Judy Garland

An actress most famous for her role of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. Born Frances Ethel Gumm in 1922, she is more commonly known by her Stage Name, Judy Garland. It's commonly believed that she had a Stage Mom who forced her to take diet pills and didn't allow her to grow up but this is only partially true; many of her unpleasant memories of her mother are fabricated or embellished, and the drugs she took were pretty widely available without a prescription. Her producers were harsh on her, encouraging her to take amphetamines to work longer hours. They also told her she wouldn't be as beautiful as her other co-stars, and L.B. Mayer (of MGM) frequently referred to her as "the fat one" or "the Hunchback". Probably because of this, she fell into drug addiction quite young. Garland was married five times before her death at the age of 47 due to drug overdose. Her death precipitated The Stonewall Riots in New York City.

She has ascended into pop culture as a gay icon. The use of the rainbow as a symbol for gay culture is probably due in some part to Garland's song Over The Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz.


 * Babes In Arms
 * Babes On Broadway
 * Meet Me in St. Louis
 * A Star Is Born
 * The Wizard of Oz
 * Gay Purr-ee


 * And You Were There: The Trope Namer, taken from her oft-quoted line from The Wizard of Oz.
 * Anti-Christmas Song: Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas. Purportedly, the song was supposed to be even more depressing, but Garland refused to sing that version.
 * Break the Cutie: Consistently cast for roles much younger than she actually was, told she looked too old or too fat, that her co-stars were prettier than her and she could never hope to match their talent...
 * Her later life was allegedly marred not only by substance abuse and failed marriages, but financial difficulties. Thanks in part to corrupt managers, she owed the IRS thousands of dollars, lived in terrible living conditions, was forced to play dingy clubs to pay the rent, and she barely raked in enough to survive.
 * Camp Gay: Not Judy herself, but she has a rather large gay following. On top of that, a passion for Judy Garland is often used as a Hollywood and television shorthand to indicate that a character is flamboyantly gay.
 * Deadpan Snarker / Self-Deprecation / Stoic Woobie: She in Real Life was reputed to have an infamously pithy, lightly sarcastic (and sometimes self-deprecating) sense of humor, and had a mischievious streak in happier times, often seen in talk shows in her later years and during concert performances. When she was ordered by Princess Margaret to perform a concert for her, which rubbed her the wrong way, she told the princess off, quipping "I'll sing if she christens a ship first".
 * She once joked that she would title her autobiography "Ho-Hum".
 * Disappeared Dad: Her father died of spinal meningitis when she was 13, shortly after she had signed with MGM.
 * The Great Depression
 * Hey Let's Put On A Show: Together with Mickey Rooney in the '30s.
 * Hot Chick in a Badass Suit: Her rendition of "Get Happy"
 * Identical Grandson: Looking at pictures of Liza Minelli and Judy together, it's astounding how much they look alike.
 * "I Want" Song: Her most famous (and possibly the most famous) number, Over the Rainbow.
 * Platonic Life Partners: With Mickey Rooney, with whom she starred in many of her early roles. In his own words: "Judy and I were so close we could've come from the same womb. We weren't like brothers or sisters but there was no love affair there; there was more than a love affair. It's very, very difficult to explain the depths of our love for each other. It was so special. It was a forever love. Judy, as we speak, has not passed away. She's always with me in every heartbeat of my body."
 * Signature Song: Guess.
 * Suppressed Mammaries: Infamously, to make her look younger for her role as Dorothy Gale.
 * World War II