I live in one of Judy Garland's houses. As a fan, I never much liked Judy Garland, but living here, I feel like I have come to know her. People have given me a few of her possessions, and my neighbors have told me things that I wish I didn't know.
I have a degree in cinema studies and the big paper I wrote at the end of that was about Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli. So I thought that I knew quite a bit about Judy Garland, but I read in passing that the Stonewall riots were a reaction to her death and I had never really read enough to know what that meant or how that could be true. I was interested in that I knew so much about Judy Garland, but I really didn't know this story.
When we went to Judy Davis and said, 'We want you to play Judy Garland in the mini-series 'Life With Judy Garland,' she was shocked, but we just had an instinct about her.
I knew the full 'Judy Garland Carnegie Hall' double album set at age 2. And then my mother wondered why I was gay. I was like, 'Are you nuts? You would make me get on the table to sing Judy Garland songs and you're upset?'
I knew the full 'Judy Garland Carnegie Hall' double album set at age 2. And then my mother wondered why I was gay. I was like, 'Are you nuts? You would make me get on the table to sing Judy Garland songs and you're upset?
I used to listen to Judy Garland all the time - I love Judy Garland and her music. But I started to realize that if you keep singing like that, singing songs of being victimized by love over and over and over again, it can't help but have a profound effect on your life.
Judy Garland is a singer with a capital S. And talk about soul. This woman was soul personified. Judy Garland is a class by herself.
I made all these great musicals with Judy Garland. It was all about me going into a barn and saying: 'Let's put on a show.' That's what me and Judy did.
I know a lot about Judy Garland. She was born in 1922, and I think she died in '69. When I was little, like, when I was 8, I knew all of her husbands' names.
As a newcomer, you know, you don't come out the gate as a singer and try to compare with Judy Garland.
I believe that Judy Garland's artistry was so fine. I mean, when people say: 'oh, she brought so much of her life to her music', I don't really believe that. I believe that she didn't have to. She just was a moving human being. That was her gift.
People are always asking me what it's like to be Judy Garland's daughter. It's hard to be a legend's child.
Judy Garland was the singer I most wanted to sound like then, not to copy, but to get some of her soul and purity. A wonderful young voice.
It was like Mama suddenly realized I was good, that she didn't have to apologize for me. It was the strangest feeling. One minute I was on stage with my mother, the next moment I was on stage with Judy Garland. One minute she smiled at me, and the next minute she was like the lioness that owned the stage and suddenly found somebody invading her territory. The killer instinct of a performer had come out in her.
I loved 'The Wizard of Oz,' and I'm a huge Judy Garland fan, too.
Every day, my mom and I would watch a different Judy Garland VHS. I love how she tells a story when she sings. It was just about her voice and the words she was singing - no strings attached or silly hair or costumes, just a woman singing her heart out. I feel like that doesn't happen that much anymore.
See, I never wrote arrangements for the band for Judy Garland; I did strictly special material, special lyrics, put together all of her medleys.