Posted by “Earth Mother. Soul Sister. Living Legend. Judy Garland is all these things to people.” – Gloria Negri, The Boston Globe, 1967
August 31, 1933: Another mention of “The Gumm Sisters” and their engagement at the Warner Bros. Downtown theater. This time they’re also mentioned in the article about the vaudeville acts in the two main Warner Bros. theaters, The Hollywood and, again, The Downtown.
August 31, 1934: Judy and her mother and sisters were still in Chicago. On this night they opened an engagement at the Uptown Theater, billed as “The Garland Sisters.” The girls were signed by the local William Morris office, which booked the remainder of the tour, until mid-October.
August 31, 1936: This column by Cedric Adams mentions Judy’s recent appearance at The Trocadero club in Hollywood. This is a good example of what Judy was doing for MGM at this time. She hadn’t yet made a feature film for the studio but was currently filming her feature film debut at 20th Century-Fox, Pigskin Parade. MGM had Judy appear at various parties and venues as well as on the radio in an attempt to get the public acquainted with her. They also simply didn’t know what to do with her, either.
Adams reports: Just the other night, in fact, when the master of ceremonies at the Trocadero out there introduced Raquel Torres and she refused to perform, he turned to Judy and the kid did 14 encores to beyond the sensation of the club.
It’s difficult to imagine why 14-year-old Judy Garland was at the club if not solely to perform. The column makes it sound as though she just happened to be there and came to the rescue by performing but most likely her appearance was pre-planned. MGM rarely left anything up to chance!
August 31, 1939: Go “Back to School” with The Wizard of Oz.
These ads are typical of the movie tie-ins that MGM had developed. The “Judy Garland Dresses” had been advertised as early as March of 1939 (in conjunction with Oz, but also prior as an example of teen fashion) and would continue to be advertised throughout the year, both in conjunction with local showings of the film and on their own.
More details and images of all of Judy’s activities during that golden year of 1939 can be found on The Judy Room’s Garland Biography 1939 Page.
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on The Wizard of Oz here.
August 31, 1939: Ray Bolger and Bert Lahr joined the show at the Capitol Theater in New York. Judy had previously been performing with Mickey Rooney between showings of The Wizard of Oz until Mickey had to return to the west coast. For this new show, Judy added “FDR Jones” and “Blue Evening” to the lineup. The engagement ended a week later on September 6, at which time Judy also returned to MGM.
The trade paper, The Film Daily, noted the cast change in their August 31, 1939, issue with the headline “‘Oz’ in 3rd Capitol Week” and the text:
M-G-M’s “The Wizard of Oz” goes into its third week at the Capitol today. On the stage will be Judy Garland, Bert Lahr and Ray Bolger, all of whom appear in the film. Mickey Rooney has been called back to the Coast to appear in the next of the “hardy” series.
Judy was paid $3,500 per week for this engagement, earning a total of $10,500. That is more than she made during the entire filming of The Wizard of Oz under her then-standard MGM contract. When she returned to MGM the studio gave her a bonus of $10,600.
More details and images of all of Judy’s activities during that golden year of 1939 can be found on The Judy Room’s Garland Biography 1939 Page.
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on The Wizard of Oz here.
August 31, 1939: More Ozzy items including an amusing story about Judy and the pigs on the Kansas set:
Little pigs may be cute, but from now on Judy Garland will keep a safe distance away from them.
It all happened on the farm set for “The Wizard of Oz,” the spectacular musical starting at the Grand Theater Saturday, Sept 2. Judy was required to walk a fence surrounding a pen in which a sow and eight tiny pigs were quartered. Half way around she slipped and lost her balance, crashing into the straw=filled pen. The sow, alarmed, charged the youngster who scrambled to her feet. She was jerked to safety by assistant director Al Shoenbert.
With all the attention centered on Judy it was several seconds before a second disturbance was noted from the direction of the pen. Toto, Judy’s pet dog in the picture, resent the attitude taken by the sow toward his young mistress and dumped the fence to square things.
There followed a second rescue after which the sow and her family were retired from the screen in favor of a gentler porker.
More details and images of all of Judy’s activities during that golden year of 1939 can be found on The Judy Room’s Garland Biography 1939 Page.
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on The Wizard of Oz here.
August 31, 1939: The trade magazine, “Motion Picture Daily,” featured this article declaring The Wizard of Oz as a smash (first item shown here). Included are blurbs about the film in that magazine as well as the “Film Daily.”
More details and images of all of Judy’s activities during that golden year of 1939 can be found on The Judy Room’s Garland Biography 1939 Page.
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on The Wizard of Oz here.
August 31, 1939: MGM ran this ad in the trade magazines promoting the upcoming releases of Babes in Arms and The Women. Babes in Arms premiered on October 10, 1939.
More details and images of all of Judy’s activities during that golden year of 1939 can be found on The Judy Room’s Garland Biography 1939 Page.
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on The Wizard of Oz here.
Check out The Judy Room’s Filmography Page on Babes in Arms here.
