Me and My Shadows

by Lorna Luft

  My mother would never, ever, have killed herself, certainly not in that way. The only people who thought she might were the people who didn’t know her very well. Liza and Joe and my dad and I, we knew she hadn’t. She wouldn’t. In spite of her well-publicized reputation for suicide attempts, we never considered her a suicide risk. All of her previous “attempts” had been accidental overdoses, cries for help and attention, or, on occasion, simply ploys to get us all out of a fix. If she had really wanted to die, she would certainly have succeeded many times over. She simply wasn’t the type. People who kill themselves succumb to despair, desperation, or self-hatred. In sharp contrast, my mother remained the eternal optimist at heart, in spite of her binges of self-pity, and I have no doubt that she died fully expecting yet another miraculous comeback and triumph. My mom was a phoenix who always expected to rise again from the ashes of her latest disaster. And in spite of her self-doubts, she had a very strong sense of who she was. She had a sense of self-worth. She loved being Judy Garland. Did she secretly long to be Frances Gumm Somebody, Minnesota housewife? Are you kidding? She’d have run off with a vaudeville troupe just the way my grandfather did.

  Above all, she would never, ever have committed suicide because she had us—me and Joe and Liza. Maybe she wasn’t much of a mother to us those last few years, but it wasn’t because she didn’t try, and it certainly wasn’t because she didn’t care. People sometimes look at us incredulously when we say that, but it’s true. We knew she would never willingly leave us. The fact that all three of us dismissed that possibility without a second thought speaks volumes.

  For a long time after I learned what killed her, I blamed Mickey Deans. Everyone close to my mother knew that she required careful watching. I’d started monitoring her medication when I was thirteen myself, and everybody knew to check on her regularly to make sure she was all right. Later, after the coroner had found Seconal in her bloodstream and determined that an accidental overdose had killed her, we found out that a prescription for Seconal had been filled for her the day she died.

  She’d apparently taken her normal dose, then sometime during the night she’d gotten up, half asleep, gone to the bathroom, and swallowed several more of the capsules. She passed out there in the bathroom and never woke up.

  It took me a very long time to stop blaming Mickey Deans in particular and to realize that if it hadn’t been that night and that man, it would have been another. It was inevitable.

  Mostly, though, I blamed myself for her death—not because I wasn’t there that night, but because I wasn’t there that year: “Why wasn’t I with her? Why hadn’t I gone over sooner? I could have saved her; I know I could.” I kept on thinking of all the things I had learned to do and hadn’t done those final months. I remembered the countless times my father or I had searched her clothes, unlocked doors, doled out medicine, sugared pills, and watched over her to make sure she stayed safely in bed all night. I’d learned to take a thousand precautions; I knew an endless number of ways to avoid disaster. If I’d been with her, she never would have had access to the Seconals. If I’d been there, I would never have let her wander around alone at night. I wouldn’t have let her lock the bathroom door, as Mickey had. I should have been there. All the hard lessons of survival I’d learned in the past year vanished in the face of my mother’s death. Somewhere deep in my heart, I’d expected her to get by somehow. Somehow, I hadn’t really thought she could die.

  It was still hard to believe. Everything around me had collapsed into chaos—the funeral arrangements, the visitors, the reporters—and I couldn’t accept what was happening. When things got out of hand, I’d think, “I know; I’ll call Mama and ask her what she wants us to do,” and then it would hit me all over again. I was in shock. I kept wanting to pick up the phone and call her, but she wasn’t there. There would be no voice at the other end of the line. There never would be. I almost welcomed the chaos after a while. When it stopped for a moment, in the quiet times, the pain would overwhelm me.

  My dad was struggling to hold himself together, to cope with all the details and keep me and Joe from falling apart. Liza and Kay were giving him orders over the phone, and he had to accept whatever they told him because he no longer had any right to make decisions. He was just “the ex-husband.” Mickey Deans, a comparative stranger to whom my mother had been married for only five months, got to decide everything. It was bitterly painful for my father. Every little while, I’d say, “Are you okay, Dad?” and he’d try to act as though he were.

