‘Revenge Can Be Very Sweet’

In the 1960s Judy Garland sat in front of a tape recorfd and spoke candidly—sometimes frightfully so--of her life and career. The planned autobiography resulting from those tapes never materialized, but the transcripts of her reminiscences and rants have. No one is spared, save her children.

Despite being "America's Sweetheart," by the 1960s Judy Garland was almost penniless. At this juncture in her career Judy had just been ripped off for the CBS television show she never wanted to do, and was plagued with ex-husband Sid Luft's gambling debts and his trying to get custody of her children. Super-agent Irving "Swifty" Lazar gave her a tape recorder and told her to dictate her autobiography, to be ghostwritten, which might bring her some much-needed income. Judy Garland never lived to "write" her autobiography.

The only autobiography we have from Judy Garland is in the form of the audio tapes Swifty Lazar urged her to make. Those recordings are available in a rare CD set titled Judy Garland Speaks! (Some eBay sellers off it, and a website called Counterpoint offers it for sale online, but good luck getting the checkout page to load). On these recordings, the listener hears a loving, happy, sad, bitter, irate, ranting, and nearly blotto Judy. The first disc is fairly a straightforward, extremely insightful autobiography--which sets the stage for the spewing of bile on the second disc, culminating on the final disc in Judy stumbling through her attempts to sing songs, the last of which becomes a mere rapping of the lyrics.

Though seemingly out of it at points, Judy’s pain, frustrations and pettiness overflow, unchecked by diplomacy, much less discretion. As much as she rails against the inanity of telling her story to a machine she doesn’t understand and apparently finds Rube Golbergian in complexity (“I can’t get anything on tape. And when I do record anything I automatically erase it,” she huffs about the recorder she refers to as “a Nazi machine.”), the private Judy emerges, warts and all, far from the roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd, so to speak. Some Judy fanatics have said we learn more about the artist in these tapes than we ever have from the many books about her, but Ms. Garland’s life of perils, pitfalls and stunning triumphs alike (she really was as great an artist as her defenders and acolytes claim) has been well documented. Thus the absence of context, or backstory, if you will—or of, say, Sid Luft’s side of the story, given the degree to which he is eviscerated by Ms. Garland here--doesn’t allow for a balanced perspective of the many grievances aired in these tapes. Yet all the anger, bitterness and backbiting surfacing on these recordings, however self serving, does help explain why the performer Judy Garland, in all her neediness and fragility, was so riveting on screen and on stage. The magnitude of energy and emotion she expended during the course of a song or in developing a character was as breathtaking as it was alternately unsettling in its rawness or endearing in its sweetness and strength, much as it is on the tapes. Herein we hear Judy Garland both scared and strong; as a doting mother and a vengeful ex-wife; as a self-deprecating “legend” but also a bit delusional in a Norma Desmond kind of way about her future. Herewith a sampling of Judy Garland Speaks!

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Tape 1, Track 1

‘Do you realize how many people have talked about me, written about me, imitated me, told my children that they really know me, they know Judy Garland?’

Well, for openers, I don't know how to work this machine. I'm just astounded at this machine. This is the silliest way I've ever known of spending the nights alone, talking to yourself into an obvious Nazi machine. This is a Red China, Manchurian candidate machine because I can't get anything on tape. And when I do record anything I automatically erase it. And I'm sitting in a room all by myself. Ho, ho! Boy!

And across the room on my library shelf are about 35 tapes of shows that I've done for CBS. Hmm. Mmm-hmm. Now in those boxes, hold the tapes, my life depends on those. And yet I don't know how to work, it's not my business. I was trying to be a singer. I don't know how to read notes, I can't read music. And I don't, I can't count too well. And I don't know how to work this machine. But, that's the story of my life. You go with it even if you don't know what's going on. Keep talking, singing, smiling and taping.

Somebody told me that this, uh, might be interesting. I've gotten so involved with this Donovan's brain machine, tape machine. It should be Johnson & Johnson's tapes. My wounds, I'd like to tape. But I, I'm just trying to get a few thoughts down. And then I'm all by myself, uh, as usual. And trying to go straight with myself. Now that makes you feel kind of dumb. He he he. You can't, I can't, have, can't find my glasses, to read the directions. I don't know what thirty-three and a third means. It just means out of sync to me. And ah, then they got all kinds of kinda early, ha, Franz Joseph directions that um, I'm not equipped for. I have done, believe me, I have done, what do they call it, spools of tape of talking. I think I erased the whole thing and just Peggy Lee and myself came on and the rehearsal tape that played backwards. I wonder if Sid Luft's mother makes these machines. Could be, she made all those machines. She made Sid. She spawned him in the, uh, the uh, Red Sea some way.

