At 17, she starred in her breakout role as Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz. According to Gerald Clarke, author of Garland biography Get Happy, Ethel would give her daughters pills in the morning and at night, saying “I’ve got to get those girls going!” Eventually, after her older sisters both married, Garland was signed by studio giant MGM as a teenager on a seven-year contract. It was Garland’s mother who first introduced her to drugs. After the family settled in California, Ethel Gumm began to promote her daughters as a performing trio, known as The Gumm Sisters. When Garland was four, the family moved to California following rumours that her father, a closeted bisexual, had made sexual advances towards young men. In 1922, Garland was born Frances Ethel Gumm – named after her parents Frank and Ethel – in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. Analysing her story, from upbringing to death, helps us understand how and why some gay men look to famous women to help them navigate the world. In fact, her life story is practically a blueprint for our modern understanding of what makes a gay icon. Queer film historian Jack Babuscio defines camp as “irony, aestheticism, theatricality and humour” – four pillars that form the foundation of Garland’s public persona. The camp that Bengry mentions is significant to Garland’s gay icon status.
But it's also important to recognise that they aren't the totality of gay men.” “It seems to be a significant category of gay men, in particular, who are invested in celebrities or the camp aesthetic that Garland embodies. “It’s important to ask: for whom is Judy Garland resonant, important and iconic?” he tells BBC Culture. And so does Garland.” However queer historian Dr Justin Bengry warns against generalising in this way. They are a persecuted group and they understand suffering. A 1969 review of her Palace Theatre show in Esquire Magazine reads: “Homosexuals tend to identify with suffering. But why? While Garland was still alive, critics made ham-fisted attempts to answer this question. To many gay men, Garland is the mother of all icons. Two years earlier, Garland herself had been asked if at a San Francisco press conference if she minded having such a large gay following, to which she responded: “I couldn’t care less.
Gay magazine The Advocate once called her the “Elvis of homosexuals”, and in a 1967 review of Garland's concert at New York City’s Palace Theatre, Time Magazine observed that a “disproportionate part of her nightly claque” was gay. Ross is far from the only gay man to feel such strong affinity with Garland’s work and life. “Because I want to be able to speak with authority about her and understand her, because she deserves that.” “I want to know as much as I can about her,” he explains. He began watching her films, listening to her music and learning about her life. “The pain in her voice, knowing what was to come soon after, you can hear it all.” Having seen The Wizard of Oz as a child, Ross was further drawn towards Judy Garland in his late teens, around the same time he came out as gay. “I cry every time I listen to that recording,” he says. The rainbow is gone.”įifty years on, Garland superfan Ross Semple, 27, still listens to that Copenhagen concert religiously. One of the headlines would read: “Judy’s voice stilled. Four months later, 47 year-old Garland was found dead in Chelsea, London, after accidentally overdosing on the drugs she had self-medicated with since childhood. As she reached the crescendo of Over the Rainbow – the song which made her a global star aged just 17 – it was unknown to the audience that they were watching her final live performance. On 25 March, 1969, Judy Garland took to the stage at the Falkoner Center in Copenhagen.
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