“Hollywood is a strange place if you’re in trouble. Everybody thinks it’s contagious.”
Forever an icon for her turn as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, Judy Garland was born into a vaudeville family, and performed in a trio with her two older sisters until she was a teenager. She was signed by MGM at age thirteen and soon paired up with Mickey Rooney, with whom she’d star in an eventual eight pictures (most notably 1938’s Love Finds Andy Hardy). She was cast as Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz (1939) when Twentieth Century–Fox refused to loan out MGM’s first choice, Shirley Temple. The part helped earn Garland a special Academy Award for Performance by a Juvenile and transformed her into a major star of such films as For Me and My Gal (1942), which featured the big-screen debut of Gene Kelly, and Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). Overwhelming insecurities about her appearance led Garland to a nervous breakdown and suicide attempt in 1947. She came back with a record-breaking Broadway show in 1951, then returned to Hollywood for an Oscar-nominated performance in A Star Is Born (1954). There were a few more films in the years that followed, and a final Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), but increasingly Garland turned her attention to television specials and live shows in London, Las Vegas, and New York.
JUDY GARLAND WAS BOX-OFFICE GOLD. She had to be. When Dore Schary took over as head of production at MGM in July 1948, the studio was coming off its worst year since the Depression: just $4.2 million in profits, buoyed only by a still-strong musical division and its top star, Judy Garland. She was a valuable asset, Schary knew, but also a major headache, troubled and self-destructive. He got his first real taste of what to expect early in his tenure, when word leaked of her drunken tryst with another MGM talent, Mario Lanza.
Lanza had signed with MGM the previous year, after Louis B. Mayer had seen him perform at the Hollywood Bowl. Lanza had yet to release a picture with the studio—his first, That Midnight Kiss, wouldn’t come out until 1949—but that didn’t stop him from taking full advantage of all the benefits his new Hollywood status granted. Specifically, Lanza was bedding every woman in sight, with little regard for privacy. Sometimes he didn’t even bother shutting the door to his dressing room, boasting that anyone fortunate enough to catch him in the act couldn’t help but learn a thing or two. (Oh, and he was married.)
Whereas Lanza was flush with the promise of impending success, Garland was falling apart from the pressures of actually having achieved it. She’d just returned from a suspension for excessive absences during production of The Barkleys of Broadway. She’d self-medicate with booze and pills every morning, and even though she and Lanza weren’t working on a film together, the math of their tryst was simple: fragile starlet + confident womanizer + excessive alcohol = trouble. It started on the lot, though at least it didn’t move into his dressing room. Instead, they found a driver to chauffeur them into the Hollywood Hills, where they proceeded to get acquainted in the backseat.
Even though she and Lanza weren’t working on a film together, the math of their tryst was simple: fragile starlet + confident womanizer + excessive alcohol = trouble.
Schary was livid when he heard the news, but again, Garland was gold, something MGM was desperate for. But the question soon became, how desperate? Garland’s next project was supposed to be Annie Get Your Gun, yet once again she was suspended due to excessive absences. Then the same thing happened a year later, during the production of Royal Wedding. MGM ended its affiliation with Garland for good in 1950. Lanza didn’t last much longer: MGM fired him for insubordination despite the fact that his picture, The Great Caruso, was the top-grossing film of 1951.
Unfortunately, for this and too many other transgressions to enumerate, Garland had gone from box office gold to perhaps tarnished silver.
JUDY GARLAND’S FAVORITE drink was vodka and grapefruit juice, what is essentially a Greyhound. It’s not just a perfect eye-opener; when on tour her assistant kept two thermoses at the ready—one filled with pre-mixed vodka and grapefruit juice, the other with ice. Garland even kept a thermos on hand while working on A Star Is Born, drinking right up through the film’s premiere. For that occasion, she had her dress designer fashion a hand muff large enough to hide a bottle.
FORMER TALENT AGENT Charlie Morrison had no training in the nightclub arts when he created Mocambo, the legendary club that opened on January 3, 1941. Leave it to an agent to think that experience wouldn’t matter—and get away with it. Well, sort of. He did have a partner, entrepreneur Felix Young, but for the next eleven years, Morrison was the face of the hottest spot on the Strip. Mocambo guests walked into a setting once described as a mix of “Imperial Rome, Salvador Dalí, and a birdcage.” It was one of the most striking nightclubs in town. Strikingly awful, that is.
Morrison had hired costume design icon Tony Duquette to create the club’s interior. Armed with around a hundred grand ($1.5 million today), Duquette set out to fashion something unique and modern. This eventually translated into a Latin American–inspired main room, walls adorned with paintings by Jane Berlandina, and a large aviary containing twenty-one parakeets, four macaws, and a cockatoo.
The aviary actually delayed Mocambo’s opening, originally slated for New Year’s Eve 1941. Animal-rights advocates wanted assurance that the birds wouldn’t be harmed by exposure to the excessive noise. Sadly, those advocates (clearly not candidates for the Audubon society) stood down after Morrison observed that the birds were actually “enjoying themselves.” Also, the owner promised to close the drapes during the day so they could get more sleep.
Featuring big band music, Mocambo quickly became the town’s premiere place to dance until you dropped. Ella Fitzgerald, Perry Como, Edith Piaf, Liberace—virtually every headliner around graced its stage. Lana Turner one night dropped $40,000 on a birthday party, while Myrna Loy and Arthur Hornblow went there to celebrate their divorce. When Charlie Morrison died in 1957, leaving his wife with no money, his friend Frank Sinatra had his solo debut there and sang for the next two weeks in an effort to pay for the funeral. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz thought so highly of the place they modeled the Tropicana club in I Love Lucy after it.
Nothing quite like the Desilu stamp of approval.
