She was only 47 when she died.
But years of alcohol and drug abuse aged her quickly.
https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-83b9e7b683a9038be3d1f542142f3e45
As wise sage Dr. Henry Jones once said: "it's not the years honey, it's the mileage"
MovieChat Forums > Judy Garland Discussion > She was only 47 when she died.
Like Edith Piaf, she was an old woman by her mid-forties.
You still see that, with people who've lived hard lives and who don't have access to good medical care. They're old, frail, and chronically ill by fifty, if they get that far.
good medical care
Yeah, stay away from doctors and their "medications." share
My comment about people unable to get medical care was meant to be general, I've met a huge variety of people through my work, and am able to see the difference between people who have access to medical care, and the poor who don't have adequate access. FYI the poor are far more likely to be chronically ill, disabled, old before their time, or dead before their time, often from preventable causes.
Of course I can't comment on personal experience with superstar entertainers who go to their Doctor Feelgood instead of getting good medical care, but it sure seems like they age even faster than the rock-bottom poor!
Being "poor" has zero to do with one's health. The more a person -- rich, poor or anywhere in between -- stays away from physicians and their "medications" & expensive (unnecessary) surgeries the healthier they'll be, assuming they're not committing slow self-destruction via smoking, over-indulgence in drugs/alcohol, overworking, sexual promiscuity, perversion and so on. Judy Garland, who died at the too-young age of 47 due to slavery to "meds," is Exhibit A.
shareUtter bullshit from beginning to end, the opinion of a sheltered fool who's seen nothing of real life or real people, but who forms his opinions based on social media and youtube idiocy!
Don't bother to reply. I'm not in a mood to feed trolls anything today.
One of the nuggets of truth -- do Google it, if you don't believe me -- to come out of this latest pandemic was that 250,000 people die each year from malpractice. Those of us who have been on the receiving end of malpractice were not the least bit surprised!
shareWow, Otter, you're usually a pleasant fellow. Something I said must have triggered you. Do you work for the "health industry"? Or perhaps you're involved in some of those self-destructive activities noted? I encourage you see things beyond societal brainwashing, e.g. " You need this pill (or surgery) to be healthy." (What a crock).
a sheltered fool who's seen nothing of real life or real people
Like you know anything about my life (rolling my eyes).
Also, what exactly is the implication? If I know people involved in foolish, self-destructive activities (Who doesn't?) I'll be enlightened by "real life" and "real people" and convinced to join in with their ignorant folly or, at least, condone it? Yup, that's logical.
I am just as real of a person as these people; and my life is just as real. share
"zero?" Seriously? So wealth doesn't provide you access to healthier food, a larger variety of exercise, and medical care?
What a stupid comment
It depends. "Knowledge is power" (and I mean true knowledge, not a lot of what is passed for knowledge today at universities). If you know how to produce food from nature, as opposed to the processed, polluted crap sold in stores then, yes, you'll eat healthier. Eating simple is healthier and inexpensive. When you shop for food items, choose accordingly. It's not rocket science.
As far as productive exercise goes, all you need is you, yourself and a small room; the outdoors is even better. Did you ever hear of stretching, calisthenics, hiking, jogging, swimming, dynamic tension, tai chi, etc.?
In regards to medical care, if you stay away from high-risk activities (like daredevil stunts) you shouldn't even have to see a doctor. I don't.
Besides, Doctors tend to push unnecessary surgeries and medications (drugs) because healthcare — when it comes down to it — is a business, which needs patients to exist. For instance, doctors are often linked to Big Pharma and so they rashly prescribe some medication (drug) for the patient’s ailment, which of course costs time & money. Then there’s often a side-effect to the medication (drug) and you have to take another drug to treat it. On-and-on it goes. Some people are on myriad “medications” -- my neighbor is on 24, my wife's sister on 20 -- which is totally absurd. Personally, I refuse to be a guinea pig to support the extravagant lifestyles of medical professionals & the people of the institutions that back them, like Big Pharma.
Also, you’re more apt to get a staph infection — MRSA — at healthcare facilities, such as hospitals. A friend of mine visited a hospital for something routine in 2014 and got MRSA. It killed him.
Then there's the fact that physicians can botch the surgery. For instance, my mother went ‘under the knife’ for foot surgery and the doctor bungled the job. She had a malformed foot with an unresponsive big toe the rest of her life. More recently, a popular 18 year-old in my local area, a healthy star athlete, underwent minor surgery and never woke up from it. His funeral was attended by many of his fellow students and it was heartbreaking.
