Judy Garland is iconic – and now Renee Zellweger has taken the star on in her latest film Judy. Judy follows a five-week stint of Judy’s where she performed in London. But is the film based in truth, or is it all a work of fiction?
How much of Judy Garland biopic is real?
Warning: This article contains spoilers from Judy.
Judy primarily takes place in 1968, during a five week stint where Garland (Renee Zellweger) performed at Talk of the Town nightclub in London.
Garland is first confronted with the knowledge that she can not afford to live in her hotel suite with her two children, and is therefore forced to take the gigs in London to pay her debts and secure a future with her children.
On her arrival, Judy is immediately unsettled and turns to pills and alcohol as a way to make herself feel better, and also suffers from horrendous stage fright before going on.
Renee Zellweger as Judy Garland in Judy (Image: Pathe)
Her stage manager, Rosalyn (Jessie Buckley) is forced to babysit her and help her through various bouts of depression, addiction and even the loud, excited times.
The audience is also introduced to the child Judy, a young girl bullied about her weight, fed pills by studio executives and even groped by a threatening older man (studio head Louis B Mayer, something Judy spoke about in an unpublished memoir.)
She is also met by her boyfriend, Mickey Deans, to whom she gets married in London as he promises to help solve her financial problems and get her back to LA with her children.
Eventually, after several problems which occur during the run, she is eventually replaced with ’60s heartthrob Lonnie Donegan.
A postscript reveals that she passed away just six months after her final London show.
Well, naturally, Hollywood took liberties with some aspects of the narrative, which is based on stage play End of the Rainbow.
First off, let’s talk about the money.
According to book Rainbow’s End: The Judy Garland Show, Judy’s former agents Freddie Fields and David Begelman embezzled a great deal of her earnings in later life, meaning she owed around $500,000 to the IRS.
In the film, Judy also suggests her third husband Sid (Rufus Sewell) gambled away her money, which were certainly allegations she made during her lifetime.
Judy’s children, Lorna and Joey Luft, and Liza Minnelli, have all spoken out about how loving she was for her kids, so the likelihood is she was desperate to give them a good home.
Judy Garland performing on stage at Talk of the Town (Image: Getty)
Garland absolutely did perform at Talk of the Town nightclub in London, which is now The Hippodrome, but rather than bowing out early to Lonnie Donegan, Judy performed all five weeks of her engagement.
Her stage fright was also real, according to stage manager Rosalyn Wilder (who is also real), she had to force her on stage.
Wilder said: “I said, ‘Look, I’m here and if you get nervous just walk off and I’m here’…
“‘If you feel nervous and you feel you can’t go on then just come off…
“’Just walk off, I’ll give you a couple of the pills and you can go back on again’.
Judy Garland in one of her final London performances (Image: Getty)
“She didn’t think she could do that so I said, ‘Well, just let’s wait here a couple of minutes because if you think about it, I think you probably can do it’.
“I think it was the thought of going on that fazed her. Once she made that leap, she was ok.
“But that was what she needed. She didn’t need people goading her.
“She didn’t need people being unkind to her.
“And being unkind to her was just feeding her drink and pills indiscriminately.”
The real Rosalyn Wilder at the premiere of Judy (Image: Getty)
Wilder has said she did have to support Judy through a lot of tough times, and it seems the run was not quite the massive success the film suggests, as Garland was pelted with food when things went bad.
According to Wilder, she did sometimes arrive late, but there were others where she just did not show up at all, or was so late that the audience lost their cool with her.
Wilder added: “A lot of people threw things most nights. She was late and erratic.”
The film also paints her final husband, Mickey Deans (Finn Wittrock), as a far more sympathetic soul, as well as Sid, despite showing one moment of frustration and violence between Mickey and Judy.
But according to Wilder, he was “dreadful” and even said he was the most “unsuitable” person for her ever.
Garland also claimed that Sid Luft beat her, as well as gambled, so there is far less to be sympathetic about if her claims are correct.
The timeline of her meeting Mickey is also slightly confused, as she did not divorce her fourth husband (Mark Herron, who is not included in the film at all) until February 1969, marrying Mickey in March, just three months before her death in June.
However, her concert series took place in the five weeks after Christmas in 1968, so their wedding would have taken place after her performances.
This is also slightly after when the movie sets her tour dates, which they place as the five weeks leading up to Christmas.
During her performances, the movie shows a tragic moment where Judy sings through tears, aided by her audience members, namely gay fans who become her “allies.”
The Observer reviewer Tony Palmer said: “She sits cross-legged, lit by a single spotlight, alone in a great emptiness.
“No more gimmicks, no more show. Just a small girl who has been put down but who refuses to give in.
Judy Garland with her three children and ex Sid Luft (Image: Getty)
“Her voice cracks a little, sighs a little. No more smiles, no more noise.
“It’s pathetic and lonely and dignified – and the audience carries on burping and gossiping: ‘You made me love you: I didn’t want to do it…,’ she sings.”
While the audience did nothing to save her in real life, clearly her emotions were present in her performance in such a way that it was almost painful to watch.
Finally, Judy’s sad childhood at the mercy of studio executives is shown in flashback form, which certainly pulls on the heartstrings as a young girl is forced to pop pills and lose weight.
Judy has spoken out about this in various interviews and in her unpublished memoir, where she also claimed studio boss Louis B Mayer groped her.
Judy with her children in the film, Judy (Image: Pathe)
According to a biography about her regular child co-star, Mickey Rooney, Judy said: “They had us working days and nights on end.
“They’d give us pills to keep us on our feet long after we were exhausted.
“Then they’d take us to the studio hospital and knock us out with sleeping pills – Mickey sprawled out on one bed and me on another.
“Then after four hours they’d wake us up and give us the pep pills again so we could work 72 hours in a row.”
She was also bullied about her looks and had her public persona curated through a series of publicity shoots, which Judy has also spoken about extensively.
Judy is in cinemas from October 4