But to, ah, yeah, let's just think about my trying to be heard. Do you realize how many people have talked about me, written about me, imitated me, told my children that they really know me, they know Judy Garland. My little girl, Liza, came home one day from school. She was about ten years old and she said, "What is this," she has a lovely kind of Italian indignation that uh, indignity I should say. Yeah, see I can't read, write or talk too well. An, but it's all in the machine.

Uh, maybe Madison Avenue puts out these machines. Yeah. Webster and Madison. At any rate, Liza, came home from school one day and said "Uh, why do, what is this nonsense that I always hear at school that everybody knows, you, Judy Garland. Everybody knows Judy, but they all, but they REALLY know her. No, they really know her, they knew her when she lived in Transylvania. They had the house next door, and they heard all the, uh, the, mmm, insanity insanity of, of, Momma. And Liza looked at me and simply said "Look, I don't know you, Momma, and nobody ever will. I never will." Ah, he he he he. That's my girl. Well we know each pretty well. I'm rather proud of that. So far, I think I'm on a blank tape. I don't know. And I might admit defeat at this point. I doubt it. I have a tenacity of a praying mantis. Uh, with the little black Irish witch involved. Let's see if we got anything, hmm?

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Tape 1, Track 2

‘I have a rather good intellect. I have a good sense of humor. But it's high time to cut the comedy. And high time to stop the trolley ride, because I, Judy Garland, am gonna talk.’

I just played that last, uh, bit of tape that I tried to do. And it, something came out that sound ok, I guess. I think it was me. Uh, I can truthfully say that nobody asked me. Nobody asked me. I was too little when I went into Vaudeville. I was two years old and I just knew ‘Jingle Bells’ and my grandmother threw me onto my father's stage. He owned a theater in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. And, I just sang ‘Jingle Bells’ and nobody told me to stop, so nobody ever asked me. Now I've never bothered to answer because the questions have never been quite clear.

But I can sit here now, at a nifty age of 41 and honestly say there's just me and this machine, baby. He he he. And I don't know whether anybody's interested or not, but I am. I worked very hard and there's all the success and failure and fatigue and overweight and thinness and tears and laughter and Halloween and no, oh well, really. It's like something out of Tessa the Stone Country.

‘There have been people, like spooks, that go in and out of my life. I don't think many of them are terribly interesting.’--Judy Garland Speaks!

Uh, I cannot take myself seriously because if I did I would have died a long time ago. And I don't want to die. I've never met a cast of people I want to die with. You go on an airplane, look around the people reading the Reader's Digest or whatever. You don't want to die with them. First place you'd get, I'd get top billing. Judy Garland dies in plane crash for other uh, huh, deceased turn to section B, page 18. And then they'd take them alphabetic, and they're a peculiar bunch. What are we doing flying around in airplanes for one thing? We, we're not some, even the birds don't go up that high. We just don't belong. We have to buckle ourselves in and hope. And there's no hope and no oxygen. Now we don't belong up there. Now, you know we don't belong up there. At least that I don't uh, understand. I have to make friends with the pilot and uh, give his children my autograph, whereupon he tells me that uh his children are just as important to him as my life, forget it! His life isn't nearly as important as my life is to me. Sheer selfishness, I don't really care (laughs) about anybody but me. And when my number is up, I want a new one. And I have no intention of checking out. Now this machine isn't going to get me either. One way or another, we're going to overcome it. (laughs) I'll say. See. There have been people, like spooks, that go in and out of my life. I don't think many of them are terribly interesting. But I have many, many interesting good, solid, talented lovely people, that I can, that have taught me the meaning of laughing, being able to laugh at oneself.

I am funny, I attract, well, inanimate objects just ruin me. I can check into a hotel do to a one-night stand concert and try to go into the closet to get my dress off a hanger, and, and absolutely strange, strange, mind you, little wire hanger without one thing on it, flies off from left field and hits me right in the nose. A lot of people have hit me in the nose. I've got a kinda nice nose. Hmm. I keep breathing, my tantrums. Hmm. They get a little stuffy now and then, but, by goodness they keep breathing in and out. I have a rather good intellect. I have a good sense of humor. But it's high time to cut the comedy. And high time to stop the trolley ride, because I, Judy Garland, am gonna talk. And everybody just better sit on the bench and watch the ballgame.

