Planting Stars - Judy Garland In Scandinavia 1969
By Gary Horrocks - based on translated interviews, contemporary video footage and press reviews.
This article includes versions of all of the images that appeared with it in the Rainbow Review. Click on any image to see a larger version. You can see the article with the original high-quality photographs, along with many others, in Issue 24 of the Rainbow Review.
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"My life, my career has been like a roller coaster. I've either been an enormous success or just a down and out failure, which is silly because everybody always asks me, "How does it feel to make a comeback?" And I don't know where I've been. I haven't been away. I've been working all the time."
"I think audiences are the most respectable people in the world but I can't take the audience home with me."
 In March 1969, Judy and her new husband Mickey Deans arrived at Arlanda airport in Stockholm for the start of a four engagement tour of Scandinavia that was planned to take in Stockholm on the 19th, Gothenburg on the 21st, Malmo on the 23rd and Copenhagen on the 25th. Documentary footage of this engagement exists and shows a painfully thin and fragile Judy. There was no denying that she was very sick, and contemporary descriptions likened her to a frail bird, broken and unable to fly. On the other hand, she was also surprisingly buoyant and witty, and can be seen at a private party in one part of the documentary practically blowing Johnny Ray out of his seat during an impromptu duet singing "Am I Blue?" Inspite of her deteriorating health she was often in good spirits and seemingly content in her new role as Mrs. Deans. ("He calls me Gladys." "She calls me George.") Although she joked in an interview that she'd been in show business "too long" she was still able to attract the adulation and respect of an audience at this late stage in her life. The Wizard Of Oz had premiered on Scandinavian television a few years earlier and there was genuine curiosity amongst the people of Sweden and Denmark to see this legend perform and succeed.
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 Birgit Johansson, acting as Judy's dresser and companion, accompanied her on the tour. She recalled: "Judy had requested that she wanted someone to help her with various things, like costumes and such. And I was asked if I would like to help. I thought it was going to be exciting and fun so I said yes. We were a little anxious when we went to Arlanda airport to meet Judy and her party because we didn't know how she was going to react to us, if things were going to go well. But our first meeting was very positive. We greeted each other, and then we all went to the hotel where Judy and her husband retired early. The next morning Mickey Deans called me and asked if I would help Judy take a bath. I went to their suite. Judy had just woken up and seemed a little dazed. I helped her bathe and get dressed. Later on we went to the Concert Hall so Judy could rehearse for the show that evening. I wondered how she was going to make the performance because apparently she'd taken quite a lot of sedatives the night before. I sat with her just in case she needed something. I was worried that she'd be unable to rehearse at all because she seemed so fragile. When the orchestra began to play, Judy immediately got up from her chair and went right over to the orchestra leader and said something like: "This is how I want you to play the music and accompany me in such and such a way." She began to sing and suddenly I felt totally at ease, because I could see that this was an art she'd mastered completely." Arne Domnerus, leader of the orchestra, also found the first meeting both exciting and formative. He'd admittedly not been a fan of her vocal delivery, which he thought excessively vibrato. However: "Meeting Judy in person changed my whole perception of her. I was quite inexperienced at the time. That week was a lesson in the art of show business; how to perform on stage; how to make music come alive the way she could in her inimitable way. We had a bit of a problem before we got started because the musicians came from different backgrounds, including opera. We didn't know her and we didn't know each other, so there was a degree of conflict. Still that week will always remain a high point in my life, something that will never fade."
 Birgit remembered: "On the day of the concert Judy wanted me to buy some scarves for her to wear with her stage costumes. I sowed some sequins onto her costumes, ironed them and then persuaded Judy to eat a little lunch. She'd requested the best hairdresser in town for every stage of the tour. (In Copenhagen she was honoured to have the Danish Queen's hairdresser attend her.) When the hairdresser arrived he had to sit in the hotel lobby for several hours, almost half the day. I kept saying to Judy: "You can't let him wait any longer, you must let him come up but one thing or another made her think that she couldn't see him. Finally she said it was okay to let him come up. I went down to get him and apologised for having kept him waiting so long. Unfortunately, when he entered her room, Judy became quite upset. "I can't let you see me like this, I've only got my dressing gown on. I thought you were the doctor." We persuaded her that it was okay, that no harm had been done, and he began to comb her hair. She was so very sweet as a person, very lovely, almost like a little bird. She painted her own lips and applied her own make-up and got into her costume for the big night."
