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By Amanda Osborne
"Judy Garland Takes Off After an Oscar" was the title of the September 13th, 1954, Life magazine featuring a close-up of Judy Garland in the soon to be premiered A Star Is Born. During mid-1950s the studio system was still responsible for some of the greatest movies, however even the biggest and most glamorous stars as was evidenced in the Life magazine story was an early example of an actor without the support of a large studio making such a bid. A Star Is Born was Judy Garland's comeback, and a star would be re-born with a triumphant Oscar victory: the ultimate happy ending, the way it was supposed to be.
Judy Garland, one of the very biggest stars in MGM's galaxy, had signed a long-term contract when she was in her early teens. The 15-year partnership gave us some of the best movie musicals ever: Meet Me In St Louis, Easter Parade and, of course, The Wizard of Oz, among others. But by the time they parted company in 1950, Judy Garland was considered by MGM to be too unreliable to employ. All the years of work had taken a grievous toll on Garland's heath and were exacerbated by an addiction to pills and a chronically unstable personal life. At 28, Judy GarlandŐs film career was washed up. Without a job for the first time since childhood, Garland turned to radio and stage work to rehabilitate both her career and her reputation. Though Judy would struggle her entire life with addiction and a chaotic personal life, she was above all a performer. Triumph followed triumph in the early 1950s, especially in London and New York. But for Judy's reputation to be truly rehabilitated, she would need to return to Hollywood and the movies.
A fan of the material for many years, including playing the role on radio, the decision to remake the 1937 A Star Is Born was a natural for Judy. This was the property she wanted to convey to the world, and especially to Hollywood—that she was back. With the assistance of her husband and business partner, Sid Luft, she assembled the right team to remake Star as a musical to showcase her talent. Acclaimed women's director George Cukor would direct, Moss Hart would write the script. Harold Arlen (who had co-written Judy's signature song "Over the Rainbow") and Ira Gershwin would write the songs. Luft and Garland founded a boutique production company, Transcona Enterprises, to produce the movie. Warner Brothers provided financial backing and distribution.
1953, with the advent of television, led to a seismic shift in how Hollywood would make movies. The decision to make very wide movies meant that every studio had its own plan for how to best create such an effect, and A Star Is Born suffered from being filmed in the midst of this. As the formats were developed and refined, footage had to be discarded and re-shot. Costs soared and the filming schedule lengthened. After ten grueling months, the movie did get made, and the movie that Garland, Cukor and Luft made was a masterpiece created in the midst of chaos.
Unfortunately, Warner Brothers did not agree. After a remarkable premiere at the Pantages in Hollywood that was every bit the triumphant return Judy had so wanted, WB cut the movie's 181 minute running time drastically in order to get more showtimes in hopes of recouping its financial stake. Garland was devastated. The evisceration of the film was so complete that the painstaking restoration process completed in the 1980s was unable to recover everything as it was meant to be shown. The result, however, is still remarkable. Judy Garland's performance is still one of the bravest and best performances ever put to film.
Despite the cuts to the movie and WB's refusal to promote it in any meaningful way, Judy Garland won a number of Best Actress awards for Star, including the Golden Globe. She was nominated for an Academy Award and planned to attend the ceremony scheduled for March 30th, 1955. On March 29th, however, she gave birth to her son and would spend Oscar night watching from her hospital room on television. She lost to Grace Kelly for The Country Girl. Neither the film nor Kelly's performance is especially memorable.
Perhaps Groucho Marx said it best: Judy's Oscar loss was "the biggest robbery since the Brink's."
Amanda Osborne is an artist, writer, and Judy Garland historian who lives in New Hampshire.
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