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Judy at Carnegie Hall introducing children Lorna, Joey and Liza

Tape 1, Track 3

‘Let my loved ones stay around me. Let me stay around them. Let me live for God's sake. Let me live.’

And to put it straight, I'm outraged. I'm outraged about many things, that I've read about myself, that people have said. They've affected me deeply. Now I'm going to talk back, I'm going to talk in my own words. And tell the truth so here goes. And if I sound like the lady doth protest to much, don't get the idea that by telling my story, and I have a right to, don't think that comes from anything but having been treated and treated badly, written about in a shocking manner, smeared, scandalized, and I'm sick of it. I've come to a time in my life when I don't want it anymore. And I can't rise above it. I can't rise above the scandalous, obscene lies that have been, the so-called printed word. And I can't rise above the gossip-mongers that have, well, of it, affected my children, my health, and my work. By writing the truth, perhaps the effects will not be so painful to my family, and to me.

‘First of all, I don't understand. I don't honestly understand, why I'm the victim and been made the victim of so many untruths.’--Judy Garland Speaks! (Tape 1, Track 3)

First of all, I don't understand. I don't honestly understand, why I'm the victim and been made the victim of so many untruths. Perhaps, you don't understand what's it like to pick up a paper and read things about yourself that aren't true. Read, loathsome things that have nothing to do with your life, or you or your heart, or your beliefs or your kindnesses or your willingness. I've spent years and years and years trying to please. Through singing or acting. There's nothing wrong with that. And yet I've constantly been written or talked about by certain individuals, that I'll get to later, as an unfit person. Well, what kind of people are they? What kind of business are they in? They're dead people. But they've tried to kill me along the way, and by God they won't. They won't. Because I'm mad.

‘I'm a very lucky woman. In some ways. I'm a very lucky woman to have come to this time in my life and found happiness with a fine man.’

I'm a very lucky woman. In some ways. I'm a very lucky woman to have come to this time in my life and found... happiness with a fine man. A fine man. A man who is able to love me. Not just that I'm able to love, but the fact that he loves me. I'm very proud of that. I'm very proud of the fact that Mark Herron loves me. Just me. Whether I sing or dance. Or whether I don't. [Judy coughs]. Excuse me. I've very proud, it's made me prettier than ever. That's what my, my oldest daughter, Liza, tells me. I'm prettier than ever.

Liza has grown up to be a strong, beautiful, talented, fine, fine, sensitive, courageous young woman. I'm proud of that. I did that alone. I raised that little girl alone. Because nobody cared about us. Nobody cared. Oh, they cared about the money, that I brought in because they made, it made them rich. Lots of people got rich off of me. My children didn't get rich. I didn't get rich. And Mark Herron didn't get rich. But we have a love, my little boy Joe. My little girl Lorna. My young lady, grown uo daughter, Liza, Mark, myself. We have a love that makes everythinhg else look just stupid.

Sid Luft, Lorna Luft, Judy Garland (inset: Sid and Judy on the set of A Star Is Born): ‘Sid Luft is an animal, he's just some kind of breed.’

Sid Luft is an animal, he's just some kind of breed. And I'll tell the world, whenever I can, that he's a thief, a blackmailer, a sadist and a man who doesn't even care one bit, one way or the other, about any other living soul! Let alone his nice children. He's never contributed one penny to their upbringing. He's never contributed one hour to their piece of mind. He's told them how untalented they are, how stupid they are, who needs them. He's told them how he doesn't like them. That's a nice man. That's a big upstanding tramp. Well maybe he's in with the judges, in Santa Monica court so that I can't even get to see my children now that I live in England. Because I can't live with the stench of the Santa Monica court and the stench of Sid Luft, and the stench of lawyers who rob me and just keep it going, keep the case going--Judy's crazy, Judy doesn't know what she’s talking…I know well enough how to raise thee kids--and damn well. And I know how to be loved by a man, who understands the pressures I've had to go through, and it, it's worth it. It's worth it.

