Customer Reviews

get happy: the life of judy garland

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(19)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(27)

 

 

I have no idea why I wanted to read about Judy Garland's life again.

After reading Lorna Luft's ME AND MY SHADOWS, as well as various other tidbits over the years, I'd concluded that Judy's story is undoubtedly one of the most tragic and sad ever to come out of Hollywood. This book left me feeling no different, and I can't say that I necessarily learned anything particularly new or revelatory about Judy. Her life was spent under the control of so many others that her life just isn't all that interesting. All the problems she had have been so well reported that alot of what's here is just a rehash. As far as the sexual element to this book, even her daughter's bio made a few allusions to Judy's sexual appetite. Not a shock there.

In any event...I did find the book interesting enough to get through in about three days. All in all, the book is very personal, and alot of the sections with "iffy" proof are hard to swallow as reality. It just left me feeling so sad for this immensely talented woman, who deserved so much better for what she gave us than what she got.

As an avid reader of biographies, this book seemed tempting and fulfilled its promise. Not only did I devour it in two sittings, I found Clarke's telling of Judy Garland's life compelling, rich in detail, and extremely fair. I found myself following along in the notes to see who Clarke had interviewed, and was amazed at the roster of people he talked to. I have read other Garland biographies, and felt that this book captured her life in all its ups and downs most eloquently. The book was engrossing from the get-go, and Mr. Clarke has done an admirable job capturing the greatest entertainer of our time.

Written in a decidedly gossipy and occasionally mean-spirited tone, the much anticipated GET HAPPY comes no where near unseating Christopher Finch's RAINBOW as the ultimate biography of entertainer Judy Garland, nor does it contain the exhaustive (and occasionally exhausting) detail of Gerald Frank's JUDY; still, it does offer a number of interesting sidelights into Garland's life that previous biographers have elected to either downplay or ignore.

It is in this area that GET HAPPY excells. Instead of merely acknowleding that Garland's father was homosexual and that this played a major role in family difficulties, Clarke is extremely explicit on the point; he also delves further into Garland's own sexual escapades with such figures as Artie Shaw, Betty Asher, and Tyrone Power than most biographers have dared, and he gives the fullest portait of the Garland-Rose marriage thus far offered in print. But when Clarke stumbles, he stumbles badly. Like many another before him (Anne Edwards is a classic case in point), Clarke tends to rely upon Judy Garland herself as the ultimate authority--and since Garland was notorious for re-engineering the truth to make a good story or to justify her own excesses, this is a serious mistake. Many of the ensuing errors (such as acceptance of the Garland-perpetuated myth that the "Munchkin" midgets were drunken deviates) may seem slight, but they raise questions about the depth of Clarke's research. More damaging to Clarke's credibility, however, is the light in which he casts such figures as Garland's mother, Ethel Milne Gumm, and MGM studio boss Louis B. Mayer, which harken back to Garland's own sometimes hysterical self-justifications rather offering carefully balanced accounts.

Ultimately, GET HAPPY seems one third standard mythology, one third gossip column, and one third fact--and as the book progresses one begins to wonder about how much Clarke himself likes Judy Garland either as a person or a performer. Even so, it does make for an interesting read, at least as long as you don't take it too seriously, and it really should be read in light of more balanced and expert research--again, such as Finch's RAINBOW, which is sadly out of print but still widely available as a used book from various Amazon.com vendors.

I dont get people's negative comments to this book. It is well -written and sensitive -not exploitative or sensational. It is a disturbing tale but this seems to have been the reality of Garland's life. I think Clarke is bring treated poorly by these negative reviews from readers. Would they prefer a sanitized version of her life or are they just in denial about this talented woman's sad tale?

If you are looking for a chirpy 'lil biography--this is not it. Clarke's masterly biography draws on extensive interviews and Garland's unpublished memoirs to recount a life as woeful as Job's. With an overbearing mother who hooked young Judy on pills, and a studio (MGM) that mercilessly assaulted her self-image and privacy -- even as she captured the public's adoration as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz -- Garland never developed personal responsibility or sound judgment.

That led to sexual libertinism, hopeless affairs with married men (Tyrone Power, Orson Welles) and bad marriages (two of her five spouses were gay, including director Vincente Minnelli; her fourth, Mark Herron, had an affair with Peter Allen, daughter Liza's first husband). Clarke unflinchingly details Garland's mood swings, from desperately needy to monstrously selfish.

Yet her resilience was astonishing: triumphant comebacks in A Star Is Born (quickly ruined by bad editing) and in concerts during the '50s and '60s at the London Palladium and Carnegie Hall. Her final years -- estranged from her children, financially strapped, overdosing on pills -- approach great tragedy. Even knowing how it ends, one can't look away.

Sad, yes, but we can all learn from Ms. Garland's unsettled yet fascinating life.

