Judy Garland

Over 50 years after her death, Judy Garland remains one of the most legendary entertainers of all time. Born Frances Ethel Gumm, she got her start in a vaudeville family act, going on stage as early as age two, and later creating a singing duo with one of her sisters. That landed her the chance to audition for MGM Studios as a teenager, which led to iconic roles in such classic musicals as The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St. Louis, Summer Stock, and many more. The young Hollywood starlet worked so hard, churning out picture after picture, that she was rarely out of the public eye for over a decade.

The studio’s demands on Garland’s time, however, and its demands that she maintain a certain weight, directly contributed to her drug addiction, an attempt to take her own life, and exhaustion — all before she was 28 years old. But the resilient star had many comebacks over the course of her career. In the 1950s, a string of stage shows helped Garland become one of the great singers of her generation. She also revitalized her acting career by producing and starring in the 1954 film A Star Is Born, which earned her first Oscar nomination. In the ‘60s, she received her second Oscar nomination for her role in the 1961 drama Judgement at Nuremberg, and in 1961, she swept the Grammy awards, taking home multiple trophies for her legendary performance Judy at Carnegie Hall.

Though she died of a tragic accidental overdose at age 47 in 1969, Garland’s work has stood the test of time, and far outlived that of many of her contemporaries, while she herself became a role model for generations, especially to women and the LGBTQ+ community, as well as fellow performers — she became the template for the triple threat talent who was comfortable in front of a camera, on a stage, and behind a microphone. Garland was aware, in her lifetime, of how beloved she was by her audiences — even as she found it challenging to love herself.