Customer Reviews

Judy Garland: The Secret Life of an American Legend

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This is an odd, yet interesting book on the life of Ms. Garland. Considering Mr. Shipman's credentials, it cannot be just dismissed. A large book (515 pages of actual reading is substantial!), I was unable to put it down when I first read it and yet, it speculates so much on an aspect of her personal life, that it really does require a second reading in order to digest all that he claims to be fact. Not that it's a "trash" novel, but it does make a fan of Ms. Garland's stand back and take a look at what it claims to be fact. Still, worth buying and reading, possibly reading more than once.

To those people who claim that Shipman does indeed hate Judy need to take a closer look. His book is rich in documentation that supports his research. Furthermore, you can telll he was a devoted fan that can still be objective regarding her talent and her misgivings and faults. We have to remember the duress that Judy endured, the people who abandoned her when she most needed help, the promises of the studios to give her time off to replenish her energy and the monstrous effect of Louis B. Mayer. No wonder Liza has problems of her own. She was affected first hand. This review is fair to the artist without tarnishing her talent and accessibility to the public, as well as her warmth. A great read!

David Shipman has been described by some who knew him as a man who would always embellish a quote to make it sound worse. With this book he comes off as a man with a chip on his shoulder and preoccupied with what went on in the bedroom. He presents his own opinions and speculation as if it were fact.

I have to go with the general consensus on this biography. Mr. Shipman has his details muddled and inaccurate in many aspects. How he can go into such detail about Judy's private life, sexual deviances, etc. is astonishing....was HE actually present during the actions he describes?? That's the only way he could be so "forthright and honest"....hah!! Also, it seems Mr. Shipman thinks that everyone with whom Judy was involved was homosexual or bisexual. Heck, he goes on to state that nearly everyone in Hollywood is homosexual. Obviously, Mr. Shipman himself would qualify in this category as he seems obssessed with the subject. It is inferred to in every chapter of this non-sensical biography. We know Judy had problems, no one is denying that. Fans can accept the truth about her but have something substantive with which to back up your claims.....not just hearsay. This biography stinks and is an insult to the memory of Judy Garland. As someone else suggested, read "Rainbow...the Stormy Life of Judy Garland"......that is the best Garland biography ever and does not shortchange or mislead the reader in any way!

Although this book is well written and endearing, i have readthat shipman wa sued by a few people in contrast to trhe contents. if you aree a judy fan to my extent then you will realise that some of the points in the book are muddled or untrue. It displays a bad example of the relationship between her and her children, which infact is untrue. i would read it if you are a fan, but dont take it as gospel.

David Shipman is clearly determined to show the seamier side of Judy Garland's life. That she was her own worst enemy is not something that even her most ardent fans can deny, but the nonsense here is downright bewildering. This might have been an interesting read, though it would still need to be taken with a truckload of salt, if it weren't so terribly edited. Whoever worked with Mr. Shipman on editing and proofing this manuscript should never be entrusted with such a task again - nonsensical non-sentences, completely wrong information (Sid Luft lived with Eleanor "Power?" Really? Junior league research would inform one that it was Eleanor "Powell.") Spell-checking isn't enough - it requires word-for-word reading for content and actual skill at editing and proofing. Otherwise a book just becomes a fourth-grader's school report (and one that would get an "F" at that).

Shipman is so focused on Miss Garland's sex life and unpleasant habits that he largely ignores the other side of her persona - she was wickedly funny, often generous, and enormously talented. I've spoken to people who were at the concerts that Shipman trashes, the concerts from her later career, and it seems that they saw entirely different performances from the ones that he describes.

I am not saying that all biographies should focus only on the good. An even-handed biography is the most difficult to write. The temptation to make a saint out of your subject is just as problematic as demonizing her. However, this is not an even-handed book. Of course, it would be extraordinarily difficult to tell if it were because the typographical and editing errors are so egregious as to make it almost unreadable.

I've given "Judy Garland" three stars because I did, in the end, learn a few things that I hadn't known before (though I will be checking them against other sources). Also, despite Shipman's transparent intentions, I think Miss Garland comes out in a fairly positive light. She was naive, sometimes rude, and often temperamental, but she was always a genius when it came to her instrument, and that's something that nobody, not even a badly written book by an author with a chip on his shoulder, can take away from her.

