Ronald Neame on Working with Judy Garland 

She was simply wonderful and magical but so, so troubled.

@JaneKirk. That was a lovely story, thank you for sharing.

the lady is JUDY GARLAND.

I have a letter from Ronnie !!!!

I've seen a clip of Mayor John Collins giving her an emotional introduction that evening....

It wasn't actually her last film. That was Valley of the Dolls (1967)...she STARTED work on that one but they ended up having to fire her.

A REVELATION IN 1963????

@@melisagalvalizi6982 Sorry you didn't appreciate my heartfelt comments on this poignant interview with Ronald Neame. I was hoping your comment was in agreement.

It actually made my eyes quite misty! What a wonderful man speaking about a very wonderful and talented woman! Thank you for posting!

Who are You to judge??

Whitney Houston is close second.

Joe Guzman aka Joey Josephs Nailed it. They didn’t recognize the ups and downs. Add the pills and alcohol and it’s a wonder she ever was able to do anything. It’s insane that no one did an intervention and got everyone on board to get her the true help she needed.

she was? do you have proof of that?

Where do you have diagnosed documentation that states that dr?

@@normadesmond6017 hes a professional RU-vid dr! Come on. Are you kidding me questioning his profess diagnosis? 🤣😂

len farmer Judy, of course, was in films with Fanny Brice, although they didn't act together in Ziegfeld Follies.

I remember reading that, as well!

Shame Bogarde was so honest about himself in his biographies.

@@glenconmc Meaning what exactly?

@John Lyttle Meaning, he didn't mind 'airing other people's dirty laundry in public' but never spoke about himself as being gay.

+Randall Henderson Her health had been in decline after being hospitalized for liver failure. I believe that was 1958. The doctor gave her 5 years at the most. She lived 11 years after that incident.

She committed the slowest suicide in show biz, and she revelled in it. Idiotic woman that she was.

It was 1959. She lived 10 years afterwards.

Coroner's findings often err on the side of generosity for the sake of the relatives whenever there is even some slight room for doubt. Perhaps more so in the case of a celebrity. There are countless cases where everyone really knows it was suicide, but the coroner's report will say "accidental overdose" or similar, more out of kindness than anything. This is certainly the case with Garland, who had attempted suicide so often that there couldn't really be any doubt.

Yes, it is making reference to Durante!

@@dawnevans4518 When ?????

Mickey was heavily into party drugs - & an alcoholic. All wrong for Judy who was in a vulnerable state over her children's separation & declining health. Sid was a commanding man who knew how to handle the person & the problems as well as the business.

TO CALL HER A MESS IS DISRESPECTFUL AND SIMPLISTIC. try and be more empathic, her childhood was VERY difficult and she had a mental ILLNESS.

@@jeh500 SID LUFT WAS A GAMBLER WHO STOLE FROM HER.

That was Mary Astor ,not Judy Garland.

And Barbara Stanwyck

Why would they called her Judy Garland Ronnie? Thats odd.

@@thomasbarrientos6234 he’s hallucinating. Lol.

@@thomasbarrientos6234 Mary. Omg. She’s another glorious force.

Marty C I’ve been in that situation before. Its a tough place to be, but if you can be professional and work through it, things usually work out.

I totally agree. She seems to have never have quite gotten over her traumatic childhood and love hate familial relationship with Hollywood. She literally grew up on set pumped to the gills on uppers like speed which her mother, the studio bosses were supplying to her, to keep her awake, to keep her skinny, and then downers to make her sleep. Not making excuses for her, but sometimes even the most professional powerhouses like Judy, and we must remember you can’t be unprofessional and have Fred Astaire call you the greatest entertainer that ever lived....even these giants are too crippled with depression to move. Her nervous system was just out of whack. Part of what made her sensational on stage, made her a mess in real life. I think it was Frank Sinatra that said, that Judy could do everything in the world except take care of herself. They just didn’t have the know how back in the day to understand these mental health issues. It’s just very very very sad, that she never quite learnt to respect her own gifts, she never truly got to heal. Trauma and unprocessed grief is blinding. It leaves us too numb to realize what’s really going on around us, without the right and consistent help.

Ash I understand your point completely. But throwing your fellow performers under the bus to a make a point by being this late does not cut it with me. Respect and promptness are huge in my book tough childhoid or not.

Childhood.

Marty C ... are you kidding me? This is Judy Garland who started to work when she was at least five years old, for pity's sake! She had no childhood so no one should even describe it as being tough. She had no childhood at all. She is the greatest entertainer to walk the earth, and I bet everyone who worked with her considers themselves lucky to have waited for Judy Garland to hit her mark.....

Chris N b

The writing was weak but Judy's performance was not nor was Bogarde's.

bog standard London / home counties. Not cockney, not posh just ordinary, for that time. It's evolved a bit since then, so only really people over 60 have this exact accent now - Cowell's accent is a bit more london than this but yeah - similar. I only hear the differences because I study accents and live in the area - they're subtle but they're there :)

Who gives af? No. Its not the same anyhow. This man is more refined and elegant in his speech

@@tashspeak3877 you study accents? 🤣😂 Phonetics and Sociolinguistics.

So typical of a drunk or a druggie....

Judy was a product of a business that never cared about her personally, just get her in front of the camera, or on the stage. No one with her kind or talent

@@StevenTorrey Sir, she has bipolar illness. Unfortunately, back then, such illness is not well researched.

June Allyson, Judy’s friend and colleague, explained what she saw as the root of Judy’s reticence. She said that Judy was afraid she wasn’t going to be perfect or up to the task of being perfect, so she would avoid it. Judy said in an interview that she was scared every single day the entire time she worked at MGM, that she would wake up afraid to go in. I firmly believe Judy was SA’d, dealing with much worse than LBM touching her chest and that’s what she resented her mother for the most - not protecting her from the abuse.

EXACTLY, IT'S EASY TO SAY SHE WANTED TO DIE WITHOUT EVEN UNDERSTANDING HER CHILDHOOD.

Exactly....she was just a little girl. What would she have known of uppers and downers? Such a shame what was done to her!!

IT'S CALLED MENTALLY ILL NOT WRECKS!!! BE RESPECTFUL

Sandy...no one cares.

Let's not quibble. Judy Garland spent decades killing herself.

Al Jolson, another supremacist J£w, inventor of the type of black face that mocks African Americans.

@@brunoantony3218 - I think you miss the mark on "blackface". Al Jolson used it to not mock but to glorify the black race and their cultural contributions, paving the way for acceptance and visibility. Imitation is the highest form of flattery. A negative connotation is generally brought in fact by the viewer, not the performer.

@@MrCrowebobby - How correct you are .. JUST as Kate Smith who's also now villafied! Shameful

Al Jolson being Jew should have known better and not do it. Jews are notorious racists against blacks in general.

How come blacks don't believe that rational. Jews are racists against blacks. Look it up.

And after Judy was fired from Valley of the Dolls, she kept the wardrobe they had designed for the movie. I think that's hysterical and good for her!!

Her drinking and pill popping had adverse health effects. She must have been warned about both; that she could do nothing about the drinking andthe pills--it was a slow suicide. Drinking alcohol interferes with metabolism, and processing nutrients and so what looks like it could be anorexia, was simply the drinking interfering with her processing nutrients. Very common condition in chronic alcoholics.

Heart medication is what she needed, and doctors gave her anything she wanted, including heroin in capsule form, and you are saying they refused her a pill that would have saved her life but she was able to get a hold of 200-400 methylphenidate tablets a day and at least 6 100 mg secobarbital capsules a day? She got anything she wanted, legally or illegally. Explain how your made up theory could make sense. I am a pharmacologist, so I would like to know which heart medication she was refused.

I am quoting Ronald Neame in his book and also refer to Lorna Luft`s comments in the film and her own book about inability to get prescriptive heart medication in Melbourne. How do you know they gave her what she wanted? According to Neame they refused to deal with her heart condition in London. Her agent has something to do with this. Nonetheless the London doctors let her drop dead.

I quote Neame from his autobiography re: Garland. The only one with guts enough (including her own kids) to tell the truth.

Sandra Shevey Sandra, you don't know much about addiction, do you? An addict (untreated) is defiant and willful and does exactly what he/she wants. Judy was a pill junkie and an alcoholic. She drank and drugged herself to death. The pictures of her at the end of her life are pathetic. She was scarecrow thin; old looking beyond her years. She isn't unique. Just because she was fabulously talented as a singer and actress doesn't mean she wasn't an addict. Sure, the studio doctors at MGM gave her speed to pump her up and keep her going through long grueling hours of rehearsals, but that was standard practice. Judy, being an addict, took the drugs and ran with them, whereas others would have left them in their proper place. Judy was ultimately a victim of herself, no one else. Any addict who wants to recover must take full responsibility for his/her actions. This is an axiom in all recovery communities. Get real, Sandra. Get educated and stop spouting drivel. The end.

the studio does not get a golden ticket to poison their actors and actresses for the good of a picture. Yes Judy was an addict but because the studio knew that it makes their actions all the more disgusting and it makes them accountable for not seeking out methods of getting her the help she so desperately needed. Saying that giving the actors speed was standard practice is just rationalization in it's purest form. You don't enable a junkie and you certainly don't give them a taste if the taste will benefit you as it still hurts the addict all the same. The studios have experience with addicts and getting them to hit rock bottom a little sooner than later, especially when a multi-million dollar picture is at stake. They might not have been able to reach her at all but putting pills in one hand and slapping the other is nothing more than mixed messages and nonsense.