Judy Garland and Mark Herron

And the hell with all the crazy fan mail, so called fan mail. The letters, get say, you've sinned, Judy. Turn to Christ. I go to church every Sunday. I've got God in my heart. That's more than most of you can say. My children have it. Mark Herron has it. And we present an army. We represent strength and goodness, and by God justice had better prevail, prevail. Although I doubt it. Being Judy Garland is quite a chore. Not only for me, but for Mark, for Joe, for Lorna and Liza. But it's not too much of a chore for Sid Luft, and it wasn't too much of a chore for Vincent Minnelli, to just overlook the fact that he had a magnificent daughter.

Being Judy Garland, sure I've been loved, by the public. I can't take the public home with me. And I've been ripped to pieces, ripped to pieces, by the public and the critics and the newspapers and people who don't know what they're talking about. And I demand, I demand to be heard. I will be heard, and I'll keep talking for the rest of my life because now I can talk, now I'm happy, now I know that there's no gaslight in my life, and the people who try to present it are the criminals. And it all comes down to the unholy dollar. Well, I'll always be able to make money, but I'll keep it. I'll keep it, for my children, for myself, and I won't pay, 25,000 dollars a year to a bum, to Sid Luft, who’s a bum, a tramp. And so is his mother, and so is his sister. His whole rotten background. And I'm not afraid.

People who say they should hold marriages together are, my God, my God, what happens to the children if you expose them to a, to a mongrel. He wants money, he's not able, able to, to do anything mentally. And he's a paranoid. But physically he's capable. Let him get his fanny out and go to work. I'm not paying for him anymore. I'm not paying for anybody who tries to rob me. Not rob, I'll pay. I'll pay. Just the way everybody else has to pay--money. If you buy something, you pay money. If you owe a bill, you pay it. I'm a very honest woman.

Nobody's ever encouraged me to talk before. It's a little difficult to sit and talk about yourself. I'm a very modest woman. I've always believed in that terrible cliche, uh, whatever is printed in the paper today is yesterday's news. That's a lot of nonsense! I get mail, and fie, fie on the rotten poison pen letters. The people who write those are demented. I'm going to live a life that is as splendid as my surroundings are. My men, and my children.

I'll get my children, I support my children. I've brought them up and I love them, and they love me. I respect them. I worship them. They give me the same respect, the same love in return. They're brave children--they have to be. Look who their father is, what's he ever contributed, what's he ever done, what's he ever done for the world. He and his friends, I wish they would all get lost. How can they use two fine children, and put a price on both those children's heads so their children can come and be with their mother. It's not that, I'm wailing like a, an old-fashioned mother. I need them, I need them as much as they need me. I need their laughter. I need their arms around me. Until they grow up and it's time for them to go about their own lives.

I want to be fair, but I want them with me, I gave birth to them, I supported them, I loved them, I, I still do. But for goodness sakes, for God sakes, what about the lawyers, what about the judges, what, they're being handed over to a man, if I can, I hate that word in connection with Sid Luft, Michael Sidney Luft is not a man, he's not a father, he's not a worker, he's not a contributor, he's not anything. He's a pimp. There is no community property. He drew up an agreement, before he married me, saying there was no community property because he didn't want to support his ex-wife's son, his son, and his ex-wife. I won't give him a cent. I won't give him the time of day, but I wish to God somebody would come to my aid. The judges sit there and I don't know how he pays them off. My children are stuck in Santa Monica. They didn't even get to visit me in school vacation, because I'm supposed to be an unfit mother. I've been working my head off. Somebody had to feed my children, and that was me. And it was my pleasure. Because they, in return they gave me laughter, love, comfort, beauty.

But it was damned hard to keep from climbing up the wall with frustration. So I'm not going to be frustrated anymore. I'm going to talk and somebody's going to print this, even if I have to put up the money myself. I'll print it in a little book. Maybe somebody will read it and maybe somebody will learn a little bit of the truth of this so-called legend. I, that's what I'm supposed to be, a legend, Judy Garland. Alright, then read about it, read the truth though. I want to love, I want to be friendly, I want to work. Don't get in my way. And don't let other people get in my way. Get off my back.

Let my loved ones stay around me. Let me stay around them. Let me live for God's sake. Let me live.

To start with, if anyone's going to print anything about me, or write anything about me, it'll be me. I'll print about me. I'll write about me because I'm the only one who knows. And i just refuse to stay silent, anymore. While everyone else makes news about me, so-called news, it's very untrue news. And I'll never again be made the target to some demented, sick mind that just wants to print bad things. To hell with the good things, and there've been a lot of good things. I'll never be that kind of target again--there's no more Over the Rainbow for me, I've grown up and those days are over.