This is a fat, nasty book. It's thinly-sourced, but chock full of factual errors that are easily recognizable to any real fan (one small e.g., he claims she got distracted by a heckler and flubbed the introduction to "If Love Were All" in the Carnegie Hall concert....but millions of people know that recording by heart and know she didn't flub it). The worst parts are when the author tries to get into Judy's head and comes up with psychotic and nonsensical speculations about her sex life and motivations -- i.e. declaring that she married Minnelli, a "known" homosexual, only so that she could continue to have affairs with other men "guilt-free." It's crazy and disgusting.

I LOVED this book. I am working an encyclopedia of great women musicians of the 20th century and in doing research this was one of the first biographies I read and it is the best so far. It dismisses all the flowery wordage biographers like to use to put action into a story and make it more dramatic, it reads like a documentary and I like that. Proof is in the bibliography which is one of the more extensive ones I've seen on Judy.

Shipman's book reads like a documentary, which I love, and yet I often found myself hungry for more. I kept waiting for the next comeback and when it hit I swelled with joy and when she fell again I felt a loss. This book creates a clear chronology of a life lived so we can not only see the downward spiral of a women troubled by drugs and drinking and self-esteem but see the audience who loved her and the people who loved her and hated her through it all.

Furthermore it is written NOT as an expose like some many other books (you know thes ones that sound like the paparazzi wrote it). Mr. Shipman's purpose is not to slander Ms. Garland or dig up shocking "dirt" but to show her as complicated and as human. Some people see her as a saint and do not like it when that image is soiled.

I knew nothing about her other than as "Dorothy" and that she was an alcoholic and bi-sexual. Now I see her as person just like me and I gained a new appreciation for her and how despite her choosing to lie to therapists, to continue taking drugs and drin, she lived the life she wanted the way she wanted. Even when she was broke she refused to live less than a star, even when they said she had to quit the stage for good she didn't, she chose her life and she may have hated some of it but you cannot deny she chose it. Shipman made it clear that even as a child she knew she was going to be a star and she lived her life how she wanted and in front of the public. And for that I think Judy Garland is one the greatest people I've had the pleasure of meeting.


Now the other reviews are quiet troubling as they seem to have missed the point of the book, stopped reading when he brought out the "dirt", or didn't read it at all, and more likely just don't want their saintly image of Ms. Garland tainted. That and they have no qualms with what Shipman says of everyone else in Ms. Garland's life but when he point out her flaws all hell breaks loose. I say in order to love a life you have to live it good and bad and this book helped me do that without glossing over anything.

Now, here are some quotes from other reviews that are wrong:

Austin Brown wrote, "One reviewer states this book to be "The truth"! Ha! Hey, how about actually reading other books written on Judy Garland, (as I have), and you will see the error of your convictions. This piece of filth has so many entirely erroneous facts!"

Okay what facts are erroneous and how do you know those other books are correct who are their sources and did you check their bibliographies? Shipman has an extensive bibliography that you could research to check his facts or is that too much work? When you make a claim you must support it.


"She was given medications by her mother before she could talk, to wake up, to sleep, whatever she felt they needed to "get these girls moving.

Again cite your source. If this is coming from Ms. Garland herself then we can't be sure it's true at all since she hated her mother and towards the end her memory was getting mixed up, due to drug and drinking, as Shipman makes very clear. Also if this is true Shipman would have wrote about it considering all the other "dirt" he digs up, he doesn't seem to miss anything. So I assume he left it out because there were not facts to support it.

"This book even asserts Judy was bisexual!"

Yes, she was. So? And how do know she wasn't?

"Contray to manys' beliefs, Judy did not commit suicide, or intentionally overdose on sleeping pills. She had said herself in life that sometimes it was hard to remember what pills she had taken when, and would on occasion accidently overdose, which is what happened on the night/morning she died."

Shipman never said she committed suicide. Here is what he wrote, "When Deans went to find her, the bathroom door was locked. He climbed in through the bathroom window. She was sitting on the lavatory. Rigor Mortis had already set in." (pg. 507)


JkHay wrote, "He wants to imply it is her selfishness and jealousy of her daughter, (how stupid can you get, Shipman). Anyone really understanding the enormous heart of Judy Garland knows she didn't want to draw attention away from her daughter's debut, which of course she would have been unable to avoid, and suffered for her daughter's sake..."

