1939 was some year for music. Not just "The Wizard Of Oz" , but also "Gone With The Wind", "Stagecoach", "Wuthering Heights" "Young Mr. Lincoln", "The rules Of The Fame" and "Gone With The Wind" to name a handful. Wow, they don't make years like that any more.
And they don't make stars like Judy Garland. One of our greatest movie actresses and a superb singer who reached a creative height in 1961 with a performance at Carnegie Hall, captured on record and debatably the greatest live album ever.
But we are gonna stay in 1939 for a moment because the white, puff-ball blouse and blue gingham pinafore she wore as Dorothy in the Wizard Of Oz just sold for half a million bucks. According to contactmusic.com 'Other items which went under the hammer at the Julien’s Auctions sale in Beverly Hills, California included a pair of sunglasses famously worn by John Belushi in 1980 movie The Blues Brothers, which sold for $16,640. A dress seen on Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music made $38,400 and a purple skirt worn by Marilyn Monroe in River of No Return sold for $50,000 . A racing jacket owned by Steve MCQueen also went for $50,000 "
Judy has been written about so much it feels like there is nothing much left to say about he. Over everything you know about the great woman's musical (and acting) chops, listening to her today there is an overwhelming fragility about her. She is like China porcelain, so close to the breaking point and I believe that in the end that is what we see in her of ourselves. We may think we're tough and important but we are very very fragile things, ephemeral, and soon gone. Judy reflects and surpasses our limited mortality. Therein lies her genius.