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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
Besides the latest Bruce Springsteen biography by Carlin - and I'm pretty biased with that particular subject - I think this is my favorite biography I've read. So often I get bored with the first half of biographies - getting into the subject's grandparents and parents and home town and blah blah blah, but Clarke knows exactly what to keep in and what to leave out. Garland lived a tabloid-worthy, lurid life and that stuff is in there, but it's appropriately overshadowed by her talent, by her emotional disability, and by the tragedy of a life lived almost entirely for the approval of others. It's a complicated portrait and made me want to binge watch MGM musicals.
emotional
informative
slow-paced
informative
medium-paced
so interesting so much more in depth than anything else ive seen about her
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
informative
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slow-paced
A haunting biography of Judy Garland. She was very talented, but ultimately her body, spirit and life burned out.
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
Triumph and tragedy in equal measure, although tragedy tended to dominate as she got older.
Gerald Clarke is a superb biographer. I loved his biography of Truman Capote, and I loved this one even more, mostly because Judy had a more interesting life than Truman.
My library only had this in online audio format, so I don't remember as much as I'd like to of what I found interesting. This is an extremely thorough account of Judy Garland's life, and as such it includes a lot of disturbing and one could even say tawdry details. But they're not given in a salacious manner. They're just the facts of her life, and knowing them helps us understand why she was so self destructive, and why she made so many foolish decisions.
Almost literally from babyhood, her parents exploited her considerable talents and her love of performing. Sometimes it seemed to me that she was treated like a circus animal. She loved to perform because she loved the applause, but she wasn't given any choice as to how her life would unfold. She went straight from stage performance into auditions for movies, with her mother pushing her every step of the way. Her mother was the one that got her hooked on pills in childhood, giving her amphetamines to keep her awake and energetic for rehearsals and performances. This turned into a lifelong struggle with drug abuse, which eventually killed her.
After she became ensconced in the old Hollywood studio system, Judy was never allowed agency over her own life. They controlled what she ate in the studio cafeteria so she wouldn't gain weight, and they teamed up with her mom to strongarm young Judy into having an abortion when she really wanted to have the baby.
Considering the way she was manipulated from such a young age, it's no surprise that she sought solace and acceptance by marrying so many men she barely knew. She had terrible taste in men. Her father, the first man in her life, was a pedophile who had a fondness for adolescent boys. The family was run out of three different towns when word got around that her dad was eliciting sexual favors from boys in darkened movie theaters. So perhaps it's no surprise that Judy would spend her life looking for love in all the wrong places.
Learning all the painful and shocking details of Judy's life in no way diminishes my admiration of her as an actress, singer, and dancer. In my eyes, she had a once-in-a-century star power that makes everyone else on screen with her just fade into the background. I only wish she would have been allowed to get as much pleasure from sharing her talents as her audiences got from watching her. The studio system treated stars like pieces of property, and Judy was too fragile for such a brutal environment.
Gerald Clarke is a superb biographer. I loved his biography of Truman Capote, and I loved this one even more, mostly because Judy had a more interesting life than Truman.
My library only had this in online audio format, so I don't remember as much as I'd like to of what I found interesting. This is an extremely thorough account of Judy Garland's life, and as such it includes a lot of disturbing and one could even say tawdry details. But they're not given in a salacious manner. They're just the facts of her life, and knowing them helps us understand why she was so self destructive, and why she made so many foolish decisions.
Almost literally from babyhood, her parents exploited her considerable talents and her love of performing. Sometimes it seemed to me that she was treated like a circus animal. She loved to perform because she loved the applause, but she wasn't given any choice as to how her life would unfold. She went straight from stage performance into auditions for movies, with her mother pushing her every step of the way. Her mother was the one that got her hooked on pills in childhood, giving her amphetamines to keep her awake and energetic for rehearsals and performances. This turned into a lifelong struggle with drug abuse, which eventually killed her.
After she became ensconced in the old Hollywood studio system, Judy was never allowed agency over her own life. They controlled what she ate in the studio cafeteria so she wouldn't gain weight, and they teamed up with her mom to strongarm young Judy into having an abortion when she really wanted to have the baby.
Considering the way she was manipulated from such a young age, it's no surprise that she sought solace and acceptance by marrying so many men she barely knew. She had terrible taste in men. Her father, the first man in her life, was a pedophile who had a fondness for adolescent boys. The family was run out of three different towns when word got around that her dad was eliciting sexual favors from boys in darkened movie theaters. So perhaps it's no surprise that Judy would spend her life looking for love in all the wrong places.
Learning all the painful and shocking details of Judy's life in no way diminishes my admiration of her as an actress, singer, and dancer. In my eyes, she had a once-in-a-century star power that makes everyone else on screen with her just fade into the background. I only wish she would have been allowed to get as much pleasure from sharing her talents as her audiences got from watching her. The studio system treated stars like pieces of property, and Judy was too fragile for such a brutal environment.
emotional
informative
medium-paced
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced