Judy Garland Marries Vincente Minnelli - 1945

On this date in 1945, the 23-year-old actress and singer Judy Garland marries director Vincente Minnelli, her second husband.  

Garland was born Frances Gumm in 1922, in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. Her parents ran a movie theater, and at age three Frances joined her two older sisters in a vaudeville act called The Gumm Sisters that performed before the movie presentation. Her mother later took them on the vaudeville circuit, where they were eventually renamed The Garland Sisters. Although the girls weren’t especially well received as a vaudeville act, Frances--now known as Judy Garland--drew the attention of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)’s production head, Louis B. Mayer. He signed her to a contract when she was 13 years old. Two years later, she made the first of her nine films with Mickey Rooney. Garland became a star in 1939 with The Wizard of Oz, in which she played Dorothy, a role originally intended for Shirley Temple. In the film, she performed the plaintive ballad “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” which would become one of her signature songs. Garland also delighted audiences in other movie musicals, including Strike Up the Band (1941), For Me and My Gal (1942) and Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). 

In 1941, at the age of 19, Garland married the bandleader David Rose, but the marriage broke up in 1945. She met Minnelli, who was also married at the time, when he directed her in Meet Me in St. Louis. Minnelli was born in Chicago in 1903 and, like Garland, entered show business while a toddler, performing in a family act. He dropped out of school at 16 and became a costume designer and stage manager for the live acts that preceded films shown at a Chicago theater chain. He later moved to New York, eventually becoming an art director at Radio City Music Hall. He began directing Broadway musicals in 1935, and moved to Hollywood in 1940, when MGM hired him as a film director. While they were married, Garland and Minnelli worked together on The Clock (1945) and The Pirate (1948). Their daughter, Liza, was born in 1946, and the marriage lasted until 1951. Minnelli went on to direct Oscar-winning films that included An American in Paris (1951), Band Wagon (1953) and Gigi. He also directed Father of the Bride (1950). Garland had used amphetamines and sleeping pills since adolescence, and her dependence on drugs and alcohol eventually undermined her career and led to several nervous breakdowns and suicide attempts. Her third husband, Sid Luft, managed her comeback in the early 1950s, booking her in triumphant live engagements in London and New York. Garland won an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for A Star Is Born (1954), but her downward spiral resumed in the 1960s, and she died of an overdose of sleeping pills on June 22, 1969, at the age of 47.

Billy Wilder, Michael Todd, Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, David O. Selznick

Who was born on this date:

Writer, director Billy Wilder was born on June 22, 1906 in Sucha, Austria-Hungry (now Poland). His first foray into show business came at the end of a pen as a screen writer for UFA studios, one of Germany’s top movie producers of the 1920’s. He remained in high demand as a writer in Germany, but eventually fled the country in 1933, when Adolf Hitler took power. Sensing that dangerous times were ahead, he first moved to Vienna, then Paris. It was while in France that Wilder wrote a screen play for Columbia Pictures and his American film career was launched. Arriving in Hollywood in 1934, he was unable to speak English and soon found himself out of work and money. Sharing a room with actor Peter Lorre, Wilder taught himself English by watching baseball games and movies. In 1936, he landed a job as a writer for Paramount Studios and was paired with fellow writer Charles Brackett. The pair of Wilder and Brackett would produce 14 consecutive hit movies.

In a film career that would span four decades (1936-1981), Wilder would write over seventy screen plays, direct twenty-seven feature motion pictures, and produce dozens of other films. His directorial career highlights include; Ninotchka (1939), Hold Back the Dawn (1941), Ball of Fury (1941), The Major and the Minor (1942), Double Indemnity (1944), The Emperor Waltz (1948), A Foreign Affair (1948), Ace in the Hole (1951), Stalag 17 (1953), Sabrina (1954), The Seven Year Itch (1955), Witness for the Prosecution (1957), The Spirit of St. Louis (1957), Some Like It Hot (1959), The Fortune Cookie (1966), and The Front Page (1974).

