Icons: Judy Garland

Originally posted on www.differentscene.co.uk

As a new feature for Different Scene we will be profiling icons in the gay world. These people are often cited as being huge gay icons for numerous different reasons, whether it be because of their political stance, the way they’ve helped change the gay landscape or just because they have been adopted by the gay community for another reason, either way they are all extremely well known to members of the gay community.

For our first feature we look at a woman who is regularly cited as the greatest gay icon of all time, Judy Garland. Through her pain and suffering and ups and downs in both her personal and professional life, Judy is a huge star of times past and still in many people’s opinions, the greatest gay icon of all time.

Starting her life off as Francis Ethel Gumm, Judy started performing at the tender age of two and would do so for the remainder of her life. After years of performing on the stage with her sisters she was soon snapped up by MGM where she joined their roster of young talent. While here she forged a name for herself whilst staring alongside Mickey Rooney in a hand full of films, but it was a little film she made in 1939 that would cement her fame and ensure that she would forever be remembered.

That little film was The Wizard of Oz, a film that everyone around the world knows, and it was this film that provided Judy with her signature song for which she will always be remembered, Over the Rainbow.

It was this film that many consider to be the reason why Garland has become synonymous with the gay community. Her escape over the rainbow from the drab darkness of reality to a place full of colour and different people who didn’t fit society’s norms reflected the feeling of the gay community at the time, who were being repressed as homosexuality was still illegal, and for many years gay men were known as friends of Dorothy.

The film has become a lasting success and even won Judy a Juvenile Academy Award. But it was after this that things started to go bad for the young Garland.

After years of being over worked by the studios things started to take their toll on her, and she was dropped from the studio in 1946 following accounts of bad behaviour on film sets, drug use, suicide attempts and her fluctuating weight. These problems would go on to plague the former child star for the remainder of her days.

However through the pain and suffering Garland continued to bounce back, with sell out concert performances around the world and an Academy Award nomination and a Golden Globe win for her role in A Star Is Born. It was in the early 1960s when Garland truly bounced back with her performance at Carnegie sHall that is often cited by many to be the greatest night in show business history. The live recording of her performance spent week at the top of Billboard album charts and won Garland numerous Grammy awards, the album has not been out of print since.

Things looked good for her but through the success her failed marriages and other personal problems, which still included suicide attempts and drug and alcohol abuse continued to plague her, and after the cancellation of her television show, many regarded this to have been the final devastating blow to her.

Then in 1969 after years of torment and anguish Garland was found dead in her bathroom at her rented Chelsea home in London, where she had died of an overdose.

Like the 1960s version of Amy Winehouse, Garland was a true talent whose star burnt bright but burnt out ever so quickly.

Looking back on it now you can see why Judy has become such a prolific gay icon, her suffering and torment as a woman in a mans world emulated the suffering that gay men at the time were experiencing for not fitting the norm, and it has often been widely rumoured that Garland’s death was one of the triggers to the Stonewall riots back in 1969, but that is still just a myth.