Posted by “Judy has never lacked for an audience because … she’s still the greatest singer of them all.” Leonard Lyons, 1963
March 7, 1925: “The Gumm Sisters” (3-year-old Judy and her two sisters) performed at a private birthday party for Laverne Mueller, at the Mueller home in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, which is Judy’s birthplace.
March 7, 1930: Frances (Judy) played the lead in the Lancaster Grammar School Operetta/School Play’s version of “Goldilocks.” Sister Virginia played “The Wood God,” at the Lancaster Grammar School, Lancaster, California, which was the family’s new hometown.
March 7, 1935: “The Garland Sisters” appeared at the Paramount Theater in Los Angeles, California. This engagement resulted in the only known on-stage photograph of the sisters in performance and the only known photo of the sisters on a marquee as “The Garland Sisters.”
The girls were earning $110 per week at this point which was a huge amount considering it was the middle of the Depression.
The film playing was the musical All The King’s Horses. Oddly enough, the theater’s newspaper ads did not promote The Garland Sisters although they did promote the “Sirens of the Sea” as “Girls Actually Floating in a Fish Bowl” !!!
The sisters received their fifth notice from “Variety”:
Garland Sisters, three femmes, one of whom, Frances, is still a child and about 80% of the combination, are excellent harmonists, but it remained for the youngster to tie things up in a knot. Girl looks like a bet for pictures and should make rapid headway. However, she should be coached more proficiently in her foreign tongue songs, particularly the German, as her pronunciation is none too accurate. Otherwise, the kid is tops and deserved everything she drew today.
“Variety” was right, Judy was definitely a “sure bet” for pictures!
March 7, 1938: More pertaining to Judy’s Everybody Sing tour, including Judy’s upcoming itinerary and an amusing story about fans attempting to call her.
March 7, 1938: Spencer Tracy as the “Tin Man?” Edwin Schallert thought that he would have been a good choice.
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on The Wizard of Oz here.
March 7, 1939: Judy appeared on NBC Radio’s “The Pepsodent Show Starring Bob Hope” and sang “It Had To Be You” and “FDR Jones.” Also on the show: Skinny Ennis and His Orchestra, Patsy Kelly, and Jerry Colonna
Listen to Judy’s segment here:
Download, the entire show here (zip file).
March 7, 1939: Here’s a good laugh. Although principal filming on The Wizard of Oz had recently been completed, this article noted that Judy had begun rehearsals with a “professional stage magician” for the scenes where she’s picked up by the Flying Monkeys, using an illusion technique similar to one practiced by Harry Houdini!
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on The Wizard of Oz here.
March 7, 1940: Here’s a nice notice about Barbara Koshay, Judy’s stunt double/stand-in, most notably on The Wizard of Oz. Koshay was in Miami as part of the “Cavalcade of Thrills” at the West Flagler speedway. I bet it was quite the show!
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on The Wizard of Oz here.
March 7, 1943: Judy joined the ranks of the glamour girls.
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on Presenting Lily Mars here.
March 7, 1943: Here’s a fun double feature, 1933’s King Kong and The Wizard of Oz. Actually, they’re not as mismatched as one might think. King Kong is, like Oz, a brilliant masterpiece in the film fantasy genre, although obviously not a musical and firmly rooted in the movie monster genre.
The actual re-release of The Wizard of Oz was still several years away, but it wasn’t uncommon (as today) for theaters to rent films for special showings/occasions.
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on The Wizard of Oz here.
March 7, 1944: Girl Crazy and Presenting Lily Mars (both released in 1943) were still making the rounds.
March 7, 1944: Meet Me In St. Louis filming continued on the “Exterior Smith Home and Street” set on the new “St. Louis Street” which was built on MGM’s Lot #3 specifically for the film. The scenes shot were those of Judy and co-star Lucille Bremer walking onto the porch to gaze at their new neighbor, “the boy next door” John Truitt (Tom Drake). Time called: 10:00 a.m.; Judy arrived at 10:20 a.m.; dismissed at 4:00 p.m.
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland on the MGM Backlot” section for interactive details about all of the locations on MGM’s two backlots where Judy’s films were shot.
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on Meet Me In St. Louis here.
March 7, 1945: Judy used Max Factor, according to this ad. The ad is from 1945 but the photo is from 1941.
On this day at MGM, The Harvey Girls’ assistant director’s notes state that Judy had a call for 12:30 p.m. and that there was a “Publicity Luncheon” at the studio that Judy took part in.
Check out The Judy Room’s Filmography Pages about The Harvey Girls here.
