My Tribute To Judy Garland June 10, 1922 - June 22, 1969

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The evening issue of the Grand Rapids, Minnesota Independence for June 10, 1922, announces the birth of Francis Gumm, Jr., describing the event as presenting young Mr. Francis Gumm, owner and manager of the local New Grand Theater, with his third . . . daughter.

Just a superfluous young lady for a close-planning little family wanting nothing if not a boy. Besides which the new baby was red- headed, pug-nosed and even her mother admitted she was homely. Rather a secondhand setup for the third little Gumm girl. But witness June 10, 1940. Francis Gumm, Jr., in Hollywood, walking straight into stardom, possessing a home in exclusive Bel Air, her own swimming pool, badminton court and cream-colored roadster. The third little Gumm girl, doing all right for herself after all! And here, if you will, is the story:

Way back in 1913, Frank and Ethel Gumm, an old married couple of two anniversaries, contributed to vaudeville, an act billed, atmospherically, as Jack and Virginia Lee, Sweet Southern Singers. But time came when the pending arrival of a son and heir (who would of course be named Francis Jr.) called for the cancellation of bookings, whereupon the young Gumms acquired the New Grand Theater in pleasant little Grand Rapids, Minnesota, and took up just plain old-fashioned domestic life.

The cradle was filled quite as per schedule, excepting that the name decided upon was Mary Jane. Which was all right too. Every family wants a girl sooner or later. But it was a glad day five years later when the nursery was trimmed in new blue ribbons. For now Francis Gumm, Jr., was unmistakably on his way.

Little Brother, however, pulled a fast one this time too. In his stead arrived Virginia. Okay, said Frank and Ethel. But twenty- two months later, when the stork rang up a girl for the third time, they named her Francis, Jr., anyway . . . and called it a day.

A dozen and one years before, young Frank Gumm, just graduated from Sewanee University, had left a Southern home to spend a summer vacation in Superior, Wisconsin where, quite to his surprise, he got a job singing in a movie. And found pretty Miss Ethel Milne playing the theater piano. Not long afterward, he married her. And billing themselves as Jack and Virginia Lee just because that sounded the way they thought it ought to, they made their debut in vaudeville.

It appears, however, that in Gumm family history, the debut of real importance happened some eleven years later, when, in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, their third daughter, at the age of thirty months, sang "Jingle Bells" on her father's Christmas theater program. After the "Jingle Bells" episode, it was plain to be seen that, behind the footlights, the baby certainly knew her stuff. And when that same baby was five, Virginia seven, Mary Jane twelve, Mama and Daddy Gumm found themselves parents to a singing dancing trio which could stop anybody's show!

Now the Gumms had always wanted to live in California. So one fine day they sold the New Grand, packed up their two-seated Ford, took Granny Milne along, and soon found themselves snugly settled in Los Angeles on one of those endless little streets of California bungalows as like as cupcakes on a shelf. The plan was to buy a theater in some propinquant town. But when six months became twelve and Frank Gumm was still looking for a deal, the dwindling bank account made it less and less possible. And so Mrs. Gumm, having felt strongly all along that she owed it to the children to do something about their talent, had this added reason to try and find out if they could really turn "professional".

She made them costumes and routined a program; three little stairsteps, with Mother at the piano. They did the act for an agent. He was enthusiastic; could book them without any trouble, he was sure. He'd call soon.

They went home in breathless excitement, practiced hard, made new more professional wardrobes . . . and waited for the phone to ring. A week passed. And six. And ten. And then finally came the call! A dinner was to be given at the Biltmore Hotel and would require entertainment. It was a "civic affair", said the potential hostess, so the entertainers wouldn't be paid a lot . . . but something.

Eagerly excited, the three little Gumms were washed, ironed, curled and rehearsed. The act went over like a million and when the weary little troupe went home at midnight, Big Sister Mary Jane carried their first pay envelope!

They saved the exciting moment of opening it, however, to share with Dad. Gathering around their own dining-room table, at last, three flushed and thrilled little girls, and proud Mr. and Mrs. Gumm, prepared for the surprise . . . and got it. The check was for $1.50 for an entire evening's entertainment!

