Posted by “Let’s face it, when the Garland temperament doesn’t interfere, there’s no finer entertainer today.” – Frank Arganbright, 1962
September 8, 1934: Judy and her sisters, as “The Garland Sisters,” were appearing in Detroit, Michigan, at the Michigan Theater as part of the state acts that accompanying the latest feature, and MGM film titles Hide-Out starring Tobert Montgomery and Maureen O’Sullivan. Further down the list is a young actor who would play a huge role in Judy’s future, Mickey Rooney.
The “Detroit Free Press” noted, “Three Garland Sisters – one looking like a little first grader off to school [Judy] – in songs.”
September 8, 1938: Judy appeared on the Maxwell House-sponsored radio show, “Good News of 1939.” She sang: “In-Between”; “My Lucky Star”; and “Could You Pass In Love?”, the latter performed with Robert Young, Meredith Willson, and Frank Morgan.
Listen to “Could You Pass In Love?” here:
Photos: Clipping of Judy featuring a photo taken during a “Good News” broadcast with the show’s director Bill Bacher. Rare disc photo from the John Newton Collection. Thanks, John!
September 8, 1938: Love Finds Andy Hardy was the film showing at the Strand Theatre in Jefferson, Texas.
September 8, 1939: Here are more box office figures for The Wizard of Oz as noted by the trade magazine, the “Motion Picture Daily.” As you can see, Oz was a hit, this time in Milwaukee, Chicago, Cincinnati, and Omaha. These figures and other similar listings in other editions of the magazine for other cities prove that Oz was most definitely a hit film, contrary to the legend that it was “a flop.”
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.
September 8, 1940: Judy’s mom settles Judy’s dilemma of who to date. Plus, Judy gets her makeup touched up on the set of Strike Up The Band, although by this date, Judy was already finished with that film and was in the middle of filming Little Nellie Kelly.
Check out The Judy Room’s Filmography Pages on Strike Up The Band here.
Check out The Judy Room’s Filmography Pages on Little Nellie Kelly here.
September 8, 1940: Here’s an interesting notice that features a rare image of the new pool just after installation at Judy’s home at 1231 Stone Canyon Road in the Bel Air section of the greater Los Angeles area. The image is used as an example of what the Paddock Engineering Company could achieve. Wouldn’t it be great if the scale model of this pool with the pool house that’s mentioned in the clipping survived?
September 8, 1941: Filming continued on Babes on Broadway with scenes shot on the “Interior Auditorium” set, the ultimately deleted “Sketch” scene. The “Sketch” was “The Convict’s Return,” which was intended to showcase Mickey Rooney’s talents. He played eight roles, making quick changes behind the scenes in one take. The footage doesn’t exist, but the music underscoring has survived and is on the Rhino Record 4-CD set “Mickey & Judy – The Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney Collection.” Time called: 9 a.m.; lunch: 12:25-1:25 p.m.; time dismissed: 5:55 p.m.
Also, on this day, this fun article was published about how Judy’s able to “face the facts” about her appearance, making it sound as though MGM was happy with her just the way she was.
Photos provided by Kim Lundgreen. Thanks, Kim!
September 8, 1943: The Third War Loan “Hollywood Cavalcade” war bond tour officially began in Washington, DC. The tour lasted all of September, visiting a total of 16 cities (including DC). For the kick-off in DC, there was a parade to the Washington Monument for the opening ceremony/festivities, plus a nationwide radio hookup from the White House featuring a speech by President Roosevelt that began at 9 p.m. “EWT” (Eastern Standard Time), 6 p.m. PWT (Pacific). The stars then boarded their train at midnight and headed to their first stop, Philadelphia.
One newspaper report mentioned: “Riding in jeeps behind the army airforces band, the dozen movie personalities went to the Washington Monument grounds where the army opened a “back the attack” display of weapons and equipment.”
The tour schedule:
Sep 8 – Washington, DC
Sep 9 – Philadelphia
Sep 10 – Boston
Sep 11 – New York
Sep 12 – Pittsburgh
Sep 13 – Cleveland
Sep 14 – Detroit
Sep 15 – Cincinnati
Sep 16 – Chicago
Sep 17 – Minneapolis
Sep 18 – St Louis
Sep 20 – New Orleans
Sep 21 – Dallas
Sep 22 – San Antonio
Sep 25 – San Francisco
Sep 26 & 27 – Los Angeles
The stars who rode the special “Hollywood Cavalcade” train from Hollywood to DC to begin the tour were: Fred Astaire, Lucille Ball, James Cagney, Judy Garland, Greer Garson, Paul Henreid, Betty Hutton, Harpo Marx (with companion Muriel Goodspeed), Dick Powell, and Mickey Rooney – Plus: Kay Kyser and his band (with Harry Babbitt, Georgia Carroll, Julie Conway, Ish Kabibble and Diane Pendleton); and the “Four Starlet Bondbardeers”: Rosemary LaPlanche, Doris Merrick, Dolores Moran, and Marjorie Stewart.
Joining them later were: Kathryn Grayson, Olivia DeHavilland, and Martha Scott.
Photos: Two clippings featuring photos from the DC event of Judy with a WAC and with Mickey Rooney, Paul Henreid, and Greer Garson; plus a notice of Judy going on the tour. Note how that clipping references Judy’s work schedule and her dating Van Johnson. There was a lot of talk in the papers about Judy dating Van Johnson. This info was studio-fed as Johnson was the studio’s up-and-coming new matinee idol. The two never seriously dated. Also included are a few notices for the stops at Boston and Pittsburgh.
Below is Movietone News footage of the Washington event. Note that for the first 10 minutes, there isn’t any sound.
September 8, 1943: Here is another printing of that article allegedly written by Judy herself.
September 8, 1944: Filming continued on The Clock with scenes shot on the “Interior Alice’s Apartment” set. Time called: 10 a.m. The assistant director’s notes state: Miss Garland called for 10 a.m. – arrived 10:13 – ready rehearsal; 10:13-10:30 – Rehearsed for director; 10:42-10:48 – Addition line and light after rehearsal; 10:42-10:48 – wait for director to return from projection room – meanwhile finish makeup, hair and wardrobe for Miss Garland. Director back at 10:45; continued waiting for Miss Garland to be ready for shooting – ready at 10:48. Time dismissed: 6:15 p.m.
Check out The Judy Room’s Filmography Pages on The Clock here.
September 8, 1946: New parents Judy and Vincente Minnelli took a break and went on the town.
September 8, 1949: More ads for the first theatrical re-release of The Wizard of Oz.
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on The Wizard of Oz here.
September 8, 1950: Judy’s appearance on Jack Eigen’s show on WMGM the day before was mentioned in this article that claimed Judy would soon appear in a TV series.
The second clipping is amusing. The uncredited author for the “Manhattan Mercury” out of Manhattan, Kansas, mistakenly gave the fairy tale that Judy starred in as Alice in Wonderland rather than The Wizard of Oz. Apparently, the person had never seen Oz and confused it with that other book about a girl in a strange and fantastic land.
This last clipping is for the extended short film Moments in Music which featured archival footage of Judy and many other stars, made for The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Judy is seen in a clip from the finale of Ziegfeld Girl that cleverly places her on top of that giant wedding cake set from 1936’s The Great Ziegfeld.
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on Ziegfeld Girl here.
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on The Wizard of Oz here.
September 8, 1950: Here’s another movie tie-in, this time it’s the tractor in Summer Stock which was the latest Ford tractor model on display at the Erie-co Fall Festival in Erie County, New York. Seen in the photo with Judy is the film’s director, Charles Walters.
Check out The Judy Room’s Filmography Pages on Summer Stock here.
September 8, 1952: The news of Judy’s recent contract between her new production company, Transcona, and Warner Bros. to make three films, hit the papers. The one film that resulted from the contract was, of course, the masterpiece A Star Is Born.
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on A Star Is Born here.
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland – The Concert Years” here.
September 8, 1957: Judy’s upcoming engagement at The Dominion Theatre in London, England, (on October 16th) is the subject of this article out of Sydney, Australia. According to the article the theater’s owner, Lord Rank, spent 40,000 pounds restoring it back into a live theater. It had been a film theater for 27 years. The article is negative towards Judy, calling her “Jinx-ridden” and hinting that she might flop which would be the end of her career. Luckily that didn’t happen!
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland – The Concert Years” here.
September 8, 1957: This article about the late MGM studio boss, Louis B. Mayer, naturally features Judy.
September 8, 1957: This notice and ad promoted Judy’s upcoming week-long engagement at the Mastbaum Theatre in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (beginning on September 26th). What’s interesting about the ad is that it uses an image of a much younger Judy which was rare for the time.
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland – The Concert Years” here.
September 8, 1960: The “Paris Match” magazine features these photos from Judy’s recent return to the London Palladium (August 28). Note that the clipping is stamped for September 19, 1960, which is when the clipping was cut from the magazine for archival use.
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland – The Concert Years” here.
September 8, 1962: Record reviewer Frank Arganbright liked the recent Capitol release, “The Garland Touch” enjoying both Judy’s voice and the stereo sounds.
Check out The Judy Garland Online Discography’s pages on “The Garland Touch” here.
September 8, 1963: Here’s a wonderful two-page spread illustrated by Al Hirschfeld as published in the Chicago Tribune. The paper featured a two-page spread illustrated by Hirschfeld for every day of the week promoting the upcoming fall TV season.
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland – The Concert Years” here.
September 8, 1963: Here’s a notice and an ad for Judy’s upcoming concert at the Cobo Hall in Detroit, Michigan.
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland – The Concert Years” here.
September 8, 1967: The first of a two-night engagement for Judy at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland. Judy played to capacity audiences in the 3,000-seat theater. “Variety” noted that she grossed $45,000 for the two nights.
This recording made by a fan in the audience, while not the greatest sound quality, is all we have from this engagement.
You can download the zip file here.
Photo: Judy in 1967
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland – The Concert Years” here.
September 8, 1989: The Wizard of Oz was the first of a series of expanded soundtrack CDs from CBS Records (CBS Special Products). The series featured recordings taken directly from the soundtracks of the films themselves rather than from the original pre-recordings or the M-G-M Records albums. Although these CDs had the “complete” soundtracks available for the first time, they were confined to what ended up on the screen in the finished films but they were more than had ever been released on LP or CD and were a welcome addition to fans’ audio collections. A few of the CDs included an outtake or two.
In the case of this Oz soundtrack, it was presented as the previous records had been, with “music and dramatic selections” from the film this time expanded to include more dialog and finally the inclusion of “The Merry Old Land Of Oz.” The bonus on this CD is the first official release of “The Jitterbug” outtake.
As an added bonus, the CD included an offer to purchase a special 50th-anniversary poster.
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on The Wizard of Oz Home Media Section here for details about this and other releases of the soundtrack.
Download the out-of-print CD here.
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on The Wizard of Oz here.
September 8, 2013: This article from the Home Media Magazine details the events that Warner Home Video had planned for the upcoming celebration of the 75th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz.
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy on DVD/Blu-ray” pages on this 75th-anniversary release here.
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on The Wizard of Oz here.
Wow!!! That 1943 war bond footage was simply fascinating! I’d never seen it before. Other than ‘St. Louis”, I’m not a big fan of Judy with bangs. I don’t feel she looked nearly as pretty here as she could have (I love the “Lily Mars”/”Girl Crazy” do, which really framed her face beautifully).
A bit eerie to see Betty Hutton with Judy. Little did anyone know that Hutton would replace Garland in “Annie” at the end of the decade.
Final curio: Lucille Ball was probably the only “B” star there. Little did anyone realize that with that miracle “I Love Lucy”, she would become a legend as big as Judy, Cagney and Astaire. Hutton…a forgotten mess by the middle of the following decade.
Thanks for sharing this!
It’s too bad that there is no kinnie tv film prints or video footage of the hosts/performers..who did the live hosting segments for CBS TV’s annual screening of “The Wizard of Oz”in 1956,1959,1960,1961,1962 and 1964.
To date, they’ve never surfaced but wouldn’t that be great?