Judy Garland : Lorna Luft on 'Get Happy' by Gerald Clarke

Lorna Luft on 'Get Happy' by Gerald Clarke

Lorna Luft's Letter To The Editor about Gerald Clarke's biography on Judy 'Get Happy.'

To The Editor:

I have kept silent about my feelings on Gerald Clarke's book on my mother, Judy Garland. However, I must respond to the untruths he has written and said about me. My actions, feelings and emotions as a daughter were never shared with Mr. Clarke, because he never spoke to me. None of my representatives received any correspondence, and I open my own mail. In ten years of research, if he wanted to talk to me, I can be found.

I am not a "victim of her myth". This book has merely added a few more fairy tales to the existing stories, legends, and half-truths about my mother. The things he wrote about me are out and out lies. I never called her a bitch, and I never "despised" her. How dare he question how well a daughter knows her mother. Yes, we had help in the house, but I had a mother. There was never a time when s 5b4 he was at home that I "didn't see her for days at a time". Whenever possible, she took us on tour with her, and, in any event, she called us every night. After reading about myself, I checked the back of the book to see if his interviews included The Amazing Kreskin.

My mother was my biggest fan, and attended many of the neighborhood productions I appeared in as a child. However, I was never in a school play of "The Unsinkable Molly Brown".

I have learned that one of the most outrageous, graphic, and unnecessary stories, which is completely unattributed in the book, was told to him by my mother's "friend" Tom Green. This man has admitted that the story was totally made up. Thanks to Mr. Green and Mr. Clarke, this ludicrous fantasy will forever "be taken as gospel and reprinted over and over again".

Mr. Clarke dismisses as fiction all of the previous books, both scholarly and dishy, that have been written about my mother. So he "started from scratch", speaking with every single solitary person who ever met my mother, and my grandparents, except the people who lived in her house -- her children.

Mr. Clarke says he "felt liberated from any obligation to slant the story", and obviously also felt no obligation to the truth.

Lorna Luft

Re: Lorna Luft on 'Get Happy' by Gerald Clarke

Sorry, but Lorna is only interested in protecting "the Brand," because without riding her mother's coattails, she would have no career at all. "Songs My Mother Taught Me?" Give me a break. At least, Liza did it all on her own and developed her own style.

From her OWN memoir, "Me and My Shadows" she gives the impression that she didn't even know what was going on with her mother when Judy ran away with Mickey Deans.

Everything I've ever heard her say sounds like she's parroting every book that's every been written about Judy.

Now, because she's "Judy's daughter," we're supposed to accept her every word as authority and gospel?

Please!

Re: Lorna Luft on 'Get Happy' by Gerald Clarke

I disagree, at least for the most part. Clarke's book is pure TRASH and Lorna
was understandably outraged. It is natural for a grown child to want to
protect their late parent, especially when so many lies and half-truths HAVE
been written about Garland.

True, I've found it heartbreaking (and so tragic) that Garland, who fought for
years to not lose her children, seemed totally detached from them in the last
six to nine months of her life. But Judy was sooooooo sick and so delusional.
And so lost. Just looking at stills of Garland in the spring of '69 is
absolutely depressing. Like Michael Jackson, Garland was an exploited child.

To her great credit, Lorna has also expressed eloquently HOW the studio system
destroyed her mother, as well as HOW Garland's addiction destroyed her. She's
been very balanced in this - not letting her mother off the hook, but also
explaining how it "all happened." She has been much franker than Liza, who
tends to awash b68 BOTH her parents in some romantic fairy tale.

Her children know personally the truly dark moments and aspects of their
mother. That doesn't mean they don't have the right to defend her memory
against such LOSERS. Alive and dead. Just watching Gerald Clarke in
interviews makes my skin crawl.

Re: Lorna Luft on 'Get Happy' by Gerald Clarke

What took you so long ???

I'm not arguing the merits of Clarke's book, because I never read it and have no desire to do so.

But, my opinion of Lorna stands, as an opportunistic daughter grabbing on to her mother's fame. We never heard a word from her till she started to build her career on her mother's memory.

I don't know... In conversation, Lorna 5b4 has the "dramatic flair" of her mother. She's a good talker. But, to me, everything she says sounds like it was "told to her" or she learned it over the years, same as you and I. It almost seems like she was personally removed from the chaos, but now that she wants to talk about it, we're supposed to accept her as an authority.

I don't accept her testimony, simply because she "was there." Most people will buy that. I don't.


True, I've found it heartbreaking (and so tragic) that Garland, who fought for years to not lose her children, seemed totally detached from them in the last six to nine months of her life. But Judy was sooooooo sick and so delusional. And so lost. Just looking at stills of Garland in the spring of '69 is
absolutely depressing.

I've always felt that Judy was such a mess at that point, that she gave up the kids, not out of selfishness, but because she knew she was unable to mother, and they'd probably be better off with Sid.

Re: Lorna Luft on 'Get Happy' by Gerald Clarke

Disagree. Lorna speaks from BEING THERE (she WAS), not from something
"told" to her.

She, more than any of the three kids, speaks even-handedly and with great
forgiveness. She doesn't smooth over 1968, for example, but she also
has gone to great lengths to RE-EXPLAIN how Garland "really was a true
victim...even if that sentiment is no longer vogue." I concur.

From childhood on, Garland was trained to sing, sing, sing, entertain,
lose weight, take prescription pills, do everything everybody wanted,
so everyone ELSE could make money. The con artistry started with her
mother, and went all through the countless, heartless, creepy, men in
her life. Deans was the last of a long line of users.

Garland was emotionally abused, and chemically trained how to "deal"
with life. And Lorna has put this sad tale into words better than
anyone else to date.

Musically, she may have been paving opportunities for herself with "Songs
My Mother Taught Me", but she's no worse than others, including the
overrated Natalie Cole, whose voice INTERFERES with Nat's original recordings,
rather than enhancing them.

Re: Lorna Luft on 'Get Happy' by Gerald Clarke

Wasn't Get Happy the book that said Judy had an lesbian affair?

Re: Lorna Luft on 'Get Happy' by Gerald Clarke

But EVERY star is suddenly "bisexual" - once they're dead.

Re: Lorna Luft on 'Get Happy' by Gerald Clarke

Christopher Finch had suggested the possibility of Judy having an affair with another woman in his book 'Rainbow' [1975] before Gerald Clarke. Finch did not offer any reasons as to how he actually came across the idea.

Re: Lorna Luft on 'Get Happy' by Gerald Clarke

It's another that belongs in the trash pile. The majority of Judy biographies are really not that great. Only a handful have really done her justice.
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