“By normal standards, it can’t be explained. It is one of the true phenomenas of show business. A 44-year-old woman is suddenly transformed into a teenager walking down the Yellow Brick Road to the Land of Oz.” – Leonard W. Stone, 1967
September 17, 1937: “The Year’s Biggest Musical!” Broadway Melody of 1938.
September 17, 1938: Love Finds Andy Hardy was still in theaters, proving to be the most popular of the Hardy series to date. In fact, to this day, the film is considered to be the quintessential Hardy film.
Check out The Judy Room’s Filmography Pages on Love Finds Andy Hardy here.
September 17, 1939: The cover of ABC magazine. Scan provided by Kim Lundgreen. Thanks, Kim!
September 17, 1939: The “Punch and Judy” shop in Newport News, Virginia, ran this essay contest.
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on The Wizard of Oz here.
September 17, 1941: Judy posed for these costume tests for Babes on Broadway.
Photos provided by Kim Lundgreen. Thanks, Kim!
September 17, 1943: Louella Parsons reported that Judy would star in MGM’s musical remake of Grand Hotel titled Weekend At The Waldorf. It’s doubtful that Judy was seriously considered for the film as she was already slated to begin work on Meet Me In St. Louis just as soon as she returned to LA from the “Hollywood Cavalcade” bond tour. Weekend At The Waldorf was released in 1945, starring Ginger Rogers, Lana Turner, Walter Pidgeon, and Van Johnson.
September 17, 1943: Judy was in her home state of Minnesota, in Minneapolis, as part of the “Hollywood Cavalcade” of stars raising money for the war effort by selling war bonds. Five days before the Cavalcade’s arrival, the 2,750 available seats for the show at the Minneapolis Auditorium were sold out, even at bond prices of $50 to $100, for a total of $10 million before the Cavalcade arrived.
The Cavalcade arrived at the Minneapolis Great Northern Station at 10:30 a.m. and stayed at the Nicollet and Radisson hotels. The stars were presented with “Warsages” (corsages made from war savings stamps) and visited two war plants in the afternoon. A local little person, Harvey B. Williams, who was one of the Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz and known locally as “the world’s smallest mailman,” got a chance to reconnect with Judy. The Cavalcade raised a total of $19,512,000.
The previous day, the Cavalcade had been in Chicago, Illinois, where they gave their main show at Soldier Field and raised a total of $226,000,000.
September 17, 1949: The papers reported that Judy had an operation at the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles on this day. There were no details given of just what the operation was. However, Vincente Minnelli was quoted as saying it was “nothing serious” and that her doctors “back in Boston suggested that Judy’s general health would be improved if this surgery were performed.” To this day, no one knows what that operation could have been. At this time, Judy had recently returned to Los Angeles and MGM from her extended time at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, withdrawing from the drugs that had plagued her over the last couple of years, and had contributed to her inability to finish Annie Get Your Gun. This “operation” might have been tied to that in some way.
September 17, 1951: Director and choreographer Chuck Walters (seen in the photo at left) rehearsed the “Get Happy” number with Judy and “her boys” for her upcoming debut at The Palace Theater in New York the following month. The rehearsals took place at the Nico Charisse Studio on La Cienega Boulevard in Hollywood, California.
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland – The Concert Years” here.
September 17, 1954: Here’s an ad by Warner Bros. in the trade magazine Motion Picture Daily announcing the upcoming premiere of A Star Is Born.
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on A Star Is Born here.
September 17 – 23, 1955: TV Guide one-page article, with a fabulous color photo, promoting Judy’s TV premiere (which aired on September 24, 1955).
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland – The Concert Years” here.
September 17, 1956: Judy arrived in New York from Boston in preparation for her upcoming return to The Palace Theater (September 26).
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland – The Concert Years” here.
September 17, 1956: The second of a five-part series of articles about Judy by columnist Joe Hyams.
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland – The Concert Years” here.
September 17, 1960: This photo was taken of Judy socializing in London. This is just before her “spit curls, we used to call them in my day,” were added to her hairdo when she went to Paris in late September.
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland – The Concert Years” here.
September 17, 1961: More ads for “Judy at Carnegie Hall,” which was a complete blockbuster and has never been out of print.
Check out The Judy Garland Online Discography’s “Judy at Carnegie Hall” pages here.
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland – The Concert Years” here.
September 17, 1963: This ad made it seem as though Judy would make an appearance on the Merv Griffin show. There are no records of this happening. It’s possible that she was slated to be on the show but couldn’t, probably because on this day, she was in the middle of rehearsals for the upcoming taping of “Episode Seven” of “The Judy Garland Show,” taped on September 20th.
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland – The Concert Years” here.
September 17, 1967: A ticket order ad (check out those prices!) and an article for Judy’s upcoming two nights of concerts at the Bushnell Auditorium in Hartford, Connecticut.
On this day, Judy made a personal appearance at the Great Lakes Naval Training Hospital in Chicago, Illinois.
While in Chicago, Judy filmed an interview for Irving Kupcinet’s local TV show, as shown below. Judy talked about many things, including the recent Time magazine article about her audience consisting of homosexuals.
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland – The Concert Years” here.
September 17, 1974: That’s Entertainment! had a special screening by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Los Angeles, California.
Check out The Judy Room’s That’s Entertainment! Page here.