Judy and I

by Sid Luft

  I interrupted him: “Don’t you publicize?”

  “Sir, this is the furst time the soon’s been oot in the evening!” Sunshine more important than Garland?

  The second show, however, proved one of the highlights of the tour. An amazing night of artistry on Judy’s part, and of love from an appreciative audience. She glided onto the stage with her special gait, working her fingers dramatically through her hair, touching her face and body, extending the palm of the hand to the audience, unaware the palm is considered an erotic symbol in Indonesian dance. (Her nails were unpainted and gracefully short; studio photos of Judy with polish on her nails were rare.) The performance ended with the audience joining hands and singing “Auld Lang Syne” to Judy. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

  Freddie Finklehoffe surprised us by showing up in Glasgow along with my friend Bob Agins and an old friend of Judy’s, longtime talent agent Barron Polan. Judy and I were mildly amused by their presence in Scotland. We’d grown so happy with just one another it felt like an intrusion on our privacy. Over dinner after the show Freddie revealed the purpose of their visit. He had a concept for a screenplay he believed suited Judy’s filmic persona. Like Bing, he intended this to be her comeback vehicle. By now, though, Judy was more determined than ever to change her screen image, and she politely declined the opportunity.

  In Dublin, I took Judy to visit a famous stud farm. We looked at many colts, and she fell in love with a little yearling with the eccentric name of Florence House. Before we left Ireland I bought Florence House especially for Judy. I arranged to have her shipped first to Long Island, where she’d be trained, and then to Walfarms in Los Angeles.

  At the end of the tour, Judy longed to see her daughter. They’d spoken on the phone as much as possible; now she felt it was time to be with Liza. So she sent for her and her governess, Cozy. Liza was going to come with us to the French Riviera, where Judy was due to perform in a benefit show at Monte Carlo with her great friend Noël Coward.

  If Britain was cheerful, France was a celebration. Paris, unlike London, had been untouched by bombs, left intact due to the German occupation. The buildings had not yet been cleaned up under the supervision of André Malraux, but Paris “dirty” was still the lyrical and romantic city of dreams. Couples kissed in public, the men always with an eye open so as not to miss anything. Affection was rampant. The cafés spilled over, street musicians were at every corner, lovers strolled the Seine . . . even the bums looked blissful.

  Judy’s relationship with Liza was so loving and filled with tenderness. I was knocked out by her gift for mothering, and they had so much fun together I was almost jealous. Before we left for the Riviera we visited the House of Balmain, where Judy bought a much-needed new wardrobe and replenished her supply of Vent Vert.

  In Cannes we stayed at the Carlton. I felt distinctly out of place with the English theater crowd, the people who revolved around Noël. Judy was intent on meeting Coward and friends at the bar for drinks. I was homophobic in those days, uneasy around male couples, and declined to go with her, so Judy agreeably went her way and I went mine. I visited old haunts, tracking down the villa where Frieda Roberts and I had our love affair all those years ago. Later that night I met up with Judy at a posh affair, throngs of people milling about. Judy asked me to join her and Noël and Sugar Ray Robinson, who were going on to another bash. I was overcome with the idea of walking Judy through the evening and apologetically bowed out.

  I spent the evening talking with Genevieve, a beautiful blonde in the style of Brigitte Bardot, best described as an international playgirl. Genevieve spoke many languages and was charming. An attractive, well-dressed older woman remained in the background while we drank and chatted. I asked Genevieve if she was her guardian and she replied, “Sort of an auntie.” But Auntie didn’t accompany us later when we made the rounds of the Cannes nightclubs and expensive after-hours clubs, where Genevieve was always well received.

  We had a wild night, winding up on the beach near the hotel, where, loaded, we fell asleep fully clothed. Around ten in the morning I awakened, spitting out sand, to see Judy and little Liza standing directly over me, backlit by the bright Riviera sun. Judy had taken a handful of sand and poured it over my face. She ignored Genevieve and in a quiet voice said, “How about a shower and a shave?” She didn’t make a scene or an issue of the escapade; it was understood that it was the bachelor’s last fling.