One of the most successful film writer/ directors in Hollywood history, Wilder was nominated for twelve best writing and eight best directing Oscars. He won both awards in 1946 for The Lost Weekend (1945) and repeated the double victory again in 1961 for The Apartment (1960). Wilder also won for best writing in 1951 for Sunset Blvd. (1950). The acclaimed director died on March 27, 2002 from pneumonia at his Beverly Hills home. He had been in failing health for a few years prior to his death. Wilder is buried at Westwood Memorial Park, Los Angeles in the chapel estates section near actors Caroll O’Conner and Walter Mathau. His tombstone epitaph reads; “I’m a writer but then nobody’s perfect.”

Producer Michael Todd was born on June 22, 1909 Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is best best known for his 1956 production of Around the World in Eighty Days, which won an Academy Award for Best Picture. He is also well-known as the third of Elizabeth Taylor's seven husbands and he was also married to actress Joan Blondell. His first success in show business began on with a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta The Mikado with an all African-American cast. The Hot Mikado, starring Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, opened on Broadway March 23, 1939. Todd went on to produce thirty Broadway shows during his career. Todd's business career was volatile, and failed ventures left him bankrupt many times.

In 1952, Todd made a production of the Johann Strauss II operetta A Night in Venice, complete with floating gondolas at the then-newly constructed Jones Beach Theatre in Long Island, New York. It ran for two seasons. In 1950, Mike Todd formed Cinerama with the broadcaster Lowell Thomas and the inventor Fred Waller. The company was created to exploit Cinerama, a widescreen film process created by Waller that used three film projectors to create a giant composite image on a curved screen. The first Cinerama feature, This is Cinerama, was released in September 1952. Before its release, Todd left the Cinerama Company to develop a widescreen process which would eliminate some of Cinerama's flaws. The result was the Todd-AO process, designed by the American Optical Company. The process was first used commercially for the successful 1955 film adaptation of Oklahoma!. Todd later produced the film for which he is best remembered, Michael Todd's Around the World in 80 Days, which debuted in cinemas on October 17, 1956. Costing $6 million to produce, the movie earned $16 million at the box office. In 1957, Around the World in 80 Days won the Best Picture Academy Award.

Todd's third marriage was to the actress Elizabeth Taylor, with whom he had a tempestuous relationship. The couple was married on February 2, 1957. On March 22, 1958, Todd's private plane Lucky Liz crashed near Grants, New Mexico. The plane, a twin-engine Lockheed Lodestar, suffered engine failure while being flown, grossly overloaded, in icing conditions at an altitude which was too high to sustain flight with only one working engine under those conditions. The plane went out of control and crashed, killing all four on board. His son, Mike Jr., wanted his father's body to be cremated after it was identified through dental records and brought to Albuquerque, New Mexico, but Taylor refused, saying he would not want cremation. Todd was buried at Waldheim Jewish Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois.

Post script, years later Todd’s remains were desecrated by robbers, who broke into Todd's coffin looking for a $100,000 diamond ring, which, according to rumor, Taylor had placed on her husband's finger prior to his burial. The bag containing Todd's remains was found under a tree near his burial plot. His remains were once more identified through dental records and were reburied in a secret location.

Who died on this date:

Judy Garland's biography was previously discussed on the June 10, 2011 blog - she was born on June 10, 1922 and died on June 22, 1969.

On June 22, 1987, actor Fred Astaire died. He was born on May 10, 1899 in Omaha, Nebraska. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He is particularly associated with Ginger Rogers, with whom he made ten films. According to Hollywood folklore, a screen test report on Astaire for RKO Pictures, now lost along with the test, is reported to have read: "Can't sing. Can't act. Balding. Can dance a little." The producer of the Astaire-Rogers pictures, Pandro S. Berman, claimed he had never heard the story in the 1930s and that it only emerged years later. Astaire later insisted that the report had actually read: "Can't act. Slightly bald. Also dances.” In any case, the test was clearly disappointing, and David O. Selznick, who had signed Astaire to RKO and commissioned the test, stated in a memo, "I am uncertain about the man, but I feel, in spite of his enormous ears and bad chin line, that his charm is so tremendous that it comes through even on this wretched test." However, this did not affect RKO's plans for Astaire, first lending him for a few days to MGM in 1933 for his Hollywood debut, where he appeared as himself dancing with Joan Crawford in the successful musical film Dancing Lady.