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 The first day of the tour began rather alarmingly when Judy arrived at the Concert Hall an hour late. Birgit observed: "She was extremely nervous. She sat by her make-up table and cried and looked in the mirror and said: "I'm not going. I can't." They telephoned from the Concert Hall and asked when she was going to arrive. Johnny Ray was already on the stage singing. He sang for over an hour, then there was an intermission and he came back on and sang some more. Judy sat in her hotel room saying she didn't want to leave. The concert was sold out, there was a full house waiting for her. But she said to me: "They've come to see a star who's dead. They want to see me fail, they want to heckle and boo at me." I'm not a psychologist but I tried to do the best I could, to try and convince her that the people who had come to see her wanted to hear her sing. They admired her. Loved her. At long last I persuaded her to come with me. In the car she was so nervous; even more so when we arrived at the Concert Hall."
 Arne admitted that the musicians had been unsure if Judy would show up at all. "We didn't know that she usually arrived at the last minute, because we hadn't been informed. Her arrival was a very, very exciting one for me. She was a slender woman, thin almost. And she had on this long dress that you could almost see through; you could almost see through her - and that was a bit unsettling." A symbiotic bond developed between the orchestra and Judy as her performance warmed up. "The rapport between us became stronger and stronger throughout the concert. She kept building and building and we could feel it working because of this fantastic, emotional and incredibly interesting woman. So the concert ended on a happy note."
The press reports were favourable. "Time after time the audience called Judy back to the stage for an encore." Diminutive in her red organza gown with feathers she won over the audience with her "artistry" and her "emotional torch singing from the heart." She received a ten-minute standing ovation.
 Birgit confirmed these positive critiques. "It was fantastic; completely professional and skilful. One couldn't quite comprehend that it was the same person, this tiny human being, who had sat in front of her mirror, crying just an hour before. As far as I could see from the wings the show was a tremendous success and afterwards the audience cheered and whistled and stood in their seats. The house lights were turned on but people still wouldn't leave. They just kept applauding. In the car on the way back to the hotel she was ecstatic and almost cried again, this time out of joy, and she said: "Birgit, did you see them standing up and applauding, even after the house lights came on." She was so happy. We'd planned to go out for dinner afterwards. I'd helped lay out her clothes in preparation. However, Mickey came in and said Judy wouldn't be coming with us. She had gone to bed. I felt it was a bit odd, because she seemed so happy just half an hour earlier."
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 The Gothenburg concert had to be cancelled. Some reports stated that Judy had a cold, others that she had taken too many sedatives and would not wake in time for the concert. The omnipresence of a film crew cannot have done much to calm her spirits. Birgit's recollections of behind the scene activities tell a thousand stories about the kind of duress that Judy must have undergone on previous occasions just to get her on the stage when all she really needed was sympathetic support and rest. It was ultimately a kindly doctor that prohibited the Gothenburg appearance. She remembered: "The orchestra was sitting in the Concert Hall waiting. But Judy didn't wake up. We couldn't wake her. She'd probably taken too large a dose of sleeping pills the night before. (As far as I could see, that was her problem, that she took too many strong sedatives.) We didn't know what to do. Her husband suggested various methods he'd used in London, but the wise and understanding doctor who'd come to her aid decided we should let her sleep it off. So we just let her sleep until she woke up. The Gothenburg cancellation perhaps wasn't so good for her public image, but it was definitely the best thing for her."
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 The next performance was to a full house at "The Crown Palace" in Malmo. Birgit remembered: "Judy was just as brilliant as she had been at the Concert Hall in Stockholm; incredibly good. The audience again rose to its feet and flowers were thrown on to the stage. There was one modest little bouquet that she especially loved, made up of daisies and bluebells that she took back with her to the hotel. After the concert Judy was in high spirits and at the party later that night Judy entertained the entire gang with funny stories and anecdotes from Hollywood. She had such a wonderful sense of humour, and we laughed so much."
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 Birgit recalled Judy's delight during the boat trip from Sweden to Denmark when she was invited by the Captain to sit at his table for dinner. "She really appreciated that, because she was seemed very insecure in a way. She was always extremely grateful for any amount of kindness that was shown towards her. I don't know, maybe she thought she was finished as an artist and that she had come to the end? Maybe that's why she was so nervous before the shows?" When they arrived in Copenhagen Mickey and Judy were able to promenade down "Stroget" window shopping without attracting crowds or undue attention: a freedom Judy rarely had the chance to experience in her life. She admitted to adoring shopping, and had a particular fondness for handicrafts and porcelain. They were able to book into the Hotel King Frederik owing to the kindness of the hotel manager Hans Jorgen Eriksen, who was a devoted Garland fan. The hotel had played host to many great stars over the years. When Judy saw the porcelain and antique furnishings in her suite she exclaimed: "Oh, this is so fine. It is almost like home. It is so neat." In a press conference with Ray and Deans she was humorous and witty, and deferred throughout to Mickey. On one evening they went out to a jazz club where Judy was proud to be asked to dance by a handsome young man who obviously didn't recognise her. Birgit recalled that Judy had commented: "He didn't know who I was, and yet he still wanted to dance with me." Johansson "didn't understand why she thought this was so strange, because she was very lovely." Being appraised as a woman and not as a Star was something that Judy had rarely experienced and it was something she must have found difficult to comprehend.