By the way, "zero to do with one's health" was obvious hyperbole, although not far from the truth concerning modern "medical care."
I agree knowledge is power. I understand where you are coming from. If you have the drive and you have the intelligence the world is your oyster. However, your financial situation is almost directly correlated with where you live and what you have access to.
I know people on moviechat don't like talking about systemic anything, but truly if you are raised in a ghetto or backwoods area what are your chances of rising above your situation. It's not very common.
You might not want to feed the troll. Up to you, of course, I can't claim I've never done it myself.
shareIf I can get my point across quickly and succinctly I don't mind typing it out. Thanks for the tip though. Whenever I find myself typing or thinking for too long a period of time over something on moviechat I just walk away.
shareI do the same, just walk away sometimes, it doesn't do to take conversations here too seriously!
I really wish she had a happier ending. It's not fair.
share
Her body, her choices.
Miss Garland did make some truly bad choices regarding drinking and pill taking.
But sometimes I wonder if her health would have been better (and her life longer) if she hadn't been blessed with her incredible singing voice.
I mean, the studio set her on the long, tragic road to addiction by drugging her up in her formative years. It was pills to lose weight, pills to keep her working long hours, pills to help her sleep, etc.
I've read that other young stars at the time, like Mickey Rooney, were also given a lot of pills. But unfortunately at that time, addiction and how some people are more prone to addiction was not well known or understood.
I don't disagree, but sometimes we have to follow our moral compasses.
This phenomenon of celebrity self destruction wasn't something that was limited to the early years of entertainment. Today's news is rife with celebrities pissing away everything and learning nothing from the likes of Judy Garland. Today's NY Post has a couple of pages on Johnny Depp's metric crapload of issues, all self inflicted.
I know several people who were not celebrities, yet made the same mistakes. One guy in my professional circle showed his colors when he drunkenly hissed at me that I was "lucky" in my life. I grabbed his collar and told him I never cheated on my wife, took a mistress that drove my wife to divorce me, drunk myself until I passed out on my front lawn pissing myself, or spent money on booze, broads and gambling. He knew I meant him. I also read to my kids, attended every sporting event (even soccer...), and gave them strong moral guidance both by word and by example.
But I digress I suppose. The point is that, risking coming off as a pompous jackass, I tend to reserve my pity for people whose misery was not of their own choosing. It could be bad "luck" of strange circumstance, poor genetics, or other things beyond their reasonable control.
Almost certainly, had many of these short lived celebrities not been uniquely talented, they might have lived a "normal" life and not burned themselves out so soon.
strntz- Yes, I agree that many people self destruct because of their own bad choices.
With Judy Garland, I just think she was inadvertently led onto that path when she was very young. Some people have addiction prone personalities and no one in Judy's life seemed to be willing to take a "tough love" stance with her.
I don't think it's pompous to reserve your pity for those "whose misery was not of their own choosing."
I can think of any number of celebrity offspring or others who grew up in the lap of luxury and still screw up their lives. They have every advantage, opportunity, wealth and privilege, yet it's not enough. They end up addicts. Just how MUCH ease do some people need?
I too read to my son and spent a lot of time with him. Thank goodness he wasn't into sports though. I don't know how I would've dealt with attending soccer games!
"even soccer"
shareMickey Roomey turned out to be a mess too, but a more functional mess than Garland. He lived to a bitter and dysfunctional old age, at least, in spite of nine divorces he managed to keep working and maintain his physical health decades after Judy was in her grave. And Deanna Durbin turned out perfectly fine, coming from the same sort of background.
Some people can overcome terrible backgrounds, I've done it myself to some extent. But if you mess with young people's heads and deprive them of family support and give them dangerous and addictive drugs at a young age, well, some might be okay, but you're definitely going to lose a few.
Otter- from what I have read about drug use, it is so much worse when people start very young. Teen-age brains are not fully formed yet. Drugs and alcohol have a greater impact on them.
It doesn't seem like Judy Garland's family looked out for her best interests. She was making money and later, she made money for some of her husbands. And even though she made it, no one taught her how to save it or invest it. According to Liza Minnelli, they were often on the move to avoid bill collectors.
So sad that Judy Garland never really grew up.