Clarke must have meant the title of his biography, which conjures up images of Judu Garland performing that rousing number, to be ironic. Clarke gives Judy's life the scope and scale of a Greek tragedy without thinking that she was necessarily all that tragic. Exhaustively and, seemingly, thoroughly researched over a ten year period (with access to tape recordings Judu made in preparation for an autobiography she never finished) and with the cool and keen eyes and observational skills of a fine journalist, Clarke seems to be on Judy's side, and separating the facts from the myths and legends surrounding Judy's turbulent life must have been an impossible job. Still, a few things are clear. Mother Ethel Gumm was a Stage Mother From Hell who saw Judy not as a daughter, but as a bullet of talent and a Golden Goose, and bastardly L.B. Mayer felt he owned Judy, and every other MGM star, body and soul. Mayer eventually realized what evil he had done to her and tried to help her too late in the game; much damage had already been done and much of that damage was irrepairable. Judy's heart belonged, forever and always, to her adored and adoring father Frank Gumm. Frank was a rather reckless and not too discreetly "in the closet" gay man who, unfortunately, died too soon to protect Judy from what lay ahead. For the most part, (until the final horrifying chapters) Clarke portrays Judy as a vibrant, vital, fun-loving person. Judy may have felt unattractive next to Lana Turner at MGM, but she was attractive enough, in both body and spirit, to have enchanted five husbands, as well as Johnny Mercer, Tyrone Power, Joe Mankiewicz, and many others. The miracle of Judy's life is that, despite her large inferiority complex and endless emotional and psychological turbulences, she somehow managed to fight her inner demons and give awe-inspiring performances on screen and stage. Clarke admires her for this, but in a curiously haphazard way. After writing a devotional chapter on Judy as Dorothy in "The Wizard Of Oz," he ignores her delightful performance in "The Harvey Girls," and thoughtlessly dismisses "The Pirate" as a celluloid disaster. But Clarke writes eloquently of Judy's magic triumphs at London's Palladium and New York's Palace and Carnegie Hall; concerts that left Judy's audiences, as well as Judy herself, spirtually and emotionally transfixed and transformed. Judy will ALWAYS fascinate us because she was so contridictory and complex, as Clarke captures here. Joesph Mankiewicz put it best: "...I don't think anybody's going to close the book on Judy Garland." Clarke's book on Judy Garland is a recommended, absorbing, and highly addictive read... but not without kleenex and a clear head, as some of Clarke's conclusions are alternately heartbreaking and suspect. Clarke's intelligent narrative and interpretations are marred only by the fact that he can't resist taking too many peeks into too many private bedrooms.

It's always difficult to try and write the story of a legend, particularly as legends tend to either be completely vilified or canonized. In the most recent biography of the extraordinary Judy Garland, author Gerald Clarke takes an honest but compassionate look at the person that was Judy. Without whitewash, Mr. Clarke tells the familiar (to us Judy buffs) tale of a genius life gone wrong. There are those that will tell you that Judy would have had the same sad life without the career, but since we'll never know for sure, we can at least rely on writers of integrity like Mr. Clarke to tell us the story as it happened without philosophizing and without a hint of rancor, as some celebrity biographers like to do. That Judy Garland was gifted with genius is unquestioned. That she was also human is something that is sometimes overlooked. Mr. Clarke manages to carefully convey the complicated person that was Judy with a neatly flowing narrative coupled with a journalist's knack for concise reporting. This is an interesting read that is highly recommended.

I can't believe some of the reviews I've read here. Obviously, if you only know Judy Garland from Oz or St. Louis, you have no business reading this book until you know more about her & her tortured life. I've read all of the books including Lorna Luft's very own & found this one to be by far the most honest, straight-forward, non-biased, truthful book available about Judy. It is NOT a book about her movie career - there are already many of those - it's a book about her sad & troubled life. My only complaint is that there weren't enough pix to reference to as the story was being told - I had to pull out some of my others to see what the author was describing. I have been a fan since I was very young, & when I heard this book was coming out, I could not wait. I have treasured each page I've read & it only makes me more sad that Judy's life had to end so soon & so many people had to miss out on all of her wonderful talents. Wouldn't it have been wonderful to see Judy at Oz's 50th Anniversary! If you love Judy & know of her troubled life, this book will fill your heart & make you miss her even more. Her death was totally & completely unnecessary & no one should ever have to suffer like Judy did - especially someone who provided so much happiness to those around her. We miss you Judy & this book brought you back to life for just a short while!

The drawback with biographies of favourite people is that the reader knows how it all ends before beginning. So I approached this book with trepidation - preparing to be depressed. I was not disappointed.

For Judy, there were glorious highs - and lows that would have decimated most people although Judy "recovered" from all but the last. This book is an amalgam of previously published resources and new information including the author's interviews and Judy's own autobiographical musing and ranting into a tape recorder for a book that never was. The book is sometimes disconcerting as it jumps back and forth through the years, sometimes pedantic, and told this reader more that I wanted to know about Judy's sex life. (I hope I can forget the one encounter involving the song or my enjoyment of her singing "Over the Rainbow" will be forever diminished.) As the author says: "More than any other stimulus, [music] awakens sleeping memories."

The author, while casting aspersions on Judy's mother and Louis B. Meyer & the MGM system for starting Judy on pills and yo-yo dieting , himself seems fixated with Judy's constantly fluctuating weight. There is a picture on page 346 of a bloatedly ill Judy that one would think would do more to motivate dieters and fitness wannabes more than any exhortations by Richard Simmons or Sarah Fergason. Just put a copy of that picture on your freezer door - you won't want to reach in to grab Haagen-Daz!

When Judy was "on" she was brilliant. The author points out that for most of her life "In those days, there were no drugs to fight depression - the first antidepressant, Iproniazid, did not come on to the market until 1957." Later in the book, he speculates that Judy was "probably bi-polar." How different could it have been if only ...

Gerald Clarke tackles a very difficult subject, Judy Garland, in his newest biography "Get Happy". We all realize that probably one of the most complex lives in modern times has been that of Judy herself. She was a singer extraordinaire, gifted actress, beautiful woman, and a human, none-the-less. What Clarke's biography manages to capture is her humanness. There is a succinct danger in deifying someone so much that they lose those essential qualities that endear us to them in the first place. Judy was troubled, had drug issues, marital problems, all true and well-documented, and she also could belt out a song like no one else. I loved Judy Garland since childhood, and now, knowing her foibles and follies as well as her gifts, makes me love her all the more.

Clarke's book moves very quickly. He doesn't dally on any points, and the chapters are organized into short sections. I rated it four stars because I wished he had "dallied" a little bit more in certain areas, especially in her later singing career!