Garland on Netflix...

 I watched an enjoyable..maybe enjoyable is the wrong word..an interesting movie last night on Netflix...JUDY starring Renee Zellweger as Judy Garland. It certainly takes you on a journey.

I recommend it...if you have Netflix of course!

 

I must have missed this the first time around when it was first released in 2019.

 

Dead at the very young age of 47 Judy Garlands life, although there must have been many highlights, seemed sad and often lonely. Continually put down by studio executives when young and told she was not pretty enough and came from “the wrong side of the tracks” and was lucky to be where she was. Studio chief Louis B. Mayer, it is said, called her his “little hunchback”. Which is surely enough to give anyone a complex! Fed soup to stay thin when she really craved ‘real food’ no wonder she had her problems plus lots of exercise to minimise her curves. 

 

Today this would be called child abuse by any stretch of the imagination.

 

Judy Garland stated that she and other young performers were constantly prescribed amphetamines in order to stay awake. Also barbiturates to help them sleep. This regular use of drugs, she said, led to a life-long addiction as we could clearly see in this often remarkable performance by Renee Zellweger who, by the way, sings herself in the movie and very well too I add. Surprisingly so. I had to check to see if it was her actual voice and indeed it was.

 

12 days after her 47th Birthday Judy Garland was found dead in a rented house in London. Her death was ruled accidental, an overdose of barbiturates that had been taken over a long period of time and no evidence suggested she had committed suicide. 

 

By the way I was recently given the book Judy Garland by David Shipman which, after watching the movie on Judy, I will now read.

 

RIP Judy Garland a true legend.