Judy Garland

Judy Garland (born Frances Ethel Gumm; June 10, 1922 – June 22, 1969) was an American actress, singer, and vaudevillian. She attained international stardom and critical acclaim as an actress in both musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist, and on the concert stage. Renowned for her versatility, she received a Golden Globe Award, a Special Tony Award and was one of twelve people in history to receive an Academy Juvenile Award.

Garland began performing as a child, with her two elder sisters, in a vaudeville group, The Gumm Sisters, and was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a teenager in 1935. She appeared in more than two dozen films for MGM, 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 frequent on-screen partner of both Mickey Rooney and Gene Kelly, and regularly collaborated with director Vincente Minnelli, her second husband. In 1950, after 15 years with MGM, she was released from her contract with the studio amid a series of personal struggles that prevented her from fulfilling the terms of her contract.

Although her film career became intermittent thereafter, two of Garland's most critically acclaimed roles came later in her career: she received Academy Award nominations for the musical drama A Star Is Born (1954) and legal drama Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). She also made concert appearances that attracted record-breaking audience sizes, released eight studio albums and hosted her own Emmy-nominated television series, The Judy Garland Show (1963–1964). At the age of 39, Garland became the youngest (and first female) recipient of the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in the film industry.

Throughout her career, Garland recorded and introduced 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; she was the first woman to win that award.

Garland struggled in her personal life from an early age. The pressures of early stardom affected her physical and mental health from the time she was a teenager; her self-image was influenced by constant criticism from film executives who believed that she was physically unattractive and who manipulated her onscreen physical appearance. She had financial troubles, often owing hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes. Throughout her adulthood, she struggled with substance use disorder involving both drugs and alcohol; she died from an accidental barbiturate overdose in 1969, at age 47. In 1997, Garland was posthumously awarded 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 as the eighth-greatest female screen legend of classic Hollywood cinema.