The Judy Garland Show
PART THREE: by Billy Ingram

"The only place I ever felt useful as a person was in my work."
- Judy Garland

By 1963, Judy was pinning her hope and future on her new agents Freddie Fields and David Begelman. Both were Hollywood sharks, but Begelman in particular led a shameless lifestyle of dicey deals and outright scams that ultimately resulted in his suicide when the walls finally closed in on him in 1995.

Itwas Begelman and Fields that landed Garland the CBS deal, she was their fledgeling talent agency.

Begelman promised the TV series would leave Judy fiercely independent. Offices were set up and The Judy Garland Show was an instant, bustling million-dollar business with a mandate to knock off the most popular television show of that time, Bonanza.

Instead of positioning Judy for success, Begelman ripped her off at every turn, even scamming her with a phoney blackmail scheme just weeks before the show premiered. "He told me that there was a picture of my trying to commit suicide in England and within 24 hours, somebody had to fly over so he could get the negative," Garland recounted years later. "Nobody ever heard of that negative, or saw it. Nobody saw it."

The series got off to a rousing start. The LA Times reported from the first taping that, "Judy, almost paper thin, stood on her spike heels, feet wide apart in that way of hers, rolled those wide, haunted eyes at the lights above, and sang her heart out. The audience was with her all the way."

Unfortunately CBS didn't share that optimism, firing the show's producer and revamping the program before the first episode premiered; it was one of those retooled shows that kicked off the series.

Critics liked Judy but not the show. The New York Times barked, "What should never happen to Judy Garland did last evening in the premiere of her weekly program over the Columbia Broadcasting System. The busybodies got so in the way that the singer never had a chance to sing out as only she can.

"Thinking of CBS executives apparently was to develop a 'new' Judy, one who will indulge in light banter and make way for suitable guests to share the weekly tasks."

Judy earned her best numbers on the first broadcast but ratings dipped slightly for the second week with guest Barbra Streisand. After that, audience numbers hovered in the low twenties and thirties before dropping in November to 66th out of 80 shows.

THE CONCERT SHOWS

With low ratings and high production costs, it was decided to revamp the production again. This time the program would be all about the music with Judy alone in front of an orchestra, stripping away the comedic trappings and guest stars of the typical variety program.

After the concert shows began airing in January(?); critics raved and ratings moved up to low 30s.

The program finished the season with a 14 share overall; not enough for renewal then but The Judy Garland Show would be one of the most popular shows in the nation with a rating like that today.

When she looked back on the experience, Judy was understandably bitter. "I wanted to believe in people who I was paying thousands of dollars to."

Begelman and Fields phenomenally successful management business (that eventually morphed into the legendary CMA agency) was built on her reputation and her money. "That's what got the vegetarians to become carnivores," one old-school agent stated about their industry changing tactics.

There's no question that those who were supposed to be looking out for Garland's well being and standing in the industry were living large off of her efforts with no regard for her financial and emotional future. Instead her agents were charging anything and everything to her television production and throwing industry parties she paid for but wasn't invited to.

David Begelman was typical of the vultures that picked her bones. Not only was he ripping her off, he carried on a romance with Judy that he abrubtly broke off once the CBS deal ran aground - and after he landed another million dollar client, up and coming singer Barbra Streisand.

"He used my money to gamble," Judy recounted in her unfinished memoirs. "He used me physically, mentally, emotionally..."

"I'm not something you wind up and put on the stage that sings 'Carnegie Hall' album and you put her in the closet and forget to invite her to the party that's given for her - the agents leave her behind!"

But that's exactly what she had become. "I want my money, that's all. My money. I want to be paid for my hard work and I want to be paid in money!"

But they never did pay up and as a result Judy worked long after she was a near burnt-out husk - valiantly forging ahead with more talent than most while suffering the ravaging consequences of a lifetime of harsh extremes.

THE TAPE RECORDINGS

In April of 1964, at a low point emotionally and professionally, Judy began speaking into a reel-to-reel tape recorder in order to begin getting her thoughts together for an intended but unpublished autobiography.

Anxious to finally set the record straight, or at least provide her spin on events, Judy vented into a microphone for several weeks. "I'm an angry lady. I've been insulted, slandered, humiliated, but still 'America's sweetheart.'"

Her emotions were raw with a pain that cried up from the core of her soul. Laboring under a concrete fog of drugs and alcohol, she poured out her heart in the vain hope that someone might understand the person behind the headlines, "the true Judy Garland, or Frances Gumm, or whatever - just a girl, a woman."

In those warm, California evenings, loneliness fell like a weighted theater curtain. Gasping from the very depths of fucked-up-edness, barely able to form the words that choked in her throat, Judy was longing for the love that was poured on so thick when she was younger. "I've sung, I've entertained, I've pleased your children, I've pleased your wives, I've pleased you - you sons of bitches and you can't deny that!"

How do you find the way to go forward when you're a living legend but you're flat broke? When you're considered one of the world's greatest talents but you're a few years out of fashion. When you've played to the screaming adulation of thousands but suddenly no one will return your phone calls, your high-profile television show labeled a flop because it only attracted ## million people a night.

Where do you find the strength to carry on when you've been tossed assunder and abused, devoured by the sharpest vipers in Hollywood, left to be ravaged by the smaller fish that feed on has-been celebrities.

Where was that love now that she was better than ever? Accomplished. Reasoned. Wisened. Adult. Grown. Here. Now.

It was, as she put it, "high time to cut the comedy and high time to stop the trolley ride." Her ravaged voice into that tape recorder was as melodic as her singing.

"When I play back the tapes, I hear that I slur my words very badly, but that doesn't make too much difference, as long as my thoughts are not slurred."

She was also a woman with four divorces behind her - everyone around the world had read the many embarrassing stories about the drugs, alcohol abuse, near-death experiences and suicide attempts. "I can't rise above it. I can't rise above the scandolous, obscene lies that have been... the so called printed word. And I can't rise above the gossip mongers..."

"I don't honestly understand... why I've been the victim... and been made the victim... of so many untruths. Perhaps you don't understand what it's like to pick up a paper and read things about yourself that aren't true. Read lothesome things, that have nothing to do with your life, or you, or your heart, or your beliefs, or your kindnesses..."

"Let me live, for God's sake, let me live!"

Unfortunately for Judy, the worst was yet to come.

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