At the end of the classic 1939 musical The Wizard Of Oz, Dorothy Gale clicks the heels of her ruby slippers three times and chants: “There’s no place like home”, in order to return to Kansas.
Judy Garland’s role as Dorothy and her jolly jaunt up the Yellow Brick Road with Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion is one she is known for above all others.
But the home of Garland’s ancestors could not be more different from Kansas.
Arbroath can claim one of the greatest entertainers of all time as its long lost daughter – she was a Lichtie!
Garland’s great-grandfather Charles Milne was born in Arbroath in 1829 where he met his sweetheart Mary from Kilmarnock who was eight years his junior.
Charles and Mary married, moved first to Ireland, then crossed the ocean, settling in Ontario, Canada, where the couple’s son John was born in 1865.
There were many evenings in Ontario when the Milnes and their neighbours would get together and sing and dance, play musical instruments and tell stories.
By 1895 John Milne had met and married Eva Fitzpatrick from New York and they were living in Michigan in the USA when their daughter Ethel was born.
John and Eva’s daughter left home to pursue a musical career and sang and danced in Vaudeville where she met and married Francis Gumm and they had three daughters.
The song-and-dance parents put the Gumm sisters on the stage at an early age and they had a reasonable amount of success playing nightclubs and variety halls.
The sisters were all talented but the youngest, Frances Ethel Gumm, stood out.
She was exceptional.
Garland’s family links to Arbroath feature among the mix of myriad stories included in Wallace Ferrier’s book By Dawn’s Early Light which was published in 2020.
The well-known freelance photographer broke it down further.
“The sisters didn’t like the fact that the audience often laughed when their name, Gumm, was announced; some even called them The Glum Sisters!” he said.
“They continued performing as a trio, with limited success.
“One day, a lady friend remarked that Frances had a lovely smile, adding it was like a garland of flowers, which the sisters liked, and, by 1934, The Gumm Sisters had changed their name to The Garland Sisters.
“The sisters ceased performing as a trio when older sister Mary got married and moved with her husband to Reno, Nevada. Frances changed her name to Judy soon after.”
Shirley Temple was first choice for the role
Garland – born a century ago in Michigan – was signed to MGM in 1935 following an audition at the age of 13 which began a journey filled with incredible highs and debilitating lows.
In both 1937 and 1938, Garland spent periods making two films at a time.
One movie would be wrapping up and she’d already been in rehearsals for the next one.
“I’ve never studied a line in my life,” she once said.
“While I’m getting my make-up on, I read a scene over and that’s it!
“I can remember as much as nine pages that way, sometimes for years.”
Garland wasn’t their first choice for The Wizard of Oz in 1939. Aged 17, she was ancient compared to 11-year-old Shirley Temple, the star they fancied initially.
There was a price to pay, however, and Judy had to lose 12 pounds and then force herself into a tiny corset to make her look as young as possible.
As Technicolor in those days required far more lights than normal shoots, she played her role in that uncomfortable get-up in temperatures often above 100 degrees.
When she delivered a wistful vocal on Somewhere Over The Rainbow, Garland was singing for depression-hit America.
She said so herself later.
Her role as Dorothy would become the character she’d forever be associated with.
A string of hits followed including Meet Me In St Louis but her punishing schedule and increasing personal demons continued throughout her life.
Although Broadway beckoned, the lure of MGM proved too great and Garland was persuaded to renew her contract and return for more hit movies.
Directors, however, weren’t always delighted to have Garland, who had become known as something of a loose cannon, on board.
Sometimes she didn’t turn up, other times she created havoc on set.
It all came to a head when she was fired from the set of Annie Get Your Gun during a difficult time of her life in 1950 and she sought help.
After a spell in a sanatorium and a holiday, MGM invited Judy back but it wasn’t long before the old demons resurfaced.
This didn’t seem to stop her from producing some of her finest work including Summer Stock in 1950 with Get Happy becoming one of her signature songs.
Garland’s concert years started when she left MGM Studios in 1950 and she gave her first live stage show at The Palladium in London on April 9 1951.
After a week of dates at the Glasgow Empire in the last week of May 1951, she travelled to Edinburgh for a string of shows that became legend.
A review at the time described how the Wizard Of Oz star delivered a bravura performance while hailing her Scottish heritage, singing Loch Lomond, accompanied by a lone piper, and enjoying an impromptu Highland reel with fans.
The writer added: “She appeared genuinely moved to tears as the audience shouted, stamped and whistled their approval throughout the evening.
“She’s a bonny lass, this Judy Garland, with a fine Scottish complexion. A bit sturdier built than we are used to and with darker hair, she is very much the girl we fell in love with 12 years ago.
“She was quick to tell the audience she felt at home in Scotland. Between songs she told showbusiness and family stories, saying she was ‘Scots and Irish’ and that her grandparents’ house was ‘filled with music from those countries’ and she and her sister often danced kind of a ‘fling’ with their grandfather while their grandmother lilted the tune.
“Leaning over the apron, she chatted with children and women in the front rows. She invited several delighted girls who presented her with a posy up on to the stage for an impromptu Highland Fling and Irish jig.
“Her songs were happy, sad, patriotic, loud and gentle, songs of love lost and love found. She mimics and pulls faces and did a wonderfully funny impression of Mickey Rooney doing an impression of Sir Harry Lauder.”
Sir Harry was the first Brit to sell a million records and grew up in Arbroath!
A pregnant Judy on a subsequent tour received so many baby clothes knitted and handed in by adoring Scots fans that she couldn’t take them all on the plane home.
Instead, they were donated to charities and hospitals.
Judy squeezed a lot into a short existence
Getting up close to her fans each night seemed to be the perfect tonic and her heralded comeback in 1954’s A Star Is Born alongside James Mason was Oscar-nominated.
Sadly, the pill-popping treadmill was one she never quite managed to get off.
Three months after she married her fifth husband, Mickey Deans, she was found dead in their London home on June 22 1969 at the age of 47.
Common perception was that the years of uppers and downers had finally overtaken her as she struggled with the need for ever-higher doses of sleeping pills.
Garland died penniless but squeezed a lot into a short existence and left behind three kids, Lorna and Joseph Luft, and Liza Minnelli.
Both daughters would follow in their mother’s footsteps in showbusiness, with Minnelli winning an Oscar for her turn in 1972’s Cabaret.
She’s proud that her mother’s legacy and The Wizard of Oz are still so beloved.
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