Tanya Gold
Judy Garland: Rainbows and Fog
Summary
Award-winning journalist Tanya Gold traces Judy Garland’s rise and fall. Garland’s legacy, highlighting her iconic status in musicals despite her struggles with addiction, is examined. Tanya explores the Jewish influence on the film musical genre, noting Garland’s pivotal role within it. Garland’s musical legacy is celebrated, contrasted with the tragic aspects of her life, including her addiction and untimely death at the age of 47.
Tanya Gold
Tanya Gold is a freelance journalist. She writes for the Spectator, the New Statesman, Harper’s Magazine, the New York Times, and others. She won feature writer of the year at the 2009 British Press Awards and arts and culture story of the year at the 2015 Foreign Press Association Awards.
Drug addicts’ relationships with their family sort of tend to be disjointed because although the love is there and the feeling is there, you become completely self-obsessed. By all accounts, they were delighted not to be put on the stage by their mother, Ethel, anymore. They were delighted that it was just Judy going off in the car with Ethel to the round of auditions. They both married happily and they did stay in touch with their sister.
My informed guess is that what was available to Garland was available to anyone. Garland had a predisposition to drug addiction due to her very fractured relationship with her parents. I feel certain that many other child stars were offered them, but just because you’re given them, it doesn’t mean you’re going to develop a lifelong addiction to them.