New Details of Her Tragic Childhood
A TROUBLED CHILDHOOD DIDN’T STOP THE ENTERTAINER FROM MAKING HER OWN KIDS THE STARS OF HER LIFE
“She always tried to be there for us, giving us support and lots of love.” — Joey Luft
As a young boy, Joey Luft was terrified the first time he watched The Wizard of Oz. “When the monkeys kidnap Dorothy, I started crying and screaming, ‘They kidnapped my mom!’” he tells Closer. He was so distraught, the babysitter had to phone Judy Garland in Europe, where she was filming. “She told me, ‘Monkeys didn’t kidnap me, everything’s fine’ — and I calmed down after that.”
While Judy couldn’t just click her heels and rush home to her son, he never doubted her love. “There are so many interviews where she was asked, ‘Why do you work so hard?’ and she’d always say, ‘It’s for my children,’” Joey, 61, recalls of Judy’s devotion to him and big sisters Liza, 70, and Lorna, 64. Sadly, Judy never felt that warmth from her own mom. “I was really unwanted: My mother didn’t want to have any more children,” the star revealed in Judy and I: My Life With Judy Garland, a recently found memoir by her third husband, Sid Luft.
A STAR IS BORN
When Ethel Gumm learned she was pregnant with Judy, she was despondent. “She did everything to get rid of me,” Judy recounted, joking that Ethel even tried to terminate the pregnancy by repeatedly throwing herself down flights of stairs. “When I turned out to be another girl, after they had already named me Frank, it didn’t work out too well for anybody.” It wasn’t long before Judy’s charisma and talent prompt- ed Ethel to push her daughter into show business — at any cost.
“My mother was truly a stage mother. A mean one,” Judy told Sid. “She was very jealous because she had absolutely no talent.” Judy also resented Ethel for allowing her to get trapped in the MGM system, which led to her lifelong battle with substance abuse.
Judy got sober, though, when she learned she was expecting a baby with second husband Vincente Minnelli in 1945. When Liza was born, her motherly instincts only grew stronger.
Years later, Sid was in awe of his soon-to-be bride’s bond with her daughter. “Judy’s relationship with Liza was so loving and filled with tenderness,” Sid, who died in 2005 at age 89, wrote in his memoir. “They had so much fun together I was almost jealous.”
Having Lorna in 1952 and Joey in 1955 brought more joy to Judy, but her demons resurfaced often. “There’d be times Mom wouldn’t act right, so one day I asked my dad if she was sick,” Joey shares, recalling how Sid had to explain everything Judy was battling. “She was a great person but she had addictions.” Despite his mother’s troubles, Joey insists the good times outweighed the bad. “She was strict, but I remember having a lot of fun with her! She had a great sense of humor. One of her main mottos was, ‘The show must go on…and on time!’ ”
Judy’s legend, of course, lives on through Liza, Lorna and Joey, all performers themselves who always strive to make their mom proud. “She gave so much up on that stage,” Liza has said. “She gave everything she had.”
— Ron Kelly, with reporting by Amanda Champagne-Meadows