by Anne Edwards
In April, 1965, she appeared at the Academy Awards Show in Hollywood, not as a contender, but singing one of the nominated songs. The awards were being held in a large auditorium in Santa Monica. Until the time she appeared, the audience had seemed very complacent. But as she strode out onstage with a mike on a long, trailing cord, flipping it over her shoulder—something in the way she looked making them fear she might lose the words, that any moment she might just trip over that wire and collapse—her audience became one. For once in their egocentric lives, the Hollywood “elite” wanted someone else to succeed. Her voice was off, but she must have felt the great concentration of passion on the part of her audience for her to “do it,” and somehow she managed to come through brilliantly for them.
On May 19, she received word that she had been granted a divorce from Luft. Refusing any comment to the press, she continued her concert appearances, singing to critical reviews. If the press was against her, it was quite the opposite with her audiences. The cult was in full swing. Good or bad, they cheered her on; and Judy tried to give them the best that was in her. If she was badly indisposed, the performance would be off; but her American audiences, from this point, were sympathetic. Judy has said, “I try to bring the audience’s own drama—tears and laughter they know about—to them. I try to match my lifelong experiences with theirs, and they match their own sadness and happiness to mine.”
One month later she was back in the hospital—this time the Neuropsychiatric Institute of the U.C.L.A. Medical Center. The press release issued was that “Miss Garland has had a nervous collapse.” But she was scheduled to appear at the massive Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. She insisted she could make it, although her doctors felt she should not. Make it she did, but not until after tripping over one of her pet dogs and breaking her arm the day of her appearance. In the grand “the show must go on” tradition, she made the curtain—appearing with a cast on her arm—but the pain became too severe, and Mickey Rooney, as though in true-life replay of their old Metro musicals, rushed in to take over the remainder of the show for her.
Part Four
During the bad days I’m sure I would have perished without those wonderful audiences. Without that and a sense of humor, I would have died ... I think there’s something peculiar about me that I haven’t died. It doesn’t make sense but I refuse to die.
—Judy Garland
34“When I was eleven,” Liza says, “I was hiring Mama’s household staff. God, it must have been hilarious. Out comes this eleven-year-old kid and says, ‘May I see your references, please?’” Liza was now twenty, and she had been so old, so responsible so long that it seemed she had never been a teen-ager. At this stage she was, in a sense, the mother of the family. Extremely loyal to Judy, she was, as well, fiercely devoted to keeping the family intact. There was a high degree of camaraderie between mother and daughter, and the similarities between the two extended deeper than the arched body and outflung arms both employed to end a song, or the quavering high notes and deep-throated sadness in their voices. They shared a marvelous sense of humor, binding love, career dedication, and the enigma of continually reaching out to grasp life and just as constantly withdrawing from it.
Both had quick-to-rise, emotional temperatures, and neither could veil the truth. There were volatile blowups between them even when Liza had lived at home, times when Judy would lock Liza out of wherever they were living and Liza would stand outside the door until, finally, Judy would open it and they would fall into each other’s arms crying. It was during one of these lockouts that Liza left for New York (she was sixteen at the time), having saved enough money for her fare and $100 extra. She never returned “home,” nor did she ever again ask for support, for the next two years living first in the Barbizon Hotel for Women (“I went bananas!” Liza comments about that experience); spending two nights on a park bench in Central Park; and bedding down on a friend’s couch for the rest of the time.
The Palladium appearance had briefly reunited them, but it had been a worrying experience for Liza and a shock to both mother and daughter—for Judy suddenly realized she had a grown-up daughter and, as Liza comments, “She became very competitive with me.”
But Judy was eventually able to push back the competitiveness she felt. Liza held a very special place in her life. And at the same time, Liza was responsible for some of the guilt she suffered. If she could have done it all over again, she would have—just so it would perhaps have been different for Liza. So she did try to contribute what she could to Liza’s happiness. Liza was a professional in her own right, and Judy did not hesitate in helping her.
In a New York Times interview with Tom Burke (December 7,1969), Liza reveals the following episode:
I was up for a television show, Ben Casey or something, and the part was a pregnant girl who had had an abortion that had gone wrong and she’s in the hospital. I knew how I wanted to see it, but not how to be it. So I sort of gingerly took the script to Mom, and said, you know, “Mama, help me.” We sat down on her floor, and she said, “Now, read me your lines, and the doctor’s lines, both.” His line was, “Did you want to have the baby?” I read it and Mama said, “All right, he’s a doctor, he isn’t getting personal—but how dare he intrude on you, how dare he ask you that, how dare he be there, how dare you be in the hospital, if only you could have married the father, if only he’d loved you, which he didn’t. Now, did you want to have the baby? ! ! ! J” All I had to say was, “No,” but it came out right. Because she had given me the thoughts—the pause, not the line. Then she said, “Read me his line again,” and I did, and she said, “Now this time you are going to concentrate on not crying. That’s all you have to worry about, not letting him see you cry. Your baby is dead, your life is ruined, but you’re not gonna cry, you’re a strong girl, your parents have told you, your teachers have told you, you know it, you know it, you’re not going to cry!” And my “No” came out even better. She taught me how to—fill in the pauses. And if there’s a way I act, that’s the way. From that one day there on the floor. And now, if maybe another actor will say, “What are you using in that scene,” I’ll say, “Well, I’m playing that I’m not gonna cry.” They say, “Whaaat?” But I know!
