Judy Garland was born Frances Ethel Gumm on June 10, 1922, in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. She was the youngest child of Ethel Marion Gumm (née Milne; 1896–1953) and Francis “Frank” Avent Gumm (1886–1935). Her parents were vaudevillians who settled in Grand Rapids to run a movie theater that featured vaudeville acts.
“Baby” (as she was called by her parents and sisters) shared her family’s flair for song and dance. Her first appearance came at the age of two-and-a-half, when she joined her older sisters Mary Jane “Suzy/Suzanne” Gumm and Dorothy Virginia “Jimmie” Gumm on the stage of her father’s movie theater during a Christmas show and sang a chorus of “Jingle Bells.” The Gumm Sisters performed there for the next few years, accompanied by their mother on piano.
The family relocated to Lancaster, California, in June 1926. Frank purchased and operated another theater in Lancaster, and Ethel began managing her daughters and working to get them into motion pictures. Garland attended Hollywood High School and later graduated from University High School.
In 1928, the Gumm Sisters enrolled in a dance school run by Ethel Meglin, proprietress of the Meglin Kiddies dance troupe. They appeared with the troupe at its annual Christmas show. Through the Meglin Kiddies, they made their film debut in 1929, where they performed a song-and-dance number. This was followed by appearances in two Vitaphone shorts the following year. They next appeared together in Bubbles. Their final on-screen appearance came in 1935, in an MGM Technicolor short entitled La Fiesta de Santa Barbara.
The trio had been touring the vaudeville circuit as “The Gumm Sisters” for many years when they performed in Chicago at the Oriental Theater with George Jessel in 1934. He encouraged the group to choose a more appealing name after “Gumm” was met with laughter from the audience. According to theater legend, their act was once erroneously billed at a Chicago theater as “The Glum Sisters.”
Several stories remain regarding the origin of the name “Garland,” but Garland’s daughter Lorna Luft stated that her mother selected the name when it was announced that the trio “looked prettier than a garland of flowers.” By late 1934, the Gumm Sisters had changed their name to the Garland Sisters. Frances changed her name to “Judy” soon after. The group broke up by August 1935, when Suzanne Garland flew to Reno, Nevada, and married musician Lee Kahn.
0 comments:
Post a Comment