  Two days after her death we flew to New York and were taken to the apartment of a friend of Liza and Peter’s. Liza and Peter and the others were all there. That’s when we were told that it would be an open-casket funeral. I kept thinking, “What are you doing? Mama would hate everybody staring at her like that. You can’t do that!” A huge event had been planned, one that twenty-two thousand people eventually showed up for, and an endless procession of onlookers would file past that open casket. I was horrified. It seemed like a kind of violation. Before things went any further, before those thousands of people lined up to see my mother’s body, I wanted to see her first. So I said, “I want to go see her.” And everybody objected all at once, saying, “No, you don’t; you don’t want to do that.” And I got really angry then. I was sick and tired of being told what to do. I said, “Don’t tell me what I want. I want to go. I want to see Mama.” Nobody was going to tell me I couldn’t see my mother one last time.

  Then my dad said, “If you’re going to go, I’m going with you.” And Liza said, “I’d better go, too.” And then Joey said, “I just—I just can’t.” I was glad he didn’t want to, but I couldn’t believe the others would let Mama be buried without seeing her one more time. We called ahead to the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel to tell them we were coming so they’d close the place off, and then Dad and Liza and I got into the limo that took us to the funeral home. As we approached the mortuary, I looked up and saw thousands of people jamming the streets. I panicked at the sight of them and said, “Please, there’s got to be another door. I don’t want to go in there.” The funeral director led us through a private entrance and into the main room. The place was empty. He had cleared it out for us.

  When I saw my mother’s coffin there in the center of the room, I got really scared. I backed up, and for a moment I wanted to turn around and go out again. But I couldn’t. I had to see her one more time.

  After a moment’s hesitation, I began inching slowly toward the open casket. I had never seen a dead person before, except on television, and I didn’t know what to expect. My dad followed along next to me. My sister followed behind, even more slowly. We all three crept to the side of the coffin and looked inside.

  There lay a tiny person in a gray dress on a bed of yellow roses. The first thing that went through my mind when I saw her was, “Oh, they’ve made a mistake. That’s not her.” I didn’t recognize her. I could find no trace of the beautiful face I had watched in the makeup mirror as a child. I looked at the tiny, emaciated body, and then I noticed her hands. When I saw her hands, I knew. Those were my mother’s hands. And as I looked down at them, it hit me at last.

  My father was standing next to me on one side, and as I started to cry, he put his arms around me. And then he started to cry, too. He stood there looking at her, sobbing as if his heart would break, and I was stunned. I had never seen my father cry. We kept trying to comfort each other, but we were each too caught up in our own pain to do the other much good. We must have stayed there together about ten minutes, and then suddenly I wanted to go. I had to get out of there. It was all beginning to seem surreal, like some kind of frightening nightmare.

  The three of us went back out through the private entrance and climbed into the rear seat of the limo, Liza first and then me in the middle between her and my dad. The driver pulled away from the curb, and when he did, my dad just disintegrated. I don’t know exactly why it happened at that particular moment; maybe it was leaving her behind that
final time, but he said, “She always did break me up,” and he gave way to convulsive sobs. I’d never seen that kind of grief before, and I felt helpless. He was beside himself by that point. I put my arms around him and held him like a child as he collapsed into my arms.

  It was the worst moment of my life. My mother lay in a box in that terrible place, and my father, the strongest man in the world, the one person who’d always kept me safe, was beside himself with grief in my arms. Liza started to sob, too, and I kept thinking, “What will happen to me now? Who will take care of me?” I was so scared. We all three put our arms around each other and cried uncontrollably. We were beyond comfort; the only thing we could share with each other was our grief. We’d been holding ourselves together for days, years really, and in that moment it all came crashing down on us.