  We were back in London in time for a benefit show at the Palladium, a tribute to British comedian Sid Field, who had died the previous year. I became convinced the Princess Margaret slight had been the result of Danny Kaye’s influence. Conjecture, of course—but I noticed that Danny’s nose got bent when Judy performed the Fields benefit. Danny dressed up as a sailor boy. He had the right people on his team—the Oliviers, the royals, et al.—and he was intended to be the star of the show. And he wasn’t. Judy came out with that fantastic ability to take everyone’s guts and do with them what she willed. Noël Coward remarked on that in his diary: “Took the Duchess [of Kent] to dine at the Ivy, and then on to the Palladium for the Sid Field Benefit—a really star-studded show. Highest spot—Judy Garland. Home about 4 a.m.” Noël was to remain a friend to Judy when everyone else abandoned her.

  As for me, by this point all my reservations about having a serious relationship with Judy Garland had been discarded, along with the empty champagne bottles and caviar tins in the dumbwaiters of some of Britain’s most exclusive hotels.

  21

  WE RETURNED SEPARATELY to a sweltering July in New York City. Nearly one year had passed since I first met Judy in New York, and I was back in the soupy heat of Manhattan with life shimmering all around me, reflecting my passion for Judy and the future. I was on the telephone sweating it out in an unfortunate St. Regis Hotel with no air conditioning, talking to Abe Lastfogel, who was still talking about radio shows. I put down the telephone and said, “Fucking hell.” Judy was quietly curled up smoking a cigarette. I was aggravated with Lastfogel, and I wasn’t about to tell her what he’d offered.

  I’d been astounded that there was no particular media welcome for Judy after her success in Britain. Understandably, she was let down. Suddenly she was insecure about her career. I was as diplomatic as possible while wondering what to do next.

  Judy said, “The press are like the police: Where are they when you need ’em?” She had sailed from England aboard the Queen Elizabeth to a silent and empty homecoming. Later, well into her amazing success at the RKO Palace Theatre, the fact would get turned around, the papers boasting of the tremendous number of offers awaiting Judy upon her return, when in fact there were none save a few Bing Crosby radio broadcasts. Wasn’t Judy the toast of London? Didn’t she pack the theaters? I’d seen audiences on their feet screaming, yelling, going bananas.

  “Darling, aren’t they conscious of the Palladium?” Judy asked.

  “Remember, they don’t have a concert department . . . darling.”

  “Tell ’em to get one,” Judy said, and then ordered up a plate of spaghetti, her favorite dish, and an iced tea. Nobody was breaking down the doors for Judy Garland except room service.

  “Darling,” I said, as she consumed the steaming plate of pasta with extra sauce and pepper, “remember to keep the calories down.” Perspiration was dripping off her brow.

  “I don’t care, I’m hungry.” Judy’s appetite activated under duress.

  “It’s hot, don’t eat spaghetti.” But there was no way I was going to deter her from that steaming plate of pasta. She resented my comments. I watched her douse more pepper on her food. Whenever she ate anything with pepper she’d break out in a sweat. She may have been allergic to it. Curiously, she’d perspire only on her left side. Now the sweat was running off the back of her neck. She was sitting there like a lump in a white blouse and black slacks. No makeup. The windows were wide open to the muggy blanket of city air. We were both uncomfortable. “Shouldn’t you be eating an apple?” I asked.


  “Feel better if I ate oats and hay?”

  Generally I had this jokey, paternal manner with her, and she responded deliciously. But that day I was serious. Having been with her for months, I was aware I was dealing with a supercharged instrument, but I didn’t experience her as somebody I had to be careful with. Not yet. I wanted her to look her best. She had just conquered the world and now she was sweating and eating like a pig. It seemed nobody cared that Judy could have the world by its tail, including Judy.

  It was now one thirty in the afternoon. Judy was distracted; she was only interested in eating, and the hell with the world. I had to get out. Unexpectedly she’d pushed the plate away like a sulky child. I knew she’d calm down; it was a ripple of annoyance. I also knew she’d resume eating.