Actually Shipman stated wrote, "...it was only sometime later that Garland explained the reason she avoided the first night was that she feared her presence there might distract the audience" (pg. 441) We don't know if this is true AND he never gives a reason WHY he thinks she deliberately missed the performance but she did deliberately miss it by going to the Bahamas with Sid Luft and the children, whatever the reason.

"When before an interview with Jacqueline Suzanne before the making of 'Valley of the Dolls' she insists Suzanne proceed her, he again wants to say it was to draw attention to herself... unless you want to just concentrate on Shipman's good reviews and ignore is absolutely stupid interpretations of her motives."

Okay that makes no sense but Shipman wrote, "It was because she was so desperate for money that she had accepted a role in what she would later call a "dirty picture"... Garland had no illusions about the project." (pg. 489)


Aidan V. Grant "gethappy" wrote, "The facts are wrong - at the end he states "At 46...Judy Garland was dead"

Actually Shipman wrote, "At the age of forty-seven, and $4 million in debt, Judy Garland was dead." (pg. 508) And if that is all he got wrong...

"Why is it so hard to believe that Judy had some happy times in her life and was loved off-screen as well as on. Over 200 people have said that Judy was the kindest and funniest woman, is that so hard to believe? June Allyson said "I get so mad when people say unkind things about Judy. Judy was one of the warmest, most loyal, one of the funniest ladies I have ever known". Gee you can learn more about Judy in that one sentence than you can in this book and others like it."

Shipman has that quote in his book too. And that statement doesn't tell you anything other than the personal opinion of June Allyson who may or may not have said it with honesty. So many people said things in public that they didn't really feel to save the reputation of fellow stars. Many people hated her because she never paid her debts, she wouldn't come to work on time or at all some days, and sometimes she refused to perform on stage even under contract. Still, many people loved her as well (even those who hated her) and the book shows that very well. It shows the complexity of the public's relationship with her and her relationship with Hollywood and other celebrities.

One reviewer states this book to be "The truth"! Ha! Hey, how about actually reading other books written on Judy Garland, (as I have), and you will see the error of your convictions.
This piece of filth has so many entirely erroneous facts! What is it with English writers hating Judy Garland?! This book even asserts Judy was bisexual! She may have had many sexually alternative persons in her life, but she was not! Yes, Judy was by no stretch perfect! She was a smoker, but she was no alcoholic! She did have problems with perscription drugs, but that wasn't etirely her falt! She was given medications by her mother before she could talk, to wake up, to sleep, whatever she felt they needed to "get these girls moving". Yes, Judy Garland was addicted to "pep-up" pills, and "downers", but she did try various times in her life to get off them, but she never quite could. Her body simply needing astronomical amounts as her life progressed, due to an ever growing tolerance.
Contray to manys' beliefs, Judy did not commit suicide, or intentionally overdose on sleeping pills. She had said herself in life that sometimes it was hard to remember what pills she had taken when, and would on occasion accidently overdose, which is what happened on the night/morning she died.
She had said, just days before her death, how she utterly feared death, thinking of it often. If anything, Judy wanted to live, she was always making plans for the future. At the time of her death, she was thinking of going to Paris, to the Olympiad. She would never make it to Paris...
This book, should be titled "The Totally False Rumors of Judy Garland", because that is what it is! It is just as much a piece of tawdry trash as Gerold Clark's "Get Happy."
If you want the truth of Judy Garland's life, I recommend "Judy" by Gerold Frank or "Me and My Shadows: Living with the Legacy of Judy Garland" by Judy's daughter Lorna Luft. Buy one of those!
Don't waste your time with this waste!

What is it going to take for biographers and also readers to get the idea that in Judy Garland's private life, the truth was less sensational than what has been written her by David Shipman.

Why is it so hard to believe that Judy had some happy times in her life and was loved off-screen as well as on. Over 200 people have said that Judy was the kindest and funniest woman, is that so hard to believe?. June Allyson said "I get so mad when people say unkind things about Judy. Judy was one of the warmest, most loyal, one of the funniest ladies I have ever known". Gee you can learn more about Judy in that one sentence than you can in this book and others like it (Torme, Clarke). If people think this is the truth, they have been misinformed. I got more info on one page in Tony Curtis' autobiography then I did here.

Read "Judy" by Gerold Frank, it is one of the best Judy bios ever.