7 of Judy Garland’s Most Beloved Roles in Honor of Her 100th Birthday

Author: Trudy Ring

Many Garland admirers consider her performance as Vicki Lester her greatest. Vicki is a band singer who becomes a film star in the second version (1954) of the much-filmed story about a woman whose career soars while her alcoholic husband’s goes downhill. Janet Gaynor, Barbra Streisand, and most recently Lady Gaga have starred in other versions, and they all have commendable qualities, but it’s hard to top Garland’s display of emotion and vulnerability, plus her great vocals (“The Man That Got Away,” “Born in a Trunk,” and more). James Mason is a worthy leading man as the falling star Norman Maine. Garland was expected to win the Best Actress Oscar, but the award went to Grace Kelly for The Country Girl instead. Grand larceny!

A Star Is Born, 8 p.m. Friday, June 24

Also on TCM that evening: Till the Clouds Roll By, a highly fictionalized 1946 biopic about composer Jerome Kern (played by Robert Walker), with Garland, Frank Sinatra, Dinah Shore, June Allyson, and others performing Kern songs, 5:30 p.m.; and A Child Is Waiting (1962), with Garland as a teacher of children with disabilities, costarring Burt Lancaster and Gena Rowlands, in an early directorial effort by John Cassavetes, 11:15 p.m.

Original Article on The Advocate
Author: Trudy Ring