But Judy’s concern for Liza’s career was not as strong a force as her fear that Liza might not escape her own pitfalls. “Watch my mistakes,” she would warn Liza. Liza seldom drank and did not take drugs, being adamantly opposed to even common pills such as aspirin. Dean Martin’s daughter Gayle has said, “Rather than a fear of what drugs can do to you, Liza has a knowledge.” Liza was fighting at a very early age to ward off any dark maternal patterns.
While on her ill-fated Australian tour, Judy had met a young, attractive Australian singer-comedian, Peter Allen, and had encouraged him to come to the States, promising him a spot in her nightclub act. The following year, Allen was in London at the same time as both Judy and Liza. Judy now saw this young man as the white prince come to rescue Liza. Perhaps she was attempting to live vicariously through Liza, but she considered it a good, maternal, loving gesture to introduce the two young people and was pleased when she observed a mutual attraction. Judy turned her attention to Lorna and Joey, heaping perhaps more on Joey than on Lorna because Joey always seemed to need more. He was less self-sufficient, less coordinated, a poor student. But it was Lorna who Judy truly believed would someday be the second-generation star, not Liza.
But to say the children occupied her mind entirely in the years between 1960 and 1967 would be a complete untruth. Judy was occupied mainly with the very essentials of survival. Her drug addiction was destroying her body, and the parasites were undermining her future. Once again she could not call her soul her own. Once again she turned in desperation to the nearest man who offered help. And once again that man was Sid Luft.
And it seems incredible, but by 1967 Judy was again hopelessly in debt—and that in spite of the impressive salary she had been paid by CBS and the fact that she had appeared in concert
at a high salary very frequently. With the exclusion of the periods of time when Fields and Begelman were in charge and when Mark Herron was part of her life (1961-65), Luft was never far from her side. However, let it be said that Judy, through her sporadic dependence on Luft, encouraged the situation.
Repeatedly, close observers have stated that there were times when no one else but Luft could get Judy onstage or keep her there. Though she was out of love with him in the physical sense and highly resentful of his associate, Vernon Alves, she nonetheless felt rooted to Luft. He was, after all, the father of two of her children, and she could not believe that his intentions were other than to protect his family, even when she was devastated by his actions. There was also a pattern that had established itself very early in her life, back in the days when she was on the road with Ethel. She was expected to be the family supporter and all others were accepted in the role of dependents who did everything within their power to help keep her working. They did so in pursuit of their own survival as well. A pattern of threat and rejection if she erred—and reward if she behaved had also been vested. Therefore, though it might seem inconceivable that after all the anger and disillusionment and hostility she had suffered with Luft she could reunite with him in her career, it was not an illogical action in terms of her well-entrenched behavior pattern. How many times had she felt the same things about Ethel? About L. B. Mayer? About Minnelli? And in varying degrees, about all the people in her life who had been aboard the Garland bandwagon? But the most poignant, crucial, and fundamental fact to remember was Judy’s total dependence upon those close to her. They were her lifeline to the outside world and they were the only comforters in her distress.
By 1967, Judy was fully aware not only that she was hooked, but also that her body was moldering, necrosis setting in to each vital part. Where once she had thought in desperate moments of ending her life, she now hung on to any outstretched hand that might promise to keep her afloat. She became almost savage in her desperation. A quiet, ferocity overtook her actions and responses. Her nails would tear like tiger’s claws into the palm of anyone who meant to leave her; her demands became insistent threats; she was a very frightened, terrified lady.
Not only was all the money she had made gone by ’67, not only was she in debt—she was several hundred thousand dollars in debt, most of it again to the government. The pattern had repeated itself. Her earnings would go to her managers, but her taxes and many of her road expenses would not be paid; nor was she ever trusted with any of her own earnings. Now she was back in a position in which the government could seize her earnings as she made them, leaving no money for her. Something drastic had to be done, and Luft was right at her elbow to insist it be done his way.
Two years later, Judy gave a deposition to a London court about the circumstances existing in her life during the spring of ’67 and about the Group V contract that Luft proposed, had drawn up, and had her sign. The following, a direct excerpt from Clause 4 of this deposition, given by Judy in the High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division, on December 29, 1968, and signed by Judy and by a Commissioner for Oaths, is presented verbatim so that some clarity can be given to the murky transactions that were to come:
. . . The alleged contract with Group V Limited came into being in June 1967 when I was approached by Mr. Sid Luft to whom I had formerly been married but from whom I had then been divorced for some four years. He suggested to me that an organisation should be set up to be called Group V, the “five” to consist of me, my daughter Lisa [Liza] Min[n]elli, the two children of Sid Luft and myself and Sid Luft. He explained to me that Group V would act as agents and representatives, pay us reasonable living money and enable us to build up trust funds for the children and otherwise obtain financial security. He also explained that there would be certain tax advantages. I accepted his suggestion and he then asked me to sign. He gave me one page to sign and as I trusted him I signed it. I was in a hurry to travel to a performance. I was subsequently shown the complete contract in which the first fifteen pages had been put in front of the page which I had signed. I was then told that Group V Limited did not include my children and myself but rather Sid Luft, Raymond Filiberti, and three other persons whose names I cannot remember. Despite the circumstances I continued to work for Group V because they had by that time made many advance bookings for me to appear and I felt that I was under an obligation to the audiences who were expecting me to appear. I continued to fulfill bookings made for me by Group V for a year after the contract was signed and a further two months after that. I mention the further two months because I had expected to receive from Group V some form of letter or notice renewing the contract but to my knowledge no such letter or notice ever reached me. I was waiting for such a letter because it would have given me an occasion to deal with Group V because throughout the year after the contract was signed I had fulfilled engagements made by Group V but had received no remuneration from them. I would find in each case that Group V had made the booking and received payment and that I would be left to appear and not be paid. At no time during the period of fourteen months mentioned above did I receive any payment at all from Group V in respect of the moneys I was to receive under the contract. I only continued to fulfill engagements which they had made in the knowledge that they at least were being paid and that I was entitled to an accounting from them. I was thus at least working and meeting obligations to the audiences.
Not only was I not paid but Group V failed to pay my expenses. A large quantity of my baggage was impounded in New York because Group V failed to pay my hotel bill. In December 1967 I met an engagement in Las Vegas and was then booked to appear in New York. I had no money of any kind and was obliged to borrow. I asked Filiberti for a loan as he knew I had not been paid and he gave me a cheque for $2500 drawn on his bank in New York. I flew immediately to New York but on presenting the cheque found that payment had been stopped.
Raymond Filiberti and two men named Leon Greenspan and Howard Harper were to play a Machiavellian role in the last year of Judy’s life. Filiberti had a police record. Greenspan and Harper were acquaintances to whom Luft owed a large sum of money. Harper, whose real name was Howard Harker, also had a long police record and had been found guilty by the State of New Jersey on various dates of disorderly conduct and of strong-armed threats.
But in June of ’67, Judy had never heard of any of them. What she knew was that she could not be alone, nor could she deal with any business problems or financial pressures; and Luft was there by her side assuring her that if she signed the paper he was handing her, she need not worry about anything except her performances. Her desire to trust him overriding her sensibility, she signed.
One is inclined to believe that Judy’s respect for authority and the law compelled her to be as truthful as memory permits in her deposition. Presuming that to be so, the contents of the fifteen pages that were placed before the page containing Judy’s signature (on which appear only Judy’s and Luft’s signatures and one sentence—“In witness whereof, the parties hereto have executed this agreement as of the day and year first above written”) constitute a diabolical travesty of personal rights. They contain twenty-six clauses, each of them designed to rob Judy of any rights in her own career, no matter what path that career might take. She was, from the date of the contract, owned by Group V in a prohibitive and exploitative fashion—was chatteled to a group of suspect men whom she did not even know.
The Group V contract had Judy sign away all rights in and to not only her services as a performer but “any and all incidents, dialogue, characters, action, material, ideas and other literary, dramatic and musical material written, composed, submitted, added, improvised, interpolated and invented by Garland pursuant to this agreement” and granted the Corporation without limitation rights to “transmit, publish, sell, distribute, perform and use for any purpose, in any manner, and by any means, whether or not now known, invented, used or contemplated (specifically including, but not limited to), by m
eans of motion pictures, radio, television, televised motion pictures, printing or any other similar or dissimilar means all or any part of the matters and things referred to in this article.”
In Clause 13 of the contract Judy is denied the right of free speech:
Garland will not at any time without the Corporation’s prior written consent issue or authorize the publication of any news stories or publicity relating to her employ-men hereunder or to the Corporation. . . .
But perhaps one of the most bizarre clauses in the agreement is Clause 17:
As used in this agreement, the term “incapacity” shall be deemed to refer to any of the following events occurring at any times during the term of this agreement: the material incapacity of Garland arising out of her illness or mental or physical disability or arising out of any accident involving personal injury to Garland; the disfigurement, impairment of voice or any material change in the physical appearance or voice of Garland, the death of Garland; and the prevention of Garland from rendering services by reason of any statute, law, ordinance, regulation, order, judgment or decree.
Garland will give the Corporation written notice of her incapacity within twenty-four (24) hours after the commencement thereof, and if she fails to give such notice, any failure of Garland to report to the Corporation as and when instructed by the Corporation for the rendition of her required services hereunder may, at the option of the Corporation ... be treated as Garland’s default.
This meant that Judy would be held responsible for any loss of income to the Corporation if she could not fill a commitment because of, for instance, a stroke, or any serious and sudden illness, and that her estate would be held responsible in the case of her death unless a twenty-four-hour notice could be given!
