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Judy Garland music biography continued...

Gumm sisters, although Baby Frances was clearly the one audiences wanted to see and hear. Later, the girls changed their names to the Garland Sisters and moved to Los Angeles, where Francis, (now named Judy) was discovered by Louis B. Mayer, the head of MGM and signed to a film contract. She soon appeared in a succession of MGM films, each spotlighting her singing. Garland appeared frequently with another child star, Mickey Rooney, performing together in such films as Babes in Arms (1939), Strike Up The Band (1940), Babes on Broadway (1941), and Girl Crazy (1943). Her most memorable film role, and the one that made her a household name, came in 1939 with The Wizard of Oz. She won a special Oscar as "best juvenile performer of the year" for her role as Dorothy. The film also provided her with the song with which she was identified for the rest of her life—"Over the Rainbow."



Throughout the forties, Garland starred in a number of film musicals, but she was beset by personal problems that caused a steady deterioration in her functioning both on and off the set. Sidney Luft, a successful promoter who later became her third husband (1952), started Garland on a career on concert stages. She was a smashing success at the Palladium in London, England, at the Palace Theatre in New York City, and elsewhere. She undertook a highly successful concert tour in 1961, which was capped by an enthusiastically received concert at New York City's Carnegie Hall. The live recording of that event sold over two million copies. But Garland's personal demons would not abate and drug addiction, alcoholism and poor health continued to eat away at her. Garland was found dead in her London flat on June 21, 1969 from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills. At her death, Judy Garland was a superstar who, as one critic pointed out, "managed the considerable feat of converting herself into an underdog." Despite all the lows in her life she remained immensely popular and had an appeal that was never entirely lost.