Judy Garland, born Frances Gumm in 1922, and Mickey Rooney, born Joe Yule, Jr. in 1920, were MGM's squeaky-clean adolescent stars of a number of light-hearted musicals in the 1930s and 1940s. These high-spirited, lightweight films often climaxed with the youthful characters putting on an impromptu musical show to benefit a worthy cause. They first met at Mrs. Lawlor's School for Professional Children, and he loved her like a little sister.

The teenage years are enigmatic enough. When fame and the demands it exacts are tossed into that adolescent cauldron of anxiety and confusion and hormones, the consequences can be catastrophic. Garland and Rooney were no exception.

Early in her film career at age 13, the slightly plump Garland attracted moderate attention in Pigskin Parade (1936), a short musical film in which she sang opposite ingenue singer Deanna Durbin. A year later, Garland worked opposite Mickey Rooney for the first time in Thoroughbreds Don't Cry, and the screen chemistry between them was visible to audiences. However, Garland's big break occurred when she was cast as Dorothy in the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz. Still fairly unknown, Garland won the role over Shirley Temple, and she rocketed to fame. Her winsome performance earned her a special juvenile Academy Award, and it was this role that made "Over the Rainbow" her signature song.

Escalating demands were made upon "The Little Girl with the Big Voice," now that she was a major box-office attraction. Her workload of public appearances and starring roles in films increased. Garland appeared in a long string of MGM musicals, including Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), Easter Parade (1948), and In the Good Old Summertime (1949). The pressures on her mounted.

Horror stories abound in printed media about Garland's escalating prescription drug addictions, erratic behavior, weight gain, and the dark insecurities that led to several breakdowns. She blamed her mother and MGM publicly for the mess she had become. Garland was usually late for filming, if she showed up at all, thus lowering the quality of her performances and aggravating studio executives. Star or no star, she was adding to the cost of their productions. Garland was ultimately humiliated and abandoned when she was fired for her unreliability in 1950 by MGM, the same studio that had forced her to take the "wonder drugs" of sleeping pills and barbiturates to keep her weight down and her energy level up in her heyday.

Despite the shambles her life became, her 1961 record "Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall" reaped five Grammy Awards, and it remained at the top of the Billboard charts for two months. Her performance in A Star is Born (1954) is considered one of her finest film performances.

Her 1963 TV variety show didn't fare well, however, because it usually wasn't very good and it was in the same time slot as Bonanza. The rigors of doing a weekly show quickly took a toll on the emotionally fragile Garland. After a promising premier show, she reverted to her unpredictable behavior. She was often late or skipped rehearsals, forgot songs and lines, had temper tantrums, and forced frequent schedule changes in the show's airing. Only when she was paired opposite a youthful Barbra Streisand did Garland snap to attention and work hard. She felt threatened by her younger, talented competition. The talent "contest" that ensued in rehearsals that week ignited Garland's dormant passion to be the extraordinary entertainer that she could be. The "Streisand show" was Garland's crowning glory when it aired, but it was a short-lived coup. Its audience had degenerated beyond repair, and The Judy Garland Show was cancelled after one season.

She had great success touring as a singer, and became an icon for the homosexual community in the 1960s. Garland continued her dependency on prescription drugs. Finally, the inevitable happened: on the night of June 22, 1969, she overdosed on Seconal and died in London. Fans the world over mourned the tragic waste of such a tremendous talent. Twenty-two thousand people filed past Garland's open coffin in a Manhattan mortuary over a 24-hour period. Garland left three children behind: Liza Minnelli from her marriage to director Vincente Minnelli, and Lorna and Joseph Luft from her marriage to producer Sidney Luft. In all, Garland had been married five times.

Daughter Liza said, following her mother's death, "It wasn't suicide. It wasn't sleeping pills, it wasn't cirrhosis. I think she was just tired, like a flower that blooms and gives joy and beauty to the world and then wilts away."

The film business was also a pressure cooker for Mickey Rooney, although for different reasons. Son of Scottish-born vaudevillian actor Joe Yule, both his parents were in show business. Joe Junior made his debut on the stage when he wasn't yet two years old. He became part of the family's act - that is, until his mother caught his father in a compromising position with a showgirl. They divorced, and the mother and boy lived in near poverty. Starting in films at 5 years old, he became well known for a series of some fifty silent comedies between 1927 and 1933 in which he played Mickey McGuire (and was billed as such), a comic-strip character. In 1932, he changed his professional name to Mickey Rooney; in 1934, he signed a contract with MGM studios.

Rooney gave an impressive performance as Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935), was the title character in the fifteen wildly popular Andy Hardy films, and was in Boys Town (1938), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1939), and National Velvet (1944). . He received a special juvenile Oscar a year before Garland did. Rooney reached the peak of his career during World War II, and he lived the wild life of a rich, successful Hollywood brat.

His privileged world began to unravel in the 1940s. Rooney was drafted during the war, and when he returned to Hollywood, his fame and box-office drawing powers had significantly decreased. Like other child stars, he found it difficult to get decent roles or respect as an adult actor. He'd been the number one box office film star in 1939, 1940 and 1941, and appeared on the Top Ten Box Office film list in 1938, 1942, and 1943, but now his fans spent their movie money on other rising film stars. After Summer Holiday (1948), his career took a downward turn, and the 1950s and 1960s became a string of forgettable movies. However, Rooney turned in a solid performance in the 1956 The Bold and the Brave, for which he was nominated for an Oscar. He also turned in dynamic performances on television in Rod Serling's teleplays The Comedian and Requiem for a Heavyweight. The work, however, wasn't steady, and Rooney went broke several times. This was also because of his gambling and his numerous alimony payments.

He jumped in and out of eight marriages, including one to film sex symbol Ava Gardner in 1942. Tragically, Barbara Ann Thomason, Rooney's fifth wife and the mother of four of his ten children, was killed in a murder-suicide by actor Milos Milocevic in 1966. Thomason, a former California beauty queen, had finally retaliated against Rooney's numerous infidelities by having an affair of her own, which ended calamitously. Rooney was devastated and heartsick, and married wife Number 6 less than a year later. Marge Lane had been Thomason's best friend. That marriage lasted only 100 days.

Rooney's professional career took a turn for the better in the 1980s when he costarred with Ann Miller for several years on the Broadway stage in the nostalgic Sugar Babies. His moving performance as a retarded man in Bill, a 1981 made-for-TV film, earned him praise and he took home a Golden Globe. In an eerie parallel to Garland's 1939 meteoritic rise to fame, he played the Wizard in the stage production of The Wizard of Oz with Eartha Kitt in the late 1990s.

The pairing of these two likeable, all-American teenagers proved to be wildly successful. Several of their films were lambasted by critics as another "Let's put on a show, gang!" piece of fluff; however, they reflect the naiveté of the film musical and the preferences of the public in the pre-World War II years.

In view of the personal tragedies and demons in Garland's adult life, and the marital and financial failures in Rooney's, it is affirmation that the movies do not mirror real life, nor did they ever during Hollywood's "Golden Era". It is unfortunate that for the amount of happiness Garland and Rooney gave to millions, that little was left for them.

Thoroughbreds Don't Cry (1937)
Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938)
Babes in Arms (1939)
Andy Hardy Meets Debutante (1940)
Strike Up the Band (1940)
Life Begins for Andy Hardy (1941)
Babes on Broadway (1941)
Girl Crazy (1943)
Thousands Cheer (1943)
Words and Music (1949)

Author: Vicki McClure Davidson

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