Judy was born four years before Queen Elizabeth the second and Marilyn Monroe. So pretty incredible. I always find Queen Elizabeth the second is such a good yardstick because she's lived so long and like such a big part of our recent memory. I'm like, oh my god, you know? The fact that Marilyn Monroe could have been, could have been around. Still throughout all of our, you know, yeah.

• 39:18Speaker 03

  Um, crazy. So forty eight years um after Churchill, Judy was born. She was born seven years after Frank Sinatra and the same year that King Tut's tomb was discovered. Rather interestingly, yes, um, friends with several of Hollywood's biggest stars, including Barbra Streisand and President JFK, who died a mere six years before Judy herself did. Judy then died twenty four years before Audrey Hepburn, twenty eight years after Princess Diana. Um, sorry, before Princess Diana and eight years before Elvis. Plus, interestingly, she died four years after Churchill.

• 39:59Speaker 03

  She was also alive for the famous Good Evening and Welcome to Television broadcast for Seabiscuits winning streak and for the birth of Daniel Craig, Celine Dion and Brendan Fraser. Mummy fandom. Rise up, I see you, I know you, I love you. Um, and she actually missed out on seeing the Apollo eleven mission land on the moon by less than a month. So I think she had died in like late June and they had, they had landed kind of at the, the end of the August or like it was like a three to four week period. So a really fascinating lifetime and a really fascinating pocket of history to experience.

• 40:39Speaker 03

  So Cass, please tell us, what influence does Judy Garland have on modern times today?

• 40:46Speaker 04

  So much, you know, it's so funny. Um, whenever I tell people, especially younger people, because now I'm thirty, oh my gosh. When I tell younger people about what I do in Old Hollywood, people don't really know about Marilyn or they don't really know about James Dean and stuff like that. And it always shocks me, but they know about Judy Garland because of The Wizard of Oz. So I think every single person, whether you've watched Old Hollywood or not, most people today have seen The Wizard of Oz. But her influence on modern times goes beyond just her songs. It's about how we think about stardom in itself. She was one of the first performers to really embody the idea of the triple threat. She could sing, dance and act. And that became the model for so many stars who followed from her friend Barbra Streisand to even our girl Ariana Grande.

• 41:32Speaker 04

  She also changed the way musicals were made. Judy brought realism and emotional depth to her performances where before this, these, these performers, these triple, these musical performers were coming from theatre, so they were very much. Very loud and very uh over the top with their performances, but Judy brought it back and really brought that emotional touchstone and depth to her performance. She didn't just sing the song, she lived it. I mean, you just have to watch over somewhere over the rainbow to completely understand that. And that style of performance is still being uh is still the gold standard today. Um and in a way, Judy's story forced Hollywood to start confronting the pressures it placed on its young stars.

• 42:18Speaker 04

  We see the echoes of her struggles in modern conversations about child actors, mental health, and the industry's responsibility to protect its talent, whether it does. That's a topic for another day, but it's more spoken about now and hopefully uh lessons were learnt from Judy.

• 42:35Speaker 03

  I always like the comparisons between like when people talk about child stars with Amanda Bynes and Judy.

• 42:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's

• 42:45Speaker 03

  Kind of like always like a big comparison that gets drawn to.

• 42:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, it that's that's yeah, that's the whole year. I was I was I just saw Amanda Bynes the other day on um TikTok and I was just so sad because she was such a big part of my childhood. And she was just so so talented and so good and and that's exactly right. Look what's happened. It's still it's still happening today, unfortunately. So when we talk about her influence today, it's not just her voice or her films. She really redefined what it means to be a performer, really. Both a child performer and a musical performer.

• 43:22Speaker 03

  And I mean, she was so amazing. Like I again, I that does like it does surprise me that people don't know about Marilyn, but like having Judy as a touchstone like that is pretty incredible. I've I've had that same experience with Cleopatra. I'd be like, oh, blah blah Cleopatra. Like, what? And then I'll say Caesar and they get Caesar. I'm like. I feel like Cleopatra's way more famous than Caesar, like.

• 43:46Speaker 04

  What?

• 43:47Speaker 03

  I know, it always surprises me. I'm like, who cares about him?

• 43:53Speaker 03

  He's so much hotter and so much more fascinating, but whatever.

• 43:57Speaker 04

  You know what we should talk about one day?

• 43:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:00Speaker 04

  Um, have you ever spoken about Cleopatra, the Elizabeth Taylor movie?

• 44:04Speaker 03

  No, but I do know it was like, didn't it nearly send, was it MGM that made it?

• 44:10Speaker 04

  Uh, I'm, I should know that. I'm reading about it right now. I think it was Paramount.

• 44:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, whoever it was that like nearly sent them skin broke because it was so expensive.

• 44:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, and nearly killed Elizabeth Taylor. It's such an interesting, like cra- have you seen it? Watch it. I think it might make you angry.

• 44:25Speaker 03

  I've literally never, ever seen it. Um, but it's like so prolific. That was how I first knew who Elizabeth Taylor was. That, that's the, the history entry point for me. Okay, Cas, bring it up for us. How is Judy remembered in pop culture?

• 44:42Speaker 04

  So this is such a fun question because Judy is remembered in pop culture as the ultimate star, but also as the ultimate survivor. On one hand, she's frozen in time as Dorothy. I mean, the ruby slippers over the rainbow, that's that innocent young girl on this big screen, just looking so beautiful and innocent and young. That image is still everywhere from Halloween costumes to references in TV shows like my favorite, RuPaul's Drag Race. She's also, she's also remembered as a symbol of the darker side of Hollywood. As we just touched on, her struggles with the studio system, with addiction, with the pressures of fame. Her story has become a part of the cautionary tale of what Hollywood can and still does to its performers.

• 45:28Speaker 04

  And then, of course, she's remembered as an icon for the LGBTQ plus community. Judy represented resilience and hope. Her concerts, especially the legendary Carnegie Hall Show in 1961, is still talked about as one of the most greatest nights in show business. So Judy in pop culture is a mixture of innocence, tragedy, talent and triumph. She's remembered as someone who gave everything she had to her art and in doing so left behind a legacy that's bigger than any one film. She is not just a Hollywood star, she is a cultural touchstone, really.

• 46:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, amazing. And she's played by Renelle Z, I can never say Renee Zellweger, Zellweger, Zellweger. Um, just a few years ago and she won the Oscar for portraying her as well.

• 46:16Speaker 04

  It is 2019 and she actually did such a great job. I, I went into it like a little bit hesitant, like, oh, am I going to enjoy this? I hate watching biopics, but she did such a wonderful, wonderful job. If you haven't seen it, I recommend guys, go watch it.

• 46:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, I love that. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Cass. It is always so great to take a trip back to old Hollywood. We were there with Marilyn a couple of weeks ago, but it is fab to revisit with Judy, albeit just as tragic. So that guys brings us to the end of another episode of Hot History. Cass, again, thank you so much for joining us today to chat all things Judy and the Wizard of Oz.

• 46:53Speaker 04

  Thank you. It's been so much fun.

• 46:55Speaker 03

  Of course. And guys, you have to follow Cass on Instagram and TikTok at Hollywoodlandphotos. She is the bright little spot in your feeds and for you pages every single day. And as always, you can follow us on Instagram at Hot History Club and on TikTok at Hot dot History. Thank you so much, guys. As always, it's a pleasure getting down and dirty in time with you. And tune in next week as we chat about arguably the most famous and prolific woman in all of human history. Gloriana herself, Queen Elizabeth the First. Thanks, guys.