Astaire with Ginger Rogers

Astaire and Rogers made ten films together, including The Gay Divorcee, Roberta (1935), Top Hat (1935), Follow the Fleet (1936), Swing Time (1936), Shall We Dance (1937), and Carefree (1938). Six out of the nine Astaire-Rogers musicals became the biggest moneymakers for RKO; all of the films brought a certain prestige and artistry that all studios coveted at the time. Their partnership elevated them both to stardom. Astaire received a percentage of the films' profits, something extremely rare in actors' contracts at that time; and complete autonomy over how the dances would be presented, allowing him to revolutionize dance on film. Astaire died from pneumonia on June 22, 1987 and is buried at Oakwood Memorial Park Cemetery in Chatsworth, California.

On June 22, 1965, producer/ director David O. Selznick died. He was born on May 10, 1902 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and is best known for producing Gone with the Wind (1939) and Rebecca (1940), both of which earned him an Oscar for Best Picture. He studied at Columbia University and worked as an apprentice for his father until the elder's bankruptcy in 1923. In 1926, Selznick moved to Hollywood, and with the help of his father's connections, got a job as an assistant story editor at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He left MGM for Paramount Pictures in 1928, where he worked until 1931, when he joined RKO as Head of Production. His years at RKO were fruitful, and he worked on many films, including A Bill of Divorcement (1932), What Price Hollywood? (1932), Rockabye (1932), Our Betters (1933), and King Kong (1933). While at RKO, he also gave George Cukor his directing break. In 1933 he returned to MGM to establish a second prestige production unit, parallel to that of Irving Thalberg, who was in poor health. His unit's output included Dinner at Eight (1933), David Copperfield (1935), Anna Karenina (1935) and A Tale of Two Cities (1935).

Despite his successes at MGM, Paramount Pictures, and RKO Pictures, Selznick longed to be an independent producer with his own studio. In 1935 he realized that goal by forming Selznick International Pictures and distributing his films through United Artists. His successes continued with classics such as The Garden of Allah (1936), The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), A Star Is Born (1937), Nothing Sacred (1937), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938), The Young in Heart (1938), Made for Each Other (1939), Intermezzo (1939) and Gone with the Wind (1939), which remains one of the all-time highest grossing films (adjusted for inflation). It also won seven additional Oscars and two special awards. Selznick also won the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award that same year.

In 1940, he produced his second Best Picture Oscar winner in a row, Rebecca, the first Hollywood production for British director Alfred Hitchcock. Selznick had brought Hitchcock over from England, launching the director's American career. Rebecca was Hitchcock's only film to win Best Picture. After Rebecca, Selznick closed Selznick International Pictures and took some time off. His business activities included the loan of his contracted artists to other studios, including Alfred Hitchcock, Ingrid Bergman, Vivien Leigh and Joan Fontaine. He also developed film projects and sold the packages to other producers. Among the movies that he developed but then sold were almost all of Hitchcock's films through to 1947, except for two that he released through Selznick International Pictures or Selznick Releasing Organization, Spellbound and The Paradine Case. In 1944 he returned to producing pictures with the huge success Since You Went Away, which he wrote. He followed that with Spellbound (1945), as well as Portrait of Jennie (1948), a vehicle for Jennifer Jones. In 1949, he co-produced the Carol Reed picture The Third Man with Alexander Korda.

