Young Judy or Old Judy? — Page 3

It's funny. I've "known" Judy Garland all of my life, literally. Growing up, my sister was a huge MGM musicals fan and I saw them ALL. And we treated the yearly showing of "Wizard of Oz" more seriously than we treated Christmas. I truly knew who Judy Garland was before I knew who the President of the United States was.

And, as a singer, I know that, if you're looking for the definitive version of a song, try to find if Judy Garland sang it.

But, recently I've started playing a CD of "Miss Entertainment" & "Judy" that I got on Ebay about a year ago and never bothered playing. Well, I pulled it out a week or so ago and put it on and it's been living in my CD player ever since.

She is at the peak of her powers and I am in awe. She really did have one of the best singing voices that God ever gave anyone!

And even when her voice was more or less gone, she had an artistry that was incredible. I just found this clip on "that site"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpyoZXWcZfE

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Judge Judy

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One of my friends has given my some interview Judy did before she died. Supposedly it is very heavy. I have yet to listen to it. I am really facinated at it though.

I personaly like the old(er) Judy.

Young Judy. Old Judy was a little too over-the-top for me.

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Judy Judy Judy....that's all I can say

I was a Judy freak when I was a child. By the time I was thirteen, I had collected over 50 thousand pictures of her.

Had all of her albums, tapes and cds......All my friends had Bon Jovi on their walls, I had Judy in the Wizard of Oz

It was Judy who inspired me to take singing and dancing lessons.
I wasn't around for all of the madness....Judy died June 1969....I was born Dec 1969...

I love Judy for being the Greatest Artist Ever....I love her and now Lorna....

Here's a fun picture: The Garland Gals



Lorna on the left, her daughter Vanessa in the center, and Vanessa's Aunt Liza on the right.

April 2004, at the DVD release for Meet Me in St. Louis

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B12, if you could take the time, could you answer WHY the studio system ended, how it came about, etc.

And what would it be like if it were like that today?

yikes.

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Oh, Pippin, that's such a loaded question, and books have been written trying to answer it. My grandfather was part of the studio system, and I've had friends (sadly all gone now) who were part of it as well. We've talked about it over the years, and I would also recommend watching "MGM: When the Lion Roars," particularly the Part 3, the final section of that wonderful documentary on MGM. Ricardo Montalban and June Alyson describe the feeling of being "dropped" abruptly from their contracts as the studio system came to a screeching halt.

Many things played into the demise of the studio system in Hollywood, most of them were legal reasons, but I'll give you the highlights:

1) At the height of the Golden Age of the studio systems, actors were signed to 7-year contracts. Studios had regular "out clauses" every six months. They could drop you if they felt like it, or renegotiate salaries and perks then as well. But you were stuck for SEVEN YEARS, regardless. One of the best ways an actor could be punished back then was to be put on suspension without pay (and without roles in films). Things began to change dramatically at Warner Bros. when Olivia de Havilland was put on suspension. When she was reinstated (and won an Oscar for them), they tried to add that "suspended" time onto the end of her 7-year contract. She sued them. It ended up in the Supreme Court, and the contract was ruled illegal. A huge blow to Warners, who began dropping people as early as 1948. That's when things started to escalate and the other studios, who had lost a lot of their controlling power, began to follow suit. MGM was the last to "clean house," most of which happened around 1950 or 1951. By 1953, virtually EVERYONE at MGM had been dropped, except for Debbie Reynolds (her Tammy movies were HUGE) and Elizabeth Taylor, who was their mega-star at that point. Only a handful remained.

2) The studios also controlled ALL the movie theatres back in the Golden Age. MGM's theatre chain was Loewe's Inc. Warners was the Strand and Pathe, etc. These were chains of theatres all around the country. People wonder now why a wonderful Bette Davis film that drew "okay" crowds played in theatres for months... because Warners would PUSH their favorite films on audiences. Today, if a movie does "okay" business, the theatres will let go of it very quickly. Again, this was one that ended up in the U.S. Supreme Court back then. It was ruled to be a "monopoly" and the studios were all forced to sell off their theatre chains. They were only allowed to keep ONE "flagship" theatre in NYC and one in L.A. Disney is taking advantage of that again by owning the El Capitan in Hollywood. They can run whatever film they want to there... do whatever extra promotions they want, etc. They have complete control. This is just a "glimpse" of what it used to be like across the country, back in the Golden Age.

3) Starting with actors like James Stewart and a few others, when their contracts expired they refused to sign new ones. Stewart was one of the first to become a "free agent" back in the early 1940s, once his contract expired from MGM. His timing was great, since he followed his exit from the studio system by winning an Oscar for Best Actor and landing roles in very popular films. Other actors saw what was possible, and followed suit. It was more about creative control of the roles they played than about "big bucks," but they were free to negotiate everything at that point. And sweet deals were struck.

More played into it than that, but those are the highlights.

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Exactly.

THAT was the demise of the studio system.

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When Jerry Herman was asked about his songwriting process, he said that when he wrote a song, he tried to imagine Judy Garland singing it. Explain much? Can you imagine what she could have done with "Time Heals Everything", "I Don't Want to Know", and "If He Walked Into My Life"?

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Sing it Lorna!!!!!

Loving Lorna doesn't afford you the same opportunities to be picky with song choice as loving Liza or Judy does. They recorded much

With Lorna, you take what you get and when a song sounds good in her voice, you enjoy it!

That said, I happen to love this song, I love it when Lorna does it, when Bernadette does it and when Barbara Cook does it. And I would have loved it if Judy did it even more.

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Leslie Uggams sang it best, though, PJ. By far.

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