Judy Garland: The Movie Roles that Might Have Been – Q and A
What inspired you to write this book?
Many books have been written about the life of Judy Garland and the movies she made. Some of these books include lists of films for which Judy was considered, but no book ever delved into the subject of the movie roles Ms. Garland sought but never obtained or the roles for which movie studios thought of hiring her but for various reasons did not.
What are some of the unproduced MGM musicals in which Ms. Garland may have starred?
They included Dear Old Broadway about a young girl who seeks a Broadway career, Babes in Hollywood which would have co-starred Mickey Rooney, Eight Girls and a Horse with Kathryn Grayson, and The Story of Gaby Des Lys, a biography about the French entertainer. Each of these is detailed in the book with summaries of the scripts or treatments that were done for these proposed movies.
Cabbages and Kings was another MGM musical to star Judy with Van Johnson which was never made. What was it about?
This project was a musical based on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. With a screenplay by Stella Unger and Paul H. Rameau, the planned movie focused on Alice Smith who goes to Coney Island where she bumps into a funhouse mirror and becomes unconscious. She enters the world of Alice in Wonderland. In general terms, this never- produced fantasy may remind some of The Wizard of Oz.
What was to be Judy’s follow-up to the Warner Brothers’ movie A Star Is Born?
Judy and her husband at the time, Sid Luft, purchased the film rights to a novel by Margaret Echard titled Born in Wedlock. The book was about a singer/dancer who is the widowed mother of two little girls. She later marries a wealthy lawyer. A screenplay was written for the film but apparently the Luft’s could not raise the financing to make it.
Some movie roles for which Ms. Garland was considered seemed to mirror her own life struggles. Can you give us an example?
Judy was considered for the lead role in the biographical film, The Helen Morgan Story, but the part went to Ann Blyth. Helen Morgan was a nightclub singer in the 1920’s and 1930’s who went on to star on Broadway as Julie Le Verne in Show Boat. Morgan struggled with alcohol abuse and died at the relatively young age of forty-one. Although Morgan had a light soprano singing voice, Jack Warner, given the issues he had with the making of A Star Is Born wanted Garland’s singing voice but not the actress herself. He hired Gogi Grant who was a belting Garland-type singer to dub Ann Blyth’s voice in the movie.
In the book, you also profile Judy’s final three motion pictures – Gay Purr-ee, A Child Is Waiting, and I Could Go on Singing. What did you learn in researching these films?
For Gay Purr-ee, I learned that Judy was instrumental in getting Harold Arlen and “Yip” Harburg, who had worked on The Wizard of Oz, to write the songs for this animated feature. I was also surprised to learn that A Child Is Waiting and I Could Go on Singing were both initially episodes of the anthology, Studio One on CBS before they became vehicles for Ms. Garland.
Larry Gelbart, best known for his work on the TV series M*A*S*H and doing the screenplay for the movie, Tootsie, wrote a screenplay for the film adaptation of the Broadway hit, Little Me. Judy wanted to star in the motion picture version. Why was it never made?
Evidently, at the time (i.e. 1964), movie musicals such as Star with Julie Andrews and Doctor Doolittle with Rex Harrison were relative failures, and so studios resisted making other musicals.
Your book includes an appendix describing some Broadway musicals and dramas for which Judy was considered. What surprised you the most about these?
Judy was considered for the lead in Pygmalion – a musical version of the George Bernard Shaw play. But it was not, as many think, Lerner and Lowe’s My Fair Lady. It was to be a musical by Hungarian film maker Gabriel Pascal based on his film version of the George Bernard Shaw play.
Judy was also sought for the lead in the musical Fanny on Broadway. However, Florence Henderson got the title role.
In early 1968, Judy auditioned for Jerry Herman and others to take over the title role in Mame when Angela Lansbury was due to leave the show. However, the financial backers of the show didn’t believe that Ms. Garland would be a reliable candidate for the role.