Yeah, Garland was a mess even by the standards of former child stars, and it's impossible to say how much of the blame lay with her family or Satan's minions at the studio, and how much with Garland herself. Because yeah, at some point, no matter how incredibly fucking awful your childhood was or what kind of physical or mental illnesses you have to deal with, you're an adult and you are responsible for the choices you make. Like, when you have children of your own.
So yeah, a few child stars of that era were okay, Deanna Durbin dealt with a lot of the same issues that Garland did and I'll bet she was given a few "diet pills" in her day as she was a big girl, but she was okay in the end. So was Shirley Temple, and so was Roddy McDowell, who started as a child actor in the thirties and who had a long and happy career in Hollywood. Most turned out somewhere between the Garland end of the spectrum and the Durbin, they had to devote a chunk of their adulthood to overcoming issues that started in childhood (including addiction in many cases), but they were basically sane and functional, even if some were Rooney-style messes.
That's the thing with abusing children by abetting evil stage parents and giving children dangerous drugs, it fucks most of them up for life, sometimes to the point of being too dysfunctional to survive.
I don't think it was her choice really. I think it was something she was pushed in to at a very young age and couldn't escape from. I know some people who grow up like this seem to emerge as normal people (whatever that means?) but many don't.
shareThat's unfortunate.
shareYup. She was absolutely gorgeous when she was in her 20's. So was Shirley Temple.
shareThe pressure on her as a star was certainly intense, but ultimately the responsibility for the pills and booze was hers. Hundreds of people passed through the MGM regimen from the 1920s through the 1950s (as well as at all the other studios). Many of them thrived, and a lot of them did alright and had relatively normal lives afterward. Few of them ended up as f'ed up as Garland was by her forties. She must have had an underlying mental condition that caused her to cave in under the stress and self-destruct.
shareI read her ex husbands tried to help her in some ways. Addiction is something. You are right, many stars did get help and hung on.
shareTrue, but not her fault. This poor lady was a hopeless drug addict before she reached 20 years of age. And she had nothing to do with it. She was being propped up with stuff by the studio to keep her going (plus keep her weight down) - and then, because she was so amped up, she was propped down when the days work was done. It's not her fault because she was just a baby when this started. She had no idea what was going on - just following what adults told her to do. As is completely understandable, she got hooked. And unfortunately, died young of an overdose.
shareYes, she was a child, but so were her child star peers, and all of them (or most of them) took the same drugs Judy did without getting addicted. Some of those who did develop dependencies on drugs managed to overcome their addictions.
Also, according to some sources, MGM did give her opportunities to address her problems. Hiring psychologists to counsel her (she later claimed she never told them the truth), and sending her for hospitalizations when she was ill. One can say Metro didn't do enough, but I can't think of another studio that did as much to help a troubled star address his/her issues as MGM did with Judy.
I didn't know MGM ever tried to help her out - that's news to me. Are you sure about that? And yes, you're right, she was one of many. But, unfortunately for her, she wasn't strong enough to overcome her addiction. She ended up doing stuff for the rest of her life - not to mention she died of an overdose. However, I don't blame her for getting started on drugs. If not for MGM - she wouldn't have gotten hooked.
shareYes, I'm sure that MGM hired psychologists to help her, and she was sent by the studio for "rest cures"/treatment a few times. The one I recall is her being sent to Peter Brent Brigham Hospital in Boston after her firing from ANNIE GET YOUR GUN. There's an interview with Dore Schary, who took over running MGM after L.B. Mayer was forced out that MGM offered to pay Judy's salary for a year while she addressed her issues, but she declined the offer, possibly because they insisted that her treatment include electroshock therapy.
Composer Harry Warren, who the songs for THE HARVEY GIRLS and SUMMER STOCK later said that Judy was treated better at MGM than she was anywhere else. At Warners she would have been through long before.
Well, I haven't studied this subject (MGM's help of Judy) - so I can't dispute anything you say. If in fact what you say is true - my first thought is I'm surprised. I'm surprised MGM would even bother. But assuming they did, my next thought is - it was too late. You know its true, at some point you have to say "Well its on her, she was an adult". That is true, but I still blame MGM. YOu're pumping dope into a little girl that doesn't have a clue. Her brain isn't even fully formed yet. Maybe Judy would have been screwed up even without the drugs - but, she ended up a hopeless drug addict because it was pushed into her before she had any idea of what was happening. The odds are, if she ended up being, say a teacher, she may have still had a screwed up life, but she wouldn't have died of a drug overdose.
shareGone too soon
share