Yesterday I saw the movie “Judy” about Judy Garland’s life played by Renee Zellweger. Some of you may not know her except that she was Dorothy in the famous movie: Wizard of Oz. She also was the star in the first version of, “A Star is Born,” which has been remade twice since, the second time with Barbara Streisand and Kris Christopherson, and lately with Lady Gaga and Bradly Cooper.
Judy was a famous outstanding singer, dancer and actress. But the way she became all that should never be how a girl is treated, used and promoted in Hollywood, but that’s the world for you!
Judy’s parents were vaudeville people with their own little theater. Judy began performing in vaudeville as a child (2 ½ years old) with her two elder sisters, and was later signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a teenager. Her father was a homosexual as the rumors went. Her mother was the one who pushed them along into motion pictures. Judy struggled in her personal life from an early age. The pressures of early stardom affected her physical and mental health from her teens onward; her self-image was influenced and constantly criticized by film executives who believed that she was physically unattractive. Those same executives manipulated her onscreen physical appearance.
In the movie “Judy,” her producer of the movie: Wizard of Oz, had a woman administering pills to young Judy so she could work 16-18 hours a day and eating hardly anything so she would remain thin – looking like a little girl for the part of Dorothy. She was given barbiturates to control her appetite and more at night to get her to sleep. She became an addict as a teen, and then an alcoholic. Judy was looking for true love, even at a young age. The movie doesn’t bring out anything about her parents and upbringing.
Judy loved singing, dancing and acting, but it all became what she lived for – ending up an a drug and alcohol addict, married four times, with children she hardly saw.
In the end (from the movie) at the age of 47 when she was in London performing live on stage (having been booed out of America for), she humbly singing “Over the Rainbow,” that she couldn’t finish as she sat on the edge of the stage before her waiting audience. (Judy was always up close and personal with her audience.) As she sat there silent in the middle of the song, with her head down trying to hold back the tears of regret over her life, two gay men (fans of hers) that had become her personal friends, stood up to finish the song. Then the whole audience progressively stood up to join them. It was a touching moment for sure.
What hit me as so very very sad about Judy, was that she so desperately needed people to love her and remember her. “You won’t forget me – will you?!!!!” Then at the end of the movie they showed a quote: “The test of the heart isn’t in how much you loved others but in how much you were loved by others.” Hum.
As I thought about that – I tested that statement if it was really true. I guess it depends on who is testing your heart, the people of the world, or God. So I compared that statement to what the Creator, Refiner and Judge of our heart says about “love.” I believe it’s God who perfectly tests the heart of people, not man. Someone can assume what is in your heart, why you do what you do and all, but man judges by his own heart’s condition. God judges by what’s really in our hearts. God says in His Word that man doesn’t know the depth of his own self-deception and wickedness, so how can he really know his own heart, or anyone else’s?
Those two sympathetic gay men, who were Judy’s loyal fans, and then friends at the end of her life, understood her suffering with not being at peace with herself; their emotional sympathy for her was very ‘personal.’ Judy and these two friends of hers didn’t get to know the Savior’s love for them, as far as the movie revealed. For had Judy been able to live in her Savior’s love, she might had said in the end: “There’s no love like the Lord’s love; don’t forget that.”
Like Dorothy repeatedly said in the movie Wizard of Oz, “There’s no place like home,” I hope that Judy Garland had the opportunity before she died to know God’s love for her by faith in Jesus Christ. For then she might have said on her death-bed, “There’s no place like HOME,” meaning her heavenly Father’s Home to which she was headed.
Judy Garland died at 47 years old from drug and alcohol abuse.
Yesterday I saw the movie “Judy” about Judy Garland’s life played by Renee Zellweger. Some of you may not know her except that she was Dorothy in the famous movie: Wizard of Oz. She also was the star in the first version of, “A Star is Born,” which has been remade twice since, the second time with Barbara Streisand and Kris Christopherson, and lately with Lady Gaga and Bradly Cooper.
Judy was a famous outstanding singer, dancer and actress. But the way she became all that should never be how a girl is treated, used and promoted in Hollywood, but that’s the world for you!
Judy’s parents were vaudeville people with their own little theater. Judy began performing in vaudeville as a child (2 ½ years old) with her two elder sisters, and was later signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a teenager. Her father was a homosexual as the rumors went. Her mother was the one who pushed them along into motion pictures. Judy struggled in her personal life from an early age. The pressures of early stardom affected her physical and mental health from her teens onward; her self-image was influenced and constantly criticized by film executives who believed that she was physically unattractive. Those same executives manipulated her onscreen physical appearance.
In the movie “Judy,” her producer of the movie: Wizard of Oz, had a woman administering pills to young Judy so she could work 16-18 hours a day and eating hardly anything so she would remain thin – looking like a little girl for the part of Dorothy. She was given barbiturates to control her appetite and more at night to get her to sleep. She became an addict as a teen, and then an alcoholic. Judy was looking for true love, even at a young age. The movie doesn’t bring out anything about her parents and upbringing.
Judy loved singing, dancing and acting, but it all became what she lived for – ending up an a drug and alcohol addict, married four times, with children she hardly saw.
In the end (from the movie) at the age of 47 when she was in London performing live on stage (having been booed out of America for), she humbly singing “Over the Rainbow,” that she couldn’t finish as she sat on the edge of the stage before her waiting audience. (Judy was always up close and personal with her audience.) As she sat there silent in the middle of the song, with her head down trying to hold back the tears of regret over her life, two gay men (fans of hers) that had become her personal friends, stood up to finish the song. Then the whole audience progressively stood up to join them. It was a touching moment for sure.
What hit me as so very very sad about Judy, was that she so desperately needed people to love her and remember her. “You won’t forget me – will you?!!!!” Then at the end of the movie they showed a quote: “The test of the heart isn’t in how much you loved others but in how much you were loved by others.” Hum.
As I thought about that – I tested that statement if it was really true. I guess it depends on who is testing your heart, the people of the world, or God. So I compared that statement to what the Creator, Refiner and Judge of our heart says about “love.” I believe it’s God who perfectly tests the heart of people, not man. Someone can assume what is in your heart, why you do what you do and all, but man judges by his own heart’s condition. God judges by what’s really in our hearts. God says in His Word that man doesn’t know the depth of his own self-deception and wickedness, so how can he really know his own heart, or anyone else’s?
Those two sympathetic gay men, who were Judy’s loyal fans, and then friends at the end of her life, understood her suffering with not being at peace with herself; their emotional sympathy for her was very ‘personal.’ Judy and these two friends of hers didn’t get to know the Savior’s love for them, as far as the movie revealed. For had Judy been able to live in her Savior’s love, she might had said in the end: “There’s no love like the Lord’s love; don’t forget that.”
Like Dorothy repeatedly said in the movie Wizard of Oz, “There’s no place like home,” I hope that Judy Garland had the opportunity before she died to know God’s love for her by faith in Jesus Christ. For then she might have said on her death-bed, “There’s no place like HOME,” meaning her heavenly Father’s Home to which she was headed.
Judy Garland died at 47 years old from drug and alcohol abuse.