Selznick with his 2nd wife, actress Jennifer Jones

Gone with the Wind overshadowed the rest of Selznick's career. The closest he came to matching it was with Duel in the Sun (1946) featuring future wife Jennifer Jones in the role of the primary character Pearl. With a huge budget, the film is known for causing moral upheaval because of the then risqué script written by Selznick. And though it was a troublesome shoot with a number of directors, the film would turn out to be a major success. Selznick spent most of the 1950’s nurturing the career of his second wife, Jennifer Jones. His last film, the big budget production A Farewell to Arms (1957) starring Jones and Rock Hudson, was ill received. But in 1954, he ventured into television, producing a two hour extravaganza called Light's Diamond Jubilee, which, in true Selznick fashion, made TV history by being telecast simultaneously on all four TV networks: CBS, NBC, ABC, and DuMont. Selznick was married Irene Gladys Mayer, daughter of MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer, in 1930. They separated in 1945 and divorced in 1948. In 1949 he married actress Jennifer Jones and they had one daughter, Mary Jennifer Selznick. Selznick died in 1965 following several heart attacks, and is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

http://www.michaelthomasbarry.com/, author of "Fade to Black: Graveside Memories of Hollywood Greats, 1927-1950"

Judy Garland, Hattie McDaniel, Spencer Tracy

Who was born on this date:

On June 10, 1922, actress Judy Garland was born. The sweet and innocent child star of numerous legendary MGM musicals of the golden age of cinema was born Frances Ethel Gumm on June 10, 1922 in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. The youngest daughter of vaudeville performers Frank and Ethel Gumm, young Frances joined the family business at the age of two, performing song and dance routines with her two older sisters. Most of her childhood was spent on the road and this and other factors would lead to trauma and heartache later in life.

In 1935, at the age of thirteen, young Frances was discovered by MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer. She changed her name to Judy Garland, a hybrid of the popular song “Judy” and “Garland” after the famous movie critic Robert Garland. Judy Garland’s career began, but early successes were far and few between. Her film debut was in 1936’s Pigskin Parade, but it wasn’t until three years later that she would rocket to superstardom.

1939 would be a watershed year for Garland. MGM finally cast her in a movie that could show case her talents, The Wizard of Oz (1939). In this film, Garland portrayed Dorothy, an orphan living with her grandparents in Kansas. She gets whisked away by a twister to the land of Oz, on the other side of the rainbow. Her sweet and poignant performance and delivery of the song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” helped earn Judy a special best juvenile performance Academy Award. This performance would propel Garland into legendary status.

In a film career that would span three decades (1936-1969), Garland would appear in over forty feature motion pictures that include; Broadway Melody of 1938 (1938), Strike Up the Band (1940), Babes on Broadway (1941), For Me and My Gal (1942), Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), The Ziegfeld Follies (1945), Easter Parade (1948), and A Star is Born (1954). She also appeared alongside actor Mickey Rooney in numerous films such as Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938), Andy Hardy Meets Debutante (1940), and Life Begins for Andy Hardy (1941). She was nominated for two best actress Oscars, A Star is Born (1954) and Judgment at Nuremburg (1961).

While Garland’s film career was a success; her personal life was a wreck. At an early age she developed a drug problem related to weight issues. She would have numerous affairs with many of her acting co-stars, such as Frank Sinatra and James Mason. Of her five marriages, four would end in divorce. Her battle with drugs and alcohol would be front page tabloid news most of her adult life. On the evening of June 22, 1969, Garland was found dead in the bathroom of her rented Chelsea, London apartment from an accidental overdose of barbiturates.

Judy Garland's final resting place at Ferncliff Cemetery

Her funeral was held at the Frank E. Campbell funeral chapel in Manhattan, New York. An estimated 20,000 well wishers paid their final respects to the legendary actress. Actor James Mason delivered the eulogy. At the funeral, Wizard of Oz co-star Ray Bolger commented “She (Judy) just plain wore out.” Controversy erupted after the funeral as to who was going to pay the expenses. As a result, Garland’s body lay in a temporary crypt for over a year until her daughter, Liza Minnelli, raised enough funds to have her mother properly buried. Judy Garland’s final resting place is found at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York in the main mausoleum, unit 9, alcove HH, crypt 31.

