JGDB Magazine Article: "A Rainy Day with Judy Garland"

Judy Garland Database

Judy Garland Magazine Article

A Rainy Day with Judy Garland

from Look Magazine, May 6, 1941
(by Marion Pease, photos by Earl Theisen)

Judy spends a lazy day walking barefoot in the rain, making candy, trying new ways of fixing her hair. But she gets the most fun out of playing with her niece, Judy Jr.

"This will get the Chamber of Commerce awfully Mad," Judy Garland said when Earl Theisen showed up for a rainy-day picture-taking date, planned to show LOOK's readers how a Hollywood star passes the time when she is rained in on a day off.

Judy slept until 11, had "brunch" on a tray. Restless, she started one thing, dropped it for another while Earl's camera clicked.

At the piano, which Judy plays entirely by ear, she practiced playing, singing "America" for a recording till flash bulbs startled her out of a working mood.

Judy dances because she feels restless. She had been making a recording of "America" but stopped in the middle. Her recording machine is in her bed-sitting room which she designed herself. The walls are covered with pictures of people who have worked in her films. Radios are in nearly every room in the house.

A tray breakfast after sleeping late is a privilege on days off from the studio. Judy's mother gives her more freedom than is allowed to the other girls in her Hollywood crowd, which includes Deanna Durbin and Bonita Granville. She chooses her own friends, makes her own dates, goes night clubbing frequently.

"Slopping" is Judy's word for walking in the rain. Judy designs her own clothes, but this slacks outfit and a chenille robe are her favorites. She doesn't think music is good unless you can hear it a block away. "It takes loud playing to bring out the good tones," she said. You can tell her house by the noise this theory makes.

Her dressing table, shelves, even window sills, are cluttered with perfumes, toilet waters, lotions, which Judy collects as a hobby, for the odd, exotic shapes of the bottles. While fussing with new ways of fixing her hair, Judy tried to make up her mind which one of her three boy friends she would date with that night.

Dipping her feet into the swimming pool on a rainy day was Judy's idea. She described the house at Bel Air where she lives with her mother and sister as a combination of "French Colonial and American wigwam," then waited for the laugh. Judy and her two sisters were once a vaudeville act.

Judy Jr., her sister Virginia's 2-year-old daughter is Judy's pet. Judy is already thinking of her career. "I'm teaching her to sing and recite before a mike, because an early start is important in avoiding mike fright," she told Earl. Only the baby held Judy's attention consistently on this rainy afternoon.

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