The singer was somewhat plump but much trimmer than in past years when audiences gasped when she took the stage. Her throat was a bit hoarse that night but still vocally strong. This mix-up led to laughs when Garland sang her opening number lyrics, “If you feel deceived, don’t get peeved.” She joked that she too thought the show was in the main room, only discovering she was in the wrong place, “When I found myself alone!” But, because of the overflow, 240 lucky concertgoers got to watch from the orchestra pit. Some among the 2,400 ticket holders, it was reported by The Greensboro Daily News, were perturbed that the venue was switched at the last minute from the Coliseum to the smaller War Memorial Auditorium. Ticket prices ranged from $2 to a high of $3.75 ($17–$32 in today’s dollars, what a bargain). Afterward, back on the road, she headed down south for shows in Atlanta, Birmingham, Alabama, and Charlotte before arriving in Greensboro for the tour’s final performance on April 17, 1961. In March of 1961, she paused that globe-spanning tour to shoot her emotionally raw scenes for Judgment At Nuremberg, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. The singer would later declare 1961 to be the best year of her life. No opening acts as in previous public appearances, just Garland fronting a 28-piece orchestra. New managers got her out on the road in 1960 for what was billed as Garland’s “That’s Entertainment!” tour. Stricken with an inflamed liver, Garland was told by doctors she’d live the rest of her short life as a semi-invalid and never work again. Her albums were failing to chart and a lawsuit she was embroiled in with CBS kept her off television. As a working professional earning millions for her bosses, she’d never attended a proper school, written a check, bought a train ticket, or negotiated a contract.īy the end of the ’50s, the 37-year old star was considered washed up in Hollywood, the nail in her professional coffin hammered shut after A Star Is Born flopped. In her 20s in 1950, as Garland began having difficulty coping emotionally (how could she not, under the circumstances?), the studio coldly spat her out into a world she knew nothing about. The biggest box office star on the MGM lot, she starred in 27 films in 14 years. Frances Gumm, rechristened Judy Garland as a youngster, was a wholly manufactured product of a stage mother who pushed her relentlessly and a movie studio that wound her up chemically in the mornings then spun her down at night. “Kay is my best critic and severest friend.” - Judy Garlandīred to be an entertainer, like Tarzan raised by the Great Apes, hers was an almost impossibly insular existence. One week after performing in Greensboro, Judy Garland finally made it over the rainbow

Kay thompson from funny face to eloise