JUDY GARLAND
HER OFFSCREEN STRUGGLES NEVER DIMMED THE FIERCE LOVE SHE SHARED WITH HER CHILDREN
Liza Minnelli and her siblings on what their troubled mom taught them.
Growing up with Judy Garland as your mom was like living in “the land of dreams,” Liza Minnelli, 71, says, and she and siblings Lorna and Joey Luft cherished it. One favorite memory was filming Judy’s 1963 Christmas special, which ended with the entertainer sweetly serenading Lorna and Joey, then 11 and 8, with “Over the Rainbow” amidst a flurry of giggles, kisses and hugs. “She was really amazing,” Joey, 62, tells Closer, “and she loved all of us a lot.” Adds Lorna, 64, “As long as Mama was there, everything would be fine.”
Sadly, things were rarely fine for the superstar in the years that followed that heartwarming special. Her lifelong addiction to prescription pills had wreaked so much havoc on her mental and physical health that her kids were called upon to be their beloved mama’s caretaker during her frequent illnesses, bouts of depression and suicide attempts. “I think she was just tired, like a flower that blooms and gives joy and beauty to the world and then wilts away,” Liza wistfully says of how she’s grown to process her mother’s tragic 1969 accidental overdose at the age of 47. “She lived eight lives in one, and yet I thought she would outlive us all.”
MATERNAL INSTINCTS
Judy and Liza’s bond was strong before the daughter of director Vincente Minnelli was even born in 1946. “Mama was able to stay off pills for most of her pregnancy,” Lorna says of the fact that Judy temporarily conquered the addiction she developed at 17 while filming The Wizard of Oz.
When Liza was born, Judy was downright smitten. “With Liza, my mom became the tender and loving parent. My sister was the center of
Mom’s universe,” Lorna says. Liza always reveled in the attention. “When you’d sit and talk with her, you really felt like no one else existed. That nobody was funnier, nobody was wiser, nobody could ever love you more, and that you never could ever love anybody more,” Liza explains.
As Judy once recalled, she counseled a teenage Liza — whose heart was already set on being in show business — on what really mattered most in life. “Applause alone doesn’t sustain you at 3 a.m. when you can’t sleep,” Judy told her, before adding, “Watch me, learn from me and learn from my mistakes.”
That she did. As the oldest child, Liza had the most opportunities to share the stage with Judy. “One minute I was on stage with my mother, the next moment I was on stage with Judy Garland,” Liza recalls of a performance in 1964 when she was just 18. “One minute she smiled at me, and the next minute she was like the lioness that owned the stage and suddenly found somebody invading her territory. The killer instinct of a performer had come out in her.”
Lorna and Joey, Judy’s children with third husband Sid Luft, were similarly in awe of their mother’s talent. “I remember being on set and studying her,” Joey recalls. “It was really intense watching her work. The energy she generated at a place like Carnegie Hall was amazing — and scary.”
“My mother gave me my drive. She was a great star and a great
talent.”
— Liza Minnelli
ROLE REVERSAL
While it was clear to her children that Judy could soar when she was feeling well, life could be frightening when she came down. “There were times when my mom wasn’t acting right,” Joey recalls, “so I’d ask my dad, ‘Is she sick?’ and he explained it all to me. It was exceptionally hard to deal with as a kid. I was powerless. She was a great person, but she had that addiction.”
Even to Liza, nine years Joey’s senior, Judy’s roller-coaster mood swings were jarring. “If she was happy, she wasn’t just happy. She was ecstatic,” she explains. “And when she
was sad, she was sadder than anyone. There were no middles.
I was used only to screaming attacks or excessive love bouts, rivers of money or no money at all, seeing my mother constantly or not seeing her for weeks.” Sid was largely responsible for managing Judy’s meltdowns, but when the couple divorced in 1965, that burden often fell to her children.
“To my mom, taking care of her was part of loving her,” Lorna says of the complicated dynamic that ensued, and she and Joey knew they needed to stay with their mother after their parents split. “Dad would miss us, but he would be OK,” she explains. “My mother, on the other hand, couldn’t get along without us.”
Liza knew this, too, having helped Judy emotionally get through her split years earlier from her father, Vincente. Just 5 at the time of their divorce, Liza eventually started taking care of unpaid bills and missed appointments. Liza, however, says she has “a good filter for keeping out the bad stuff and remembering the good,” of which there was plenty. Judy “was so supportive she’d congratulate me if
I walked across the room,” she says, adding, “She ensured my happiness as a kid.”
THE CURTAIN FALLS
The superstar’s final few years were emotionally challenging for all of her children, who had to navigate through Judy’s instantly ill-fated 1965 marriage to Mark Herron (her gay tour promoter) and her mental and physical breakdowns. When her medications were off-balance, she’d pass out or have seizures. “I learned how to put a stick in her mouth to keep her from choking on her own tongue and suffocating,” Lorna recalls, adding that she also had to learn who she could and couldn’t call for backup. “When your mother is Judy Garland, you don’t just dial 911. It isn’t that simple,” she says.
In March 1969, Judy shocked her children with yet another sudden marriage to nightclub manager Mickey Deans in England. Three months later, he’d find her dead from what was ruled an accidental overdose in the bathroom of their rented London home. “When I think of the last two years of my mother’s life, I always think of them as a ball of yarn unwinding,” Lorna reflects. “She was funny and sweet and gifted beyond belief, but she was also damaged. There wasn’t enough love in the world, enough attention in the world, to save my mother. No one could have saved her but herself.”
Lorna, though, insists her mother never gave up on her children, or her fans. “I have no doubt she died fully expecting yet another miraculous comeback and triumph. She had a very strong sense of who she was,” Lorna says. “She had a sense of self-worth. She loved being Judy Garland.”
And Judy Garland the star certainly deserves to be remembered for the gifts she shared with the world, not for the suffering she endured. “You can’t ever get in the way of talent like my mom’s,” Liza says emphatically. “No matter what people said, or what drama was created, that talent would come through again and again and again. For the rest of my life, I will be proud to be Judy Garland’s daughter.”