There's nothing about me to threaten by exposure, I've been exposed since I was a little girl. Wrongly exposed. News was made. Bad news. I know exactly who did it, how it was done, why it was done. I'm not a stupid woman. Now those people are going to be exposed and it's going to be fun. I've waited a long time for this. And revenge can be very sweet, when it is proper and right. I'm a very revengeful person now. I don't want any more lies printed about me. My children read the newspapers, they have to put up with their schoolmates.

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Judy with (from left) daughters Lorna and Liza and son Joey

Tape 2, Track 1

‘I'd like to talk about my three successful children. They're great successes unto themselves, without an awful lot of help. I gave them so-called instant love, ‘cause I had to work to support them, nobody else would.’

I've just about got it made. All I have to do is talk, and all you have to do is read, or listen, and believe me the way you believe me when I sang all those songs. Well, now I'm talking and listen to me for goodness sakes. Don't make a joke of me anymore. People say, and print, and believe the stupid ones and the minor...the minority, that I'm either a drunk, a drug addict, or, it's a goddamn wonder I'm not! But I'm not. Because there's Joe, Lorna, Liza, Mark and me. And whoever wants to love us, is welcome. Whoever is against us, get out!

It's very difficult indeed to record, very difficult to record one's thoughts alone. And when I play back the tape, I hear that I slur my words very badly, but that doesn't make too much difference, as long as my thoughts are not slurred.

I'd like to talk about my three successful children. They're great successes unto themselves, without an awful lot of help. I gave them so-called instant love, ‘cause I had to work to support them, nobody else would. That meant I had to leave them many times. And that meant I had to make them believe in my love, when I left them. And that meant that they had to know that I would come back. It also had to mean that they had to know that I had a life. That I would be well. And that when they grew up, they could leave me and that I would be alright then. It's not easy to take. Oh no, you'd think all kinds of things, it's all kind of modern care unto yourself. You'd think, Oh, well, I raised my children. If you're all alone and raising children, you do the best you can, but I've done a hell of a good job.

‘I've just about got it made. All I have to do is talk, and all you have to do is read, or listen, and believe me the way you believe me when I sang all those songs. Well, now I'm talking and listen to me for goodness sakes. Don't make a joke of me anymore.’

You take a look at those three children. They're individual, they're beautiful, they're dynamic, they're powerful, they're loving, they're full of sunshine. Very seldom full of sadness. And they're outgoing. And they know the score. And they're all three, very handsome. And they all three love me. Just the way I love them. We're four people. They're people, not children. They're children, not people. Whichever way you want to put it.

I respect them, I disciplined because that was the only way I could give them security. I objected many times. I will not have spoiled children. I'm not a spoiled woman. Spoiled children won't get along very well with the rest of the world. They're not spoiled, but they're smart, loving and talented. And I'm a terribly, terribly lucky woman. I've been able to be honest with them, and I have enabled them to be honest with me. If for nothing else, for that, I'm proud.

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Tape 2, Track 2

‘Hopeless, but I'm a believer in decency, in the decency of a rainbow. And of people.’

I think, I have every right to write a book. I think I'm interesting. I have perspective about me. I am Gemini. The personality most likely to split. I never allowed myself a split personality. I've never allowed myself to even have too bad a head cold when it came time to go onstage. Because my parents have been an audience. They at least put their hands together and made a sound called applause. And a ________ from the spotlight.

And somehow I've always known that my home, I'm in love with my audience. I'm in love with people. Hopeless, but I'm a believer in decency, in the decency of a rainbow. And of people. Not many people around me have given me any reason to believe my own beliefs _________, a way of laughter, loving your children, loving life, and enjoying a bag of popcorn like in the roller coaster ride, living legends never, they don't go on roller coasters, but I have been put on one, and it's been a damn fast ride. But it's been an interesting one, I think, interesting enough finally for me to tell.

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Tape 2, Track 3

‘I tried my damndest to believe in the rainbow that I tried to get over and I couldn't--SO WHAT!?’