  We went back to the apartment, and it was like going back to a circus, with phones ringing off the hook and the press everywhere. We pulled ourselves together and carried on. What else was there to do?

  The funeral was the next day. I remember that I didn’t have anything appropriate to wear, so someone went out and bought me a long navy blue dress and a big hat. It was a hot New York day at the end of June, and the limo could hardly get through the streets to the funeral parlor because there were so many thousands of people there. I was used to crowds; I’d gone to my mother’s biggest outdoor concerts, but I’d never seen anything like the crowds that day. They were everywhere; some of them had even brought along little record players and were playing my mother’s recordings. Everywhere I looked out the windows of the limo, there were faces, thousands of them.

  We pulled up to the side door, and I was the first one out of the car. I took Liza’s hand to lead the way in, and she grabbed hold of Joey, but halfway up the entrance carpet I lost hold of Liza’s hand when she slowed down for Joe. There’s a clip of me on an old newsreel turning around at that moment to wait for Liza, then grabbing her firmly by the hand and waiting for her to get a good grip on Joe. Joey, his sweet little face somber and pinched, turns around to take hold of my father’s hand, and then I turn back to the entrance door and lead us all in, hand in hand like a human chain. We all look pale as ghosts and determined to be brave.

  Once inside, someone led us into the “family section,” the private area reserved for family and close friends. I remember wanting to turn around and look at the audience to see who was there, but I didn’t. It seemed rude, like staring at people during a church service. The service itself was small and private and didn’t last long. Father Peter Delaney, my mother’s old friend from London, officiated, and James Mason, Mama’s costar in A Star Is Born, gave the eulogy. Liza had originally wanted Mickey Rooney, but we were all afraid Mickey would fall apart and never make it through.

  The family sat in the front row—me and Liza and Joe and Sid, and I think Mickey at the other end of the row; and Kay Thompson sat behind us with my godparents, Lester and Felicia Coleman. It was so hot, and I was getting dizzy. The coffin had been closed and was covered with a huge blanket of the most beautiful yellow roses I’d ever seen, and the smell of the flowers only made me dizzier. After the eulogy they made us all sing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” just as my mother had sung it when Jack Kennedy died. Kay Thompson nudged us and whispered, “Sing! Sing!” I suppose she thought my mother would have wanted us to. All I remember thinking was, “Why are they making us do this?” Then they had us all stand up as they lifted the coffin under its veil of yellow roses to carry it back down the aisle. Suddenly, I was afraid I was going to faint. The stress and the heat overwhelmed me, and I felt my knees buckle. Kay Thompson caught me from behind and literally held me up as they carried the coffin down the aisle.

  Then they took us back into a side room, and I was shaking uncontrollably. I couldn’t stop. Felicia Coleman had helped me out, and I remember saying to her, “Please, I have to have something. Please, I can’t stand it. You have to give me something.”

  Felicia turned to her husband and said, “Lester, can’t we give this child some medicine to calm her down? I really think she needs something.”

  But Lester said, “She’ll be all right. I don’t want to give her anything.” At the time I thought he was being coldhearted, but in retrospect, I know he probably did the right thing. I think that, considering my genetics, he was really afraid to give me anything. And I did manage to pull myself together again and put on a brave face for the crowds outside. That’s the odd part of losing such a famous parent.

  I spent much of my time that week trying to make total strangers feel better.

  We didn’t go to the graveside. We all went back to Liza’s apartment. But not directly to the apartment. First Mickey Deans had a little errand to do. In a move that takes my breath away to this very day when I think of it, Mickey had scheduled a meeting and wanted me to go along. I hardly knew the man, but Liza said, “Why don’t you go with Mickey, then, and we’ll all meet back at my apartment.” I said “Okay,” and he and I got in a car, drove to a nearby office building, and went up a few floors and into a big office. I was too emotionally exhausted to pay any attention to where we were. A few minutes later a man came in, and Mickey introduced me to him: “I wanted you to meet Lorna. Lorna, this is Mr. So and So.” I mechanically shook hands and said something polite and then just sat there in a daze in my funeral dress and hat while Mickey and the other man discussed some sort of business deal. I didn’t pay attention. Then we left.