On June 10, 1892, actress Hattie McDaniel was born. She was the first African-American to win an Academy Award was born in Wichita, Kansas. She began her career in show business in the 1910’s as a band vocalist, continued into radio, then into film, and television. Her award winning film career produced ninety-five motion pictures from 1932 to 1949. She is primarily known for playing house servant roles and is perhaps best recognized as Mammy – the house keeper in Gone with the Wind (1939). It was for this role that she won the best supporting actress Oscar in 1940. Her other notable films include: The Golden West (1932), Judge Priest (1934), The Little Colonel (1935), Show Boat (1936), The Mad Miss Manton (1938), The Shining Hour (1938), and Song of the South (1946).

Hattie McDaniel with Vivien Leigh in a scene from Gone with the Wind

McDaniel died on October 26, 1952 at the Motion Picture and Television County Home in Woodland, Hills, California after a long battle with breast cancer. Her funeral service was held at the Independent Church of Christ in Los Angeles where numerous Hollywood dignitaries were in attendance. Outside the church thousands of people waited to pay their last respects to the famed actress.

Hattie McDaniels final resting place at Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery

Hattie McDaniels memorial cenotaph at Hollywood Forever Cemetery

It was McDaniel’s express final wish to be buried at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, but she was denied such a request due to racial bias at the time. Instead she was interred at Angelus Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles. Her unassuming grave is located near the front entrance to the cemetery. On the forty-seventh anniversary of her death, October 26, 1999, a memorial cenotaph marker was placed at Hollywood Forever Cemetery by relatives, partially fulfilling her final wish.

Who died on this date:

On June 10, 1967, actor Spencer Tracy died. He was one of Hollywood’s true legends. He was born Spencer Bonaventure Tracy on April 5, 1900 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. A boyhood friend of fellow actor Pat O’Brien, Tracy had rugged good looks and boyish mannerisms that made him a successful box office draw for nearly forty years. His legendary career in film started in 1930 and after seventy-eight motion pictures and ended in 1967, just a few months prior to his death.

He was nominated for nine best acting Oscars and was the first male actor to win the award in back to back years, 1937 and 1938. His first Oscar win was for the sea adventure film, Captains Courageous (1936), in which he portrayed a light hearted Portuguese fisherman, who befriends a young stowaway, and his second win was for the bio-pic, Boy’s Town (1937), in which Tracy portrayed the legendary Father Flanagan. His other Oscar nominated films were San Francisco (1936), Father of the Bride (1951), Bad Day at Black Rock (1956), Inherit the Wind (1961), Judgment At Nuremburg (1962), and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967).

Hepburn and Tracy

Tracy appeared in numerous films with Katharine Hepburn and their on screen chemistry continued off screen. The pair had a twenty plus year romance (of which Hepburn considered him the love her life) but because he was a devout Catholic, he never divorced his wife, actress Louise Treadwell. The couple lived separately for many years and she was aware of and tolerant of Hepburn’s love interest in her husband.

A few weeks prior to his death on June 10, 1967, he finished what would be his last motion picture, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, co-starring Katharine Hepburn. The actor had been in failing health for several years and suffered a fatal heart attack at his West Hollywood Hills home. His private funeral mass was held at the Immaculate Heart Catholic Church that attended by attended by nearly five hundred close friends, family and Hollywood dignitaries that included pallbearers Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Stewart, and John Ford. Out of respect for the family, Katharine Hepburn did not attend either the funeral or burial service. Spencer Tracy is buried at Forest Lawn, Glendale in the private Garden of Everlasting Peace, near the Freedom Mausoleum, and his marker simply reads; “Tracy.”

Spencer Tracy's final resting place at Forest Lawn - Glendale

http://www.michaelthomasbarry.com/, author of "Fade to Black: Graveside Memories of Hollywood Greats, 1927-1950"