August 31, 1939: Judy and Mickey’s appearance as the featured performers at the previous night’s Harvest Moon Ball at Madison Square Garden was covered in the local papers. Ed Sullivan hosted, and among the celebrities in attendance were Sonja Henie, Alice Faye, George Raft (who comically dance with Sullivan), Jack Dempsey, plus Berth Lahr, Jack Haley, and Ray Bolger. NY Mayor LaGuardia welcomed John Garfield, Gloria Jean, Adolph Menjou, Anna Neagle, Henry Wilcoxon, and Tony Marin into his box. In fact, over 20,000 people took part. Several teams of amateur dancers competed in various dance categories including the Fox Trot, Rumba, Tango, Collegiate Shat, Lindy Hop, and more.
More details and images of all of Judy’s activities during that golden year of 1939 can be found on The Judy Room’s Garland Biography 1939 Page.
August 31, 1939: Here’s an article about the alleged first woman who played “Dorothy” in the silent versions of The Wizard of Oz, Violet MacMillan (married name Folger). She wasn’t actually the first woman to play Dorothy on film but she did play the character in the most well-remembered series of films which were from L. Frank Baum’s film company The Oz Film Manufacturing Company.
Interestingly enough, she was living in Grand Rapids because she was born there – but Grand Rapids, Michigan not Minnesota. Still, it’s fun to learn that the girl who played Dorothy in Baum’s film was also from “Grand Rapids.”
More details and images of all of Judy’s activities during that golden year of 1939 can be found on The Judy Room’s Garland Biography 1939 Page.
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on The Wizard of Oz here.
August 31, 1939: Here are more full-page promotions for MGM’s upcoming lineup of films plus a great advertisement for the 10th anniversary of the Fox Midwest Theaters chain.
More details and images of all of Judy’s activities during that golden year of 1939 can be found on The Judy Room’s Garland Biography 1939 Page.
August 31, 1940: Little Nellie Kelly continued filming on the “Excavation Crosstown Bus” set. Judy also posed for publicity stills for the film, with co-star George Murphy. Time called: 9 a.m.; dismissed: 5:32 p.m.
Check out The Judy Room’s Filmography Pages on Little Nellie Kelly here.
August 16, 1940: Here is a wonderful sixteen-page promotional ad placed by MGM in the trade magazine “Motion Picture Herald” touting the studio’s sixteenth anniversary. Listed are several of Judy’s films as well as some productions that never got made or were filmed several years later. Of note is that Judy is featured in the list of stars on the first page of star photos rather than on the second page, an indication of her increasing popularity. She’s listed as “Everybody’s Baby.”
In this same issue was an article mentioning Judy and Mickey Rooney’s upcoming Strike Up The Band.
August 31, 1950: More ads and articles for Summer Stock.
Check out The Judy Room’s Filmography Pages on Summer Stock here.
August 31, 1955: Rehearsals were proceeding for Judy’s upcoming TV debut on September 24th. Here’s an article on David Wayne, who assisted Judy as her emcee and joined her for the “A Couple of Swells” number.
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland – The Concert Years” here.
August 31, 1963: More legal issues for Judy and her husband Sid Luft.
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland – The Concert Years” here.
August 31, 1965: Judy’s first appearance “in the round” took place at The Circle Star Theater in San Carlos, California. Judy performed there for six nights.
Judy sang: “He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands”; “Almost Like Being In Love/This Can’t Be Love”; “Judy’s Olio”; “What Now My Love?”; “Just In Time”; “By Myself”; “San Francisco”; “Over The Rainbow”; and “Rock-A-Bye Your Baby.” Lorna and Joe joined her onstage for a few performances.
“Daily Variety” reported that Judy brought in $105,000 for the eight sold-out performances, $15,302 for opening night.
Photo: Judy and Mark Herron backstage during this engagement.
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland – The Concert Years” here.
August 31, 1967: A milestone for Judy. She played to the single biggest audience in her career. 108,000 people at The Boston Common in Boston, MA. At the end of the concert, the mayor of Boston (John F. Collins) reached up and gave Judy a silver bowl in honor of the occasion, saying ‘Judy, we’ve taken you into our hearts; I think that is the sentiment of all of us. God bless you.”
The concert received rave reviews. Color footage of some of it exists, as does an audio recording made by a member of the audience.
A big thanks to Armand for some of the pics.
Here is the almost complete “Old Man River” recently reconstructed and presented for the first time via The Judy Room’s YouTube channel:
You can listen to that audience recording by downloading a zip file of it here: http://thejudyroom.com/songs/BostonCommon08-31-1968.zip
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland – The Concert Years” here.
August 31, 1989: A two-page spread about The Wizard of Oz and anniversary glasses from Whataburger, part of the 50th-anniversary celebration. The first article by Bob Thomas, unfortunately, perpetuates the myth that the film was a flop. It wasn’t. It showed an initial loss on paper due to the expense of making it and the added expenses of the promotions, not to mention the reduced ticket prices for children. But the vast majority of the critics and public loved it. The negative reviews were very, very much in the minor. The general consensus was (and still is) that it’s a unique film masterpiece.
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on The Wizard of Oz here.
August 31, 2010: Volume 5 of the latest reissues of “The Judy Garland Show” was released by the Infinity Entertainment Group label.
Check out The Judy Room’s “The Judy Garland Show on DVD” page. It features information about all of the DVD releases of the entire series. Unfortunately, the series hasn’t been remastered into HD for release on 4K UHD discs or streaming.
August 31, 2022: The Warner Archive had a summer sale.