A Star is Born (1954)

directed by George Cukor

Dane Engelhart

If you were to ask me why at age 17 I developed a fanatical devotion to Judy Garland, I couldn't quite tell you. My relationship to music artists seldom involves self-conscious acts of projection and identification—I can’t say for sure what of myself I found in her work. One answer probably comes to your mind. It is the answer that both terrified and annoyed me as an outwardly reserved and well-adjusted but spiritually tortured adolescent. Later, it came to feel somewhat right, being a Judy queen, but it does not suffice to capture that specific emotion her music evoked in me at the time. I did not love Judy Garland because I was gay, nor was I gay because I loved Judy Garland. That’s what I would insist to myself and occasionally to others, even though they never seemed to argue otherwise. I loved Judy Garland because she was the greatest singer I had ever heard.

She came to me all at once, like a revelation. As a child, I had encountered her routinely in The Wizard of Oz. But then she was part of the tapestry of an old, strange tale and didn’t captivate me anymore than the world and music and characters that surrounded her. This Judy Garland was different. She was not the little girl from The Wizard of Oz, but a voice of unbelievable clarity and resonance. By this point, I had been well acquainted with, mesmerized by, the voices of Frank Sinatra and Liza Minnelli. But here was a singer that simultaneously gave me that depth and richness, electricity and drama, who even at her jauntiest emitted something like an ecstatic wail.

The song that I heard, purely by chance as TCM played to no one in the next room, was “Lose That Long Face” from the ill-fated musical melodrama epic A Star is Born. In context, the song, a cheery dance number, is laden with dramatic ironies—Judy Garland as the breakout movie star Vicky Lester, dressed in Tramp regalia, delivers a tear-filled monologue in her dressing room and then hurries back to set to belt the final chorus with perfect composure and showmanship. Its dramatic function aside, the scene is an intentional showcase, as is the entire movie, for the extraordinary range of Judy’s abilities as a performer.

Though I didn’t know it at the time, my chance encounter with her singing here resembles an earlier moment in the film. James Mason as Norman Maine, a debonnaire alcoholic movie star, wanders after hours into an LA nightclub just in time to witness Vicky (in this scene, still Esther Blodgett) perform “The Man That Got Away” for her bandmates and a room full of stacked tables and chairs. It is the most beloved number in the musical, an incandescent torch song to illustrate the explosive power that became the mark of Judy’s post-MGM vocal style.

In the grander context of the movie, the number has its own rich ironies, the dramatic content of the song presaging the doomed romance that is to ensue, Esther singing of her own inevitable brush with loss and heartache. Yet the scene isn’t about tragedy. Judy of course conveys the meaning of the lyrics with perfect clarity and elan, but the scene itself is about the joy of discovery and creation and the force of Judy Garland qua Esther Blodgett as a performer. Watch carefully as she moves through the number with an easy smile, except for the occasional flash in her eye and sudden jolt of movement that reminds us of the song’s intensity. She signs off with a wink and a laugh. In this scene, she does not project an image of heartbreak and desperation, as she did elsewhere. We witness instead an artist in complete comfort and command, which is precisely what the scene was meant to convey—Judy Garland as a master vocal performer and screen actress, delivering a show-stopping number in a single take. After the performance, Norman takes her aside and describes the jabs of pleasure he received hearing her sing, comparing the experience to hooking a prize fish or witnessing a great fighter. I wouldn’t have reached for such athletic metaphors, but like Norman the moment I heard that voice I knew that I was encountering greatness.

Certain cliches plague Judy’s biography, as if she were a tragic hero whose fate was determined from birth and whose demise was portended at every step along the way, like the dramatic ironies in A Star is Born. In this version of her life, the girlish and jovial persona we witness on screen in her MGM movies was merely a mask for the dark and troubled life she led off-screen, as if comedy can’t have been as much a part of her life as tragedy. This mythic Judy Garland was wrought by a frailty and heartache that she brought to her songs and shared with her audiences, giving of herself until she broke completely. I don’t believe that singing broke her. Many things in this world may have, but performing was for her a source of inner strength projected outward, a display of genius and grace. Her most haunting performances are still a context for joyous creation and celebration.

Late at night in my hometown, I used to walk to the top of the hill where the local public high school sits and from the empty parking lot I would attempt to sing through all of Judy at Carnegie Hall at full-throttle. I didn’t have all the notes and timing and control but I could sing big and loud and with a lot of vibrato. At the very least, I could hold the second-to-last note on “Swanee” as long as I wanted. Needless to say, this is also not an image of heartbreak and desperation. Those emotions I always weathered in silence. Here, I was chasing something entirely different—those little jabs of pleasure, a brief moment of ecstasy and supreme confidence. This was something Judy gave me.

Dane Engelhart is a writer based in Washington, DC.