  Months later someone told me the other man was a publisher, and that Mickey had arranged to stop by on the way back from my mother’s funeral to cut a deal on a Judy Garland biography. I don’t know if it was true, but his book did come out a couple of years later under the title, Weep No More, My Lady. Needless to say, I didn’t buy a copy.

  Mickey Deans. What a putz. He makes Kato Kaelin look like a Man of the Year.

  After our meeting with the publisher and Mickey’s five minutes of fame, we went back to Liza’s apartment. The TV and radio were on all day, and every station seemed to be playing my mom’s music. They kept showing clips from The Wizard of Oz on television, and several of the newscasters did tributes to her. All in all, the TV news handled it very nicely. They showed the clip of the coffin being carried in over and over, and of us arriving at the funeral, but they were all very kind and respectful. I didn’t mind that part, but the radio really bothered me. All day long and into the evening they kept playing her songs over and over until I could hardly stand it. Everywhere I went, I could hear her voice. Late in the day Peter Allen’s sister, Lynne, put on my mother’s Carnegie Hall record, and I remember shouting, “Take it off. Please, just take it off. I can’t keep listening to that.”

  But for some reason I still don’t understand, she said, “No, I won’t take it off. You must listen to this.”

  When she said that, I really went off and started screaming at her, “Why is everyone doing this? Why do you keep forcing me to listen to her? Why can’t you just leave me alone?” But instead of taking the record off, Lynne just turned the volume up so we could hear it above my shouting. Angry and desperate to escape the sound, I went into the other room and slammed the door.

  That night Liza came to me and asked me if I’d go with her and Mickey to see a friend of his out on Long Island and go swimming. It was hot, and Mickey didn’t want to go alone, and Liza thought it might be nice to get out of the apartment for a while. My dad had already gone back to another apartment with Joe. By then I was more than glad to get away from the crowd, even with Mickey Deans, so I said I’d go, and the three of us climbed into Mickey’s car and headed for the country.

  It was a beautiful night, the sky filled with stars, and the air felt good on my face. As we drove, Liza pointed out the window at a particularly bright star and said, “Look, Lorna, it’s Mama.” I looked where she was pointing, and for the first time that day, I felt a moment of peace. I was longing for some silence by then, but there was still no escaping the sound of my mother’s
voice. Mickey kept it tuned on the radio all the way out.

  When we got to the friend’s house, we all sort of went our separate ways for a while. I was out in the backyard for a few minutes when suddenly I heard the strangest sound, like kids screaming, except not quite. It sounded so odd that I began to think the strain of the last few days was getting to me and that I was hearing things. But when the sound continued, I finally went to the owner and asked him, “What’s that noise?” Liza had heard it, too, and she couldn’t identify it, either. He said that he’d been an animal trainer for the circus when he was younger, and that he still had some of his favorite animals living in the basement of his house. Would we like to see them?

  Liza and I looked at each other and said, “Sure.”

  So he led us down the basement stairs and turned on the light, and there in cages all over the room sat these chimps. Their cages were roomy and clean, not like something out of a horror movie, and the chimps looked up cheerfully as we came into the room. They were incredibly cute. Liza and I took one look at each other and burst out laughing. We laughed so hard we nearly fell down. All I could think was, “This is perfect, just perfect,” and Liza said, “Wouldn’t Mama just love this?” Nobody ever had a better sense of the ridiculous, or enjoyed a good story more, than my mother. The chimps were just the cherry on the sundae of that strangest of days. We laughed until we were sick and then, wiping tears of laughter from our eyes, told Mickey it was time to go home. We all got in the car and drove back to the city.