Horror, Sci-Fi & some...Soundtrack: Judy Garland ~ The Best Of Judy Garland

lunedì 1 dicembre 2014

Judy Garland ~ The Best Of Judy Garland

Judy Garland (born Frances Ethel Gumm June 10, 1922 ~ June 22, 1969) was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years, Garland attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage. Respected for her versatility, she received a Juvenile Academy Award, won a Golden Globe Award, received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for her work in films, as well as Grammy Awards and a Tony Award. She had a contralto singing range.

She was born Frances Ethel Gumm on 10 June 1922 in Minnesota, the youngest daughter of vaudevillians Frank and Ethel Gumm. Her mother, an ambitious woman gifted in playing various musical instruments, saw the potential in her daughter at the tender age of just 2-years-old when Baby Frances repeatedly sang "Jingle Bells" until she was dragged from the stage kicking and screaming during one of their Christmas shows and immediately drafted her into a dance act, entitled "The Gumm Sisters", along with her older sisters Mary Jane Gumm and Virginia Gumm. However, knowing that her youngest daughter would eventually become the biggest star, Ethel soon took Frances out of the act and together they traveled across America where she would perform in nightclubs, cabarets, hotels and theaters solo.

After appearing in vaudeville with her sisters, Garland was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a teenager. There she made more than two dozen films, including nine with Mickey Rooney, and the film with which she would be most identified, The Wizard of Oz (1939).

After 15 years, Garland was released from the studio but gained renewed success through record-breaking concert appearances, including a critically acclaimed Carnegie Hall concert, a well-regarded but short-lived television series and a return to film acting beginning with A Star Is Born (1954).

Death

She died on June 22, 1969, Garland was found dead by Deans in the bathroom of their rented Chelsea, London house. Garland died of an accidental drug overdose at the age of forty-seven, leaving children Liza Minnelli, Lorna Luft and Joey Luft.

In 1997, Garland was posthumously awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and several of her recordings have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In 1999, the American Film Institute placed her among the ten greatest female stars in the history of American cinema !!!