But, from that night on, the girls didn't give their mother a moment's peace. They wanted to be singing and dancing, and that was that . . . and then suddenly and unexpectedly Frank Gumm began to fail in health. Suddenly the dancing feet of his three little girls became the most important asset the Gumm family possessed.

Week after week they tried for work without success. Then at last came a chance in Denver. Ethel Gumm and the girls unhesitatingly boarded a bus . . . traveled three days and two nights . . . and stole the show. And were told that if they could but land a booking in Chicago's Oriental, they would really be on their way.

They went on to Chicago. Mrs. Gumm, sending the girls out to find a flat, promptly called at the office of an important agent and asked, as she had been advised to do, for booking in some small suburban house where he could "catch" the act. Denver press notices turned the trick. He booked them then and there for a week at the Belmont, four shows daily with five on Saturday and Sunday.

It was an unimportant house, but since they had staked all they had on this Chicago agent's impression, they went the whole way and counted out enough dollars from Denver to rent for the week a set of real stage costumes and a special curtain. After that . . . not knowing at which show of the week the agent might be in the house, they went out for every performance with their hearts in their throats, their pulses pounding.

The week over, they sat tightly in their little rented flat counting hours until he would call. When he didn't, after four days waiting, Mrs. Gumm called him.

He hedged a bit . . . avoided an opinion . . . and said something about her calling in a day or two. However, said he, he couldn't promise anything. Dreams faded of crashing the Oriental. Then Mama Gumm tumbled to something. "Now wait a minute," said she to herself. "He doesn't want the girls at all!"

The truth was clear. Chicago just hadn't bought the act.

Next morning, discouraged, hurt and disappointed they were packing their bags for the long trip home when the telephone rang. It was a gentleman who had seen the act backstage at the Belmont but who hadn't told them, until now, that he was none other than the drummer at the Oriental!

Now he was calling to say that an act which had been sour in the morning rehearsal had just been fired. If they could get there fast enough, the manager would hear them sing . . .

That afternoon the trio faced the Oriental audience and took it hook, line and sinker! That night they stayed awake fairly all night long to dream about morning, for their name was to be in lights! They went downtown very early to see it. Sure enough there it was. No mistake about it . . . no mistake, excepting that what the lights spelled was . . . "The Glum Sisters."

Mr. George Jessel was the week's m.c.

"That's bad," he said to Mrs. Gumm. "These girls are going places. They'll be called the Dumb sisters and the Bum sisters and the Rum sisters and you better pick a new name right now." He looked up from his morning paper. "Now here's the columnist Robert Garland," he said. "What's the matter with that for a name?"

There was nothing the matter with it at all. The girls loved it. And so the Gumms became the Garlands . . . just like that.

"Well, if we're fixing our names over," said Mary Jane, "why don't we fix our first ones too? Why can't I be Suzanne?"

"And I could be Jinny," said the middle-sized Miss Gumm.

"And I could be Judy," put in Francis.

So lights which that morning had spelled "The Glum Sisters", that afternoon spelled "The Three Garlands" who were no longer Francis, Virginia and Mary Jane, but Judy, Jinny and Suzanne.

The girls worked the next week in Detroit, then in Indianapolis, then in Kansas City. And everybody loved them. And now, their talent proven, their mother wanted to go home to Dad and California. Surely now the girls would find engagements there.

So back home they went. And they did find engagements.

"I don't know anything about numerology," Mrs. Gumm says, in telling the story, "but after we changed their names they never stopped."

The following summer brought them a season's contract at Lake Tahoe. Judy, who was now thirteen, was the star of the troupe, her singing voice poignant and unforgettable.

The season closed. The last day came. The Garlands piled everything into their car and started home. Then discovered that Jinny had left her hatbox. Of course it was little sister Judy who went back. The Lodge was deserted excepting for the manager and a young composer who had dropped in to telephone. A third gentleman was there too, an agent. In the huge empty room the voices of the three echoed across the open grand piano, the composer running his fingers over the keys.

Judy trudged across the porch, her arms encircling a scarlet hatbox.

"Now there's a kid you ought to get hold of," remarked the manager to the agent. "She can sing and I don't mean maybe."