 The concert was well received. Politeken noted: "She stood there [on the enormous stage] and disproved all the rumours in the world. After only a few minutes she had the entire hall in the palm of her hand. The little woman immediately filled the air with electricity. The great brown eyes sparkled in the little gamin face." She chatted with the audience "while she ruffled her hair with small, quick movements, relaxed and nonchalant in manner." When Judy sang Over The Rainbow, "it was as though she sang it for the first time, with fervent innocence and sweetness. It was so lovely that tears came to one's eyes." Aktuelt commented that her "distinctive personality" was intact, despite the reports of ill health. "Her microphone technique is dazzling, her mode of delivery strong and glowing; her personal charm
indisputable." She was, said another, "one of the truly great personalities of show business. We found her to be an enchanting entertainer, an exquisite artist in her field. Her confidence, her well-planned effects, reveal a skilful competency; added to this is the radiant personality so uniquely hers. There she stood, youthful against the large stage, slim as a boy, with a boy's long, thin arms - in constant movement. There was something infinitely fragile about her - almost touching in the first few opening minutes as she, with a type of curtsey, advanced to the centre of the stage." When she sang she produced "clear, thin tones" but "compelling" ones that grew warmer and "suddenly the full tones [poured] forth and out of this delicate little body emerges a surprising sound, surprising in its strength, in its power to fill the spacious hall."
 Hans Jorgen Eriksen in an interview about events during this period recalled his childhood adulation for Judy. "At the local cinema in my little home town when I was a boy, I watched Judy in the Andy Hardy films over and over. And I was so jealous of Mickey Rooney because he always got Judy in the end. Then in March 1969 the unbelievable happened. The telephone rang: "Judy Garland is coming to Copenhagen and would like to stay at the Hotel King Frederik." I welcomed her with a spring bouquet in the shape of a rainbow and a card that I read out to her: "To the only performer who can carry us all over the rainbow. Judy, we love you." She whispered an almost inaudible "Thank you." I shall never forget those enormous big brown eyes."
 Anne Edwards' biography "Judy Garland" contains a very detailed and moving account of her stay in Copenhagen. Danish radio reporter Hans Vangkilde and his wife Grethe took care of Judy while Mickey Deans had to go to Sweden. Judy stayed at their house for twenty-four hours. Hans Vangkilde later said that he taped a five-hour interview with Judy while she was in his house. He said the interview was much too intimate and personal for any of it to be broadcast, but he did give Liza a copy of the tape when she was in Copenhagen in 1975 when she also performed at the Falkoner Centre. Liza later told Hans that the interview had made her cry and had moved her very deeply and had also given her a new insight and understanding of her mother.
 An excerpt from Hans Vangkilde's book "Seen With A Microphone" published shortly after his death in 1980 describes his memories of Judy's Copenhagen performance: "A great hush came over the audience when she walked onto the stage. Was this little skinny and apparently shy lady really the great and much admired film diva we had admired for decades? Not until she began to sing were we convinced. The atmosphere in the large concert hall reached a boiling point of enthusiasm and the cheering seemed like it would never end. I don't remember how many encores she had to do before the audience would finally let her go.
 When you look back and think of that evening her success seemed really quite incredible. A frighteningly thin woman who didn't always sing on key and who let a crowded theatre wait for almost twenty minutes before she showed up: all this under normal circumstances would have looked like something of a fiasco. But it was Judy Garland. I think that the secret behind her enormously successful concert was her incredible charisma. She had the fabulous.jpgt of being able to create an almost hypnotic spell across the footlights in a matter of seconds. It was as if invisible threads came out of that little woman up on the stage and down to each person in their seat. Her singing directed itself especially to each and every individual in the audience. I felt that she was singing just for me. My wife felt exactly the same way and other people I spoke felt the same way too."
 John Fricke in "World's Greatest Entertainer" observed that the documentary footage of this tour provides "at least one alternative view to the many legends that circulate about her terror before a performance and the implication that everything had to be done for her." She is seen kidding with photographers, applying her own make-up and behaving every inch the "hard-working veteran." There is also a heart-breaking innocence and vulnerability about her. In one scene she is delighted to receive a "little fur purse" as a.jpgt from Johnny Ray. She embraces him with an impish child-like quality and jokes that it is her "make-up kit." These are moments to cherish in the closing months of her life. Judy herself noted in 1969: "I've been lucky enough, I guess, to plant a star." Long may it shine.
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