March 7, 1946: The Harvey Girls.
March 7, 1947: The newly formed MGM Records label was promoting the release of the very first MGM Records album, the soundtrack to Till The Clouds Roll By. In today’s parlance, the album “dropped” on Tuesday, March 11, 1947.
Record critics welcomed the new label and the Clouds set was given good reviews. MGM was off and running with a new revenue stream while also creating a new market, the original soundtrack album. MGM Records released soundtracks to just about all of their musicals, and a few dramatic films, in the next 20+ years. All of Judy’s MGM musicals from 1946 through the end of her tenure with the studio in 1950 had MGM Records soundtracks created to complement them.
Originally the soundtracks were four 78 rpm discs with two sides each meaning only eight songs from the films could be included. This means that there was a lot of editing of the musical numbers to fit the short time constraints of the 78s and also some cherry-picking of the “best” numbers from films with more than eight numbers, as most of them were. It wouldn’t be until the long-playing records were developed that MGM began to include more songs from their recent musicals, such as Kiss Me Kate (1953) which was one of the first in the long-playing format.
Oddly enough, MGM Records never released updated and expanded versions of their originally-78rpm-albums in the LP era. They were content to re-release the existing soundtracks, over and over again. In the late 1980s and early 1990s CBS Special Products (later Sony Music Entertainment Inc./Sony Music Special Products), released expanded soundtracks that were taken directly from the actual film soundtracks and not the pre-recording sessions.
Finally, in the mid-1990s, Rhino Records, working with Turner Entertainment, began to release expanded “complete” soundtracks to MGM musicals utilizing the surviving pre-recordings as their main source of content.
Recent technology in audio restoration software has resulted in the revisiting of some of these pre-recordings. The results are phenomenal. The 2022 release, “Judy at 100 – 26 Classics in Stereo!” presents many soundtrack and studio recordings in true stereo for the first time.
Check out The Judy Garland Online Discography’s Till The Clouds Roll By pages for information about the original and all subsequent releases of the classic MGM soundtrack.
March 7, 1947: Judy models slacks. This photo is interesting because MGM rarely featured Judy in slacks for promotional photos although she was featured a few times in slacks in more casual shots in her early years at the studio.
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on Till The Clouds Roll By here.
March 7, 1950: More about the alleged casting of Judy in the role of “Julie” in MGM’s upcoming remake of Showboat.
Check out The Judy Room’s “Films That Got Away” section for more about the films that Judy was either cast in or wanted for.
March 7, 1950: This photo of Judy as “Dorothy” was originally shot on February 25, 1939, but was restruck on March 7, 1950, for “Prod 1477” (Summer Stock). I’m assuming it was restruck to use in the promotion of Summer Stock in some way.
Check out The Judy Room’s Summer Stock pages here.
March 7, 1951: “The Bing Crosby Show” was broadcast on CBS Radio out of Hollywood, California.
Judy and Bing recorded the show on February 23, 1951. Crosby always recorded his shows a few weeks in advance, which is why we have so many that have survived. Judy sang “You Made Me Love You” and engaged in a comedy skit with Crosby.
Listen to “You Made Me Love You” here:
Listen to the comedy skit here:
Listen to the entire show here:
March 2, 1952: Judy was enjoying a well-deserved vacation in Palm Beach, Florida. The rumors were swirling that she was going to marry her manager/boyfriend Sid Luft once her divorce from Vincente Minnelli was final, which was expected to happen during the vacation. The couple did not marry until June 8, 1952, in Hollister, California.
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland – The Concert Years” here.
March 7, 1956: Here’s a notice about Judy being featured on the MGM TV show “MGM Parade.” The show was mostly a big commercial for MGM’s upcoming movies and a look back at their classic films via clips. The show was broadcast in black and white and hosted by George Murphy, Judy’s co-star in 1940’s Little Nellie Kelly and 1942’s For Me And My Gal. The shows survive and are run on the Turner Classic Movies channel. It’s odd to see clips from Judy’s Technicolor films in black and white!
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland – The Concert Years” here.
March 7, 1961: Being a living legend kept Judy busy!
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland – The Concert Years” here.
March 7, 1963: The New York Times published this interview with Judy and their columnist, Leonard Lyons. Judy promoted I Could Go On Singing and talked about daughter Liza Minnelli.
Scan provided by Kim Lundgreen. Thanks, Kim!
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland – The Concert Years” here.
March 7, 1963: The premiere of I Could Go On Singing in London, England, the night before, made international news and was a huge success.
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland – The Concert Years” here.