He called her in and asked her to do a number. She was very willing but didn't see how she could do it since Mother was out in the car and couldn't play for her.

"Maybe I'll do," offered the composer. "Maybe you can sing a number I know."

"My favorite is 'Dinah'," said Judy. "Would that be all right?"

"Quite all right," said the man at the piano, and the accompaniment he gave her was supercolossal!

Though Judy didn't know it until weeks later, he was Mr. Harry Axt, "Dinah" his own hit song.

The agent went along with Judy to speak to her mother; wanted to know why a little singer like this wasn't in pictures.

"I've never thought she was pretty enough," said Judy's mother frankly.

"Well you never can tell," remarked the agent. "Better come in and see me in Los Angeles tomorrow."

But the Garlands didn't go. Somehow they hadn't too much confidence in agents.

Three days later Mrs. Gumm, returning home late in the afternoon from shopping, found Judy in rumpled gray slacks, a dirt-smudged face, a gingham shirt with the tail outside, in which make-up she was energetically raking the lawn.

Her mother asked about supper . . . had there been any phone calls . . . and how was Daddy feeling.

"He's feeling pretty happy," grinned Judy. "He took me out to M-G- M today. The agent came after us."

"You didn't go looking like this!" interrupted Mrs. Gumm.

"Yes, Mother," said Judy, "and I got a contract for seven years."

(The only contract ever given on the M-G-M lot with neither screen nor sound tests.)

That was October. In November Frank Gumm died, taking with him the joy of remembering that he and his little namesake had together taken the first step toward what was certain to be a real career.

An M-G-M contract. But even now, success was a weary day away. There were months of waiting, of doubt and concern. After a long while she was given a small picture role. Then a part of a little more importance . . . the sincerity, the genius of her work were unmistakable. And at last "The Wizard of Oz," one of the most expensive Hollywood pictures ever made, was bought and planned as a vehicle in which to present her as a star!

Judy Garland had arrived!

She works harder than most eighteen-year-olds; has to go to bed early to be fresh for work and on the lot for makeup at six a.m., but Judy is so happy she can't believe it. She is keen about working with Mickey Rooney. They know each other so well, she explains, that each of them always knows exactly what the other is going to do.

"Last year was wonderful," she said. "This one will be even better because I'm older. It's grand to be getting older," she said with real feeling.

The family is still together . . . or very near together. Jinny, married to Bandleader Bob Sherwood is his singer, and the mother of a two-year-old Judith Gail. Suzanne, turning out to be the domestic member of the family, designs the family clothes, sews, gardens, knits . . . and loves it. The trio of sisters is still devoted and still quite likely to go into a song and dance when you least expect it.

But best of all Judy, now deluged with success, still finds her thrills in just simple, pleasant things. As we visited, the maid brought long tall glasses of orange juice with bright napkins and straws. There is plenty of orange juice in California. Judy is constantly showered with attentions. But this little unsolicited thoughtfullness brought spontaneaous appreciation into her eyes.

"Oh, boy," she said. "Thanks, Leola."

It was nearly four. She had a radio rehearsal at four-thirty. Presently she excused herself, planted a green beret on her auburn hair, and bade us goodbye.

"Mama," she said, "could I have some money?"

"Take two dollars out of my purse," her mother said. "That will be all you'll need the rest of the week."

"Okay, Mom," said the third little Gumm girl, planting a kiss on her mother's chin.

Striding down 1940 she is definitely a star. It has cost her work, hope, discouragement, effort and determination. It isn't easy to keep on trying to convince the world you have talent when nobody really cares whether you have or not. And then, if you break the barrier . . . if, at sixteen, you know the thrill of your name in lights the world around, at seventeen your arrival in New York brings out police to referee your fans, at eighteen your days are a succession of photographs, interviews and press raves . . . it takes plenty of balance not to feel called upon to change the angle of your nose or the height of your bonnet.

And so for Judy who stuck to the ship till the tide came in, worked hard enough to tuck under her arm an Academy award for last year's best juvenile performance, and with it all is still just a natural likeable kid . . . for the third little Gumm girl of Minnesota and Hollywood, we recommend, but definitely, orchids.