  I walked over to Broadway, where I ran into the actress Olga San Juan, Edmond O’Brien’s wife, by the Winter Garden Theatre. I’d had thoughts of Judy dazzling audiences at the Winter Garden, the same as at the Palladium. But a big show was opening at the Winter Garden, so it wasn’t going to be Judy Garland. I stood there chatting and thinking. Looking over Olga’s shoulder, I saw in the near distance the run-down facade of the Palace Theatre, the once proud and lucrative bastion of vaudeville, now reduced to a slum. As if in a montage, the figure of Sol Schwartz superimposed itself between the Winter Garden and the Palace. I thought, I gotta do this myself. I had met Sol Schwartz, the president of the Palace Theatre, at the home of Jack Dietz, the friend who helped finance my two pictures at Monogram. It had been the occasion of Dietz’s son’s bar mitzvah.

  I said good-bye to Olga and walked up Forty-Sixth Street toward the Palace. On the corner, I went into the Whelan’s drugstore and called Sol.

  “Sid, where are you?

  “I’m downstairs in the Whelan’s drugstore.”

  “I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

  No sooner had I walked inside the lobby when a big rat crossed my path. Minutes later Sol rushed in, putting his arms around me. “I know what you’ve got in mind, Sid. I’ll clean this fuckin’ place. We’ll reopen the Palace.”

  “That’s just what I had in mind, Sol.”

  “I’ll bring in the chandeliers, I’ll change the seats, I’ll paint the joint, and we’ll open with Judy.”

  “Sol, did you ever see a dream walking?” I hummed.

  “It’s in front of us, Sid.”

  “You’re reading my mind, Sol. Call Lastfogel, make a deal.” Judy still had an agency contract with William Morris.

  I walked back to the hotel in the heat. I figured Sol was already on the phone to Abe. I returned to Fifty-Fifth and Fifth, soaking wet. Judy was watching television when I entered the suite. “Darling, I’ve got news for you . . .”

  “You look like you did something naughty.”

  “I engaged the Palace Theatre.”

  She ran up and threw her arms around me, trembling. She had so feared that nothing was going to happen. I held her in my arms. “Let’s open the Palace, darling.” The earlier tension was dissolving in tears. I had left abruptly and returned victorious. Judy knew I had her well-being uppermost in my mind, and now I could prove it.

  The Palace, a once noble structure, had rotted from neglect. Its heritage ignored, it had become a broken-down B-movie house with the dregs of leftover vaudeville. Entrance fee $1.00. For Judy it was one of her MGM scenarios: “We’ll paint the Palace.” “We’ll open . . .” “Let’s get Mickey . . .” An Arthur Freed production. “We’re going to Broadway!”

  Judy and I were still embracing when, like magic, Abe called from L.A. “I’ve talked to Sol. We’re working out the details. He’ll give us twelve musicians, a guarantee, and so on.” Lastfogel was thrilled—10 percent off the top for the Morris Agency! Sol had repeated to him, “I’m gonna paint. It’ll be a big opening on Broadway. I’ll spend everything necessary, put in new seats, close off the third balcony, bring in the chandeliers. Sid will produce it, and Judy will open the new Palace in September.”

  Then came the schedule: two shows a day with Judy Garland and her company. I didn’t like that. Too much work, too rough. I immediately called Sol. An old theater man, he was insisting on it. “The Palace is known for two a day.”

  I told him, “That’s twelve shows; Judy needs to ease up.”

  “She can’t let up, not now.”

  As we celebrated with dinner at Charles à la Pomme Soufflée, I said, “Darling, too much. You don’t need to work that way.”

  “I did it at the Palladium, six and eight, six and eight in Birmingham, six and eight all over the place. Why not here?”

  “It’s different this time.”

  “I can do it, I can do it.”

  Judy could do it, but for how long? She was so eager, so ready. Two a day was going to translate into “Judy Garland brings back vaudeville.” I had to agree. We had to go for it.

  We couldn’t get out of New York fast enough. We headed back to Los Angeles as quickly as you could travel with a person who didn’t fly. We took the 20th Century Limited to Chicago and from there rode the Super Chief to L.A. Meanwhile, Judy had already been on the phone with Roger Edens, who had quickly alerted Chuck Walters to announce that we’d be back in several days.

  Judy had first known Walters as a dancer and as a double for Van Heflin; subsequently he became a choreographer and then a director (Easter Parade and Summer Stock). The studio moguls were homophobic, but Chuck had talent—plus manly good looks and a very deep voice, which seemed to make them feel better. The moguls had a fear of men who swished. Chuck didn’t alter his lifestyle one iota. He lived with another man, a lawyer, as in a marriage. They owned property together and lived well; they also owned a liquor store in Malibu. Roger Edens was well liked too, although he didn’t have the power with the studio that Chuck did. Roger was an attractive, generous man who died soon after Judy.

  Judy was met in Los Angeles by Liza and her pet poodle, “John Cook.” The press showed up to catch mother and daughter exchanging hugs and kisses. I sensed the attention was here to stay. Again Judy was plagued with questions about her weight, to which she replied, “I may be awfully fat, but I feel good.” Actually, she was pregnant, which I wouldn’t find out for another week or so.

  Our relationship was more solid than ever. I had pulled off something Judy had dreamed about when she couldn’t get a job in Hollywood. By the time we arrived in L.A., Roger had the opening number nearly completed. Initially, Chuck Walters wasn’t available, but he too “had to go to Broadway.” He wouldn’t allow anybody else to take his place, saying, “You’ll never open this show without me.” Between Roger, Chuck, and me, the show got built. Rehearsals were held at a studio on La Cienega Boulevard. Everything, including the orchestration, was done in Los Angeles. Judy had sublet Marlene Dietrich’s apartment for the stay in Hollywood. Tully was with her, as was Dottie Ponedel. Dottie had actually retired following Judy’s Palladium run, but she temporarily returned to the fold. I was back in my Wilshire Boulevard apartment. But now I was completely immersed in Judy’s life.

  Was I going to marry her? Neither of our divorces were yet final. Judy and Vincente had married in Los Angeles on June 15, 1945, one year after she divorced her first husband, composer and musical director David Rose. Bob Agins, who had been my lawyer, was now handling Judy’s divorce. She claimed that when she and Vincente were first married, she was very happy and they had many interests in common—work and friends. Abruptly, without reason, Vincente changed. He secluded himself and wouldn’t explain why he left her alone so much. Tully gave the supporting testimony. Vincente, who’d recognized that Judy was intent on leaving him, denied Judy’s charges of mental anguish, but he still did not contest the divorce. Liza was specifically allowed the freedom to be with whom she wanted whenever she wanted to avoid any sense of regimentation. For now, Liza lived with Cozy and Vincente at the Evanview house.

  Our daily life became a hornet’s nest of publicity—“JUDY AND SID,” “SID AND JUDY.” The RKO Palace
was doing major publicity. I was hit with subpoenas from Lynn Bari and called “half a millionaire.” The media was unrelenting. The talk was of Judy opening on Broadway, Judy and Vincente’s divorce, my custody battle with Lynn.

  Judy was in a rehearsal mode: silk trousers, Capezio shoes. If I looked very closely, which I did, her shoulder-length dark brown hair had tiny weavings of gray.

  One evening at the Cock’n Bull on Sunset Boulevard, Judy greeted me with “Darling, I’m way past my period, haven’t you noticed? I had a test and it’s positive.”

  She was devouring her Welsh rarebit. I gulped down my bourbon, and it hit my stomach like a rock. She went on: “Darling, I’d love to have your baby.”

  My response was insensitive. I was thinking of the Palace. “You’re what?” I yelled.

  “Pregnant.”

  “Darling, we have contracts written, gypsies under contract, orchestrations, how could you be pregnant?” I was indignant, and she was stunned by my response. I told her I thought the pregnancy seemed inappropriate, considering the life we were attempting to set up. I thought she was purposely not cautious. I was blaming her, not commiserating. “Darling,” I reminded her, “we’re putting on a show at the Palace and you’re coming to me with ‘our’ baby?” How could she have been so foolish?—that was my attitude. I was as unjustified as I was insensitive. And the truth was she never had a chance, which prevented her from feeling she could have a child simply because she wanted to.

  Another factor: Judy’s pregnancy would have engendered further scandal, as there was a strict moral code in those days. A cover-up was impossible with someone like Judy Garland. I imagined the headlines: NOT DIVORCED, CANCEL THE PALACE, LUFT’S ILLEGITIMATE CHILD. I handled it like a clod. I went into the legal rather than the emotional concerns. I couldn’t turn it around. I was overwhelmed. I wanted to ignore the information she was laying on me.