Ten years ago, when Judy Garland was not yet 17, she made a picture called Thoroughbreds Don't Cry. Judy isn't crying now. But there are tears about her in Hollywood -- tears and hope.

The tears are not for Judy, the star, because the studio announced it will look elsewhere to fill the star role she was suspended from in Annie Get Your Gun. The tears are for Judy, the person. They come because there is a fear, evident in the voices of all to whom one mentions her name, that she will succumb altogether under the weight of an emotional and physical strain that is already beginning to dull the snap of her coal-dark eyes and draw tight and wan the pertness and fresh bloom the whole world has learned to love.

"If she can't snap out of this, what difference does it make whether she finishes another picture or not?" asks a woman who has worked close to Judy for years. And her words echo those heard everywhere.

"If she can't snap out of it..."

Can she?

Her friends will better be able to tell when Judy completes her treatment in the Eastern sanitarium which, at this writing, she has just entered.

Two summers ago she was advised to take a long rest. Then, too, she went to an Eastern sanitarium, though she was reluctant to leave her baby daughter, Liza, her Vincente Minnelli, her whole life in Hollywood. She returned looking better, telling friends that she had a wonderful new outlook on things.

"I found such peace!" she cried. "I can eat and I want to eat! I can sleep and I never think of a sleeping pill! I feel like a new woman!"

These words were cheering. But the peace that Judy found then, she has since lost, apparently.

During the early shooting of Annie Get Your Gun a few months ago, Judy failed to show up one morning -- again. There followed soon afterward an unpublicized suspension which, however, was rescinded within 24 hours. Judy came back to work -- and trouble broke out again. She didn't like her wardrobe.

As a concession she was given an entirely new wardrobe, and the director remained. But not for long. There were further arguments and, eventually, a new director.

It was expected now that things would go smoothly and the picture would be hurried to completion. But again the old quarrelsome pattern reasserted itself, delays took place, and the gentlemen who sit in the accounting room to estimate costs began slowly tearing their hair out as the figures started zooming upwards again.

This time Judy was accusing the new director of needlessly shooting scenes over and over. The situation took on a hopeless aspect with scores of actors standing by while the bickering went on. Then, with Judy's failure to report on the set after lunch one day (she arrived that morning only a little while before lunch), her suspension was ordered.

This decision was not lightly taken by the company. It has been reported that Louis B. Mayer, for whom Judy originally auditioned in a dusty pair of slacks when she was but 13 years old, climbed from a sick bed at home to come to the studio and consider the case. But, serious as the suspension was, to her friends it served only to point up the whole strange aspect presented by the girl they loved.

The Judy of today is a mother who adores her baby, yet lives apart from it, saying, oddly enough for any mother, that it is best for the child.

The Judy of today is a wife who admits that her best friend is her husband, to whom she runs continually for advice and comfort, yet announces, nevertheless, that they cannot continue together.

The Judy of today is an actress long acquainted with the simple but important obligations of her art, yet fails repeatedly to appear on the set on time.

The Judy of today, in the opinion of all who know her, is ill -- and has come to a crisis in her life.

Yet Judy is only 27 years old. She has the resiliency of youth still in her on which to draw in bouncing back to her old, vital self. That is why there is hope mingled with the tears.

Those who make excuses for Judy, and sometimes even condone her erratic viewpoint on her relationship with her friends, her associates and her studio, often speak of the tender age at which she began her professional life.

It is perfectly true that, at 27, she has already had a career -- complete with both hard luck and good. Hedda Hopper, a close friend of Judy's ever since she came to Hollywood, often points out that at the age when other girls were graduating from grammar school, Judy was already caught in the throes of a competitive acting life on the screen and suffering sleepless nights worrying whether she'd get the parts she wanted -- and whether she could handle them if she did.

But a good deal of the confidence that her friends still have in her is based partly on the hope that Judy will not accept this as an excuse for herself -- even if others do. They have in mind that Judy can still achieve adult happiness even if she spent childhood and youth before the public. A few of these friends received a pointed illustration of this one evening, not so long ago, when they attended a special revival showing of Sam Goldwyn's Hurricane in Beverly Hills. They were standing in the lobby of the theater when they noticed Judy entering, her face pale, her manner subdued, and looking neither to right or left.

"Hello, Miss Garland," said a man standing just a few feet away from her. Judy nodded, but her eyes failed to light with any sign of recognition. She vanished quickly through an aisle entrance. There were other people in the lobby and a momentary feeling of depression seemed to touch them all. The old Judy would have winked and sparkled to find herself among people she knew. She would have left those behind her smiling and aglow with just the fleeting sight of her. And, surprisingly, that very effect was created in the same lobby hardly three minutes later when another girl entered.

This second girl, exactly Judy's age, came running in on a burst of happiness followed by her husband. She, too, knew people in the lobby and it developed that she was running because she thought she was late for the picture, and that she was happy because she had just found a wonderful baby-sitter and felt she could get out for a night without any worries on her mind. Along with this breathless explanation went merry sallies, quick reports of her baby, and greetings to every familiar face. Then, with her husband having to tug her away, she marched laughingly into the auditorium.

The contrast between the two girls was startling for more reasons than the fact that they were of the same age. It happens, as everyone present very well knew, that they also were stars together at one time. Both had started their professional careers as tots, both had worked their way to the top. But here their paths had split... without seeming to. The second girl had turned to marriage and motherhood, finding so much satisfaction in it that, without giving it a second thought, she has practically abandoned her career. Judy? Judy still has her career, as well as a husband and a child. Yet her life has arrived at a point characterized mainly by her discontentment with it.

This was not the dream that Judy had in her 'teens, which those who knew her then very well recall, and which particularly saddens them. For years she always kept her grandmother's wedding gown in the bottom drawer of her bureau. She planned to be married in it. But when she eloped with Dave Rose on a July night in 1941 the wedding gown lay in the drawer forgotten. Nor did she wear it when she married Vincente four years later after the divorce from Dave. Impulse had outspeeded plan... and Judy has long been a creature of impulse.

Impulse, of course, is often very much the outstanding trait of an artist. When Judy wanted to learn to play the piano she wouldn't take time to study music. She placed her fingers on the keys and made such music as she could -- made better music as she went along. When she wanted to sing she opened her mouth and sang. If her voice wasn't trained, her heart was full of melody and more than made up for any technical shortcomings. When it came time to embrace life for the lasting happiness that is possible in it, Judy didn't stop to plan. She just leaped -- more or less blindly, her friends feel.

And now?

For a few nights after her suspension, Judy was not seen anywhere around town. Then, on the opening night of a new attraction at the Mocambo, she attended with her personal manager, Carlton Alsop. She was draped in a white, flowing, Grecian gown, had her hair combed back severely, and wore no wedding ring.

Hollywood eyes are observant. Judy must have realized she was being studied closely by most of those present. But no sign of this was forthcoming from her. She danced, laughed at Carlton's quips, seemed to be having a most enjoyable time.

"A wonderful kid," commented an actor seated nearby. "Whatever her studio situation, whatever her trouble, she's out there smiling. That takes a great heart -- and she sure has one.

"You think she'll come through?" asked his companions.

"I'm praying for her," he answered.

The other nodded, as if to say, "Aren't we all?"

Judy Garland Database ©1995-2007 Jim Johnson - see copyright statement