I'm growing self-conscious about talking about myself but I think I've got something to write about at last. If you like, you like it, if you don't like it, you don't like it, but you won't be able to take it lightly. Anymore than I've been able to take it lightly. I've laughed at myself when I should have cried! And I've cried, because I've had every reason, I'm goddamn mad! I'm an angry lady. I'm a lady who is angry, I've been insulted, slandered, humiliated, but still America's Sweetheart.

Now I'm a rather intelligent, I think, or, am I emotional? Yeah. I'm a woman, I'm emotional! I'm not something you wind up and put on stage that sings Carnegie Hall album and you put her in the closet and forget to invite ger to the party that's given for her, the agents [sic, agents] leave her behind. I'm mad, I am mad, enough, and yet still very self-conscious, but I'm gonna write a book, and I'm gonna talk. Because I can do something besides singing you know. I don't always have to sing a song. There is something besides 'The Man that Got Away' or 'Over the Rainbow' or ‘The Trolley Song,’ there's a woman, there are three children, there's me. There's a lot of LIFE going here. I wanted to believe and I tried my damndest to believe in the rainbow that I tried to get over and I couldn't--SO WHAT!? Lots of people can't! But I'm not lots of people. I'm me. I'm the one who’s had to live with me.

There is something besides 'The Man that Got Away' or 'Over the Rainbow' or ‘The Trolley Song,’ there's a woman, there are three children, there's me. There's a lot of life going here. I wanted to believe and I tried my damndest!

I don't want to hear any resentment from anybody else now about how difficult I am and I don't want to pick up a paper and read how unfit a mother when I have three marvelous children who seem to take and have always loved me--fat, thin, funny, uh, sad, oh. They think I'm pretty good. I think they're great! I have loved and have never planned revenge, however this book turns out is because of, I am the result of an audience, of a critic, of critics, of what people have made me.

And in the meantime, there's been anther whole human being, myself, that hasn’t been even interesting enough to write good stories in the newspapers that would be printed. They weren't, they're not interested. I, I'm a good cook, I am a good mother. I do believe in going to church. I love music; I love a lot of things that the people around me, that have surrounded me, all my life, all my 44 goddamn marvelous, failing, successful and hopelessly tragic and star-lit years.

‘How do I find the true Judy Garland, or Francis Gumm, or whatever? Just a girl, or a woman.’

I've been thrown by people who are not in my league. They were the disbelievers; now they're going to have to put up with their names being printed. They better not sue, cause I'm gonna, get a, write the truth, but in the meantime, how do I find the true Judy Garland, or Francis Gumm, or whatever? Just a girl, or a woman. I get angry, I've never been allowed to be angry. I can get angry in front of my friends often. I'm supposed to try and--I don't know. I do get so frustrated. It's very difficult for--it's all well and good for you, people, publishers, now this is not to be included in my book, for Irving Lazar to say just tape 50, uh pages and it will be taken off the tape, and, but you can't write how nervous my hands got! Or how lost I might get when I have to remember, cause I went through five years of psychoanalysis going back over a life that was no good to begin with, no fun.

I'm doing it purely for money. Because I deserve it. I've sung, I've entertained. I've pleased your children, I've pleased your wives, I've pleased you, you sons of bitches! and you can't deny that! Now the government isn't pleasing me very much! They're not protecting me. They're gonna move the house away with the kids. Sid Luft. A lot of people belong in Southern California in a thing called the La Brea Tar Pits. I've maintained a way of life to not sink with the sludge. Now you better write it, you better pay for it, or don't listen and GET THE HELL OUT OF MY LIFE!

***

Tape 2, Track 4

‘…there's an awful lot of baggy pants comedy in me. There's a lot of tragedy. There's a lot of interest, there's a lot of practicality. The practical thing being that I do know what I'm worth.’

People (laughs) will also be able to tell as I write the book after I get enough money to take the time to write this marvelous story. You'll find that I'm, there's an awful lot of baggy pants comedy in me. There's a lot of tragedy. There's a lot of interest, there's a lot of practicality. The practical thing being that I do know what I'm worth. I'm supposed to do this tape, and talk about what the book will be. That's what Irving told me to do. Swifty, Swifty has never had to sit down with a microphone, and say what he's going to write. What does he write in short hand? Or talk, in, in some kind of Sanskrit? It's very difficult for me, but I'm gonna write it for whoever, it's you're all for grabs now. But I can guarantee you, even if I have to form a new publishing company and write this book it's going to be one hell of a great, everlastingly great book with humor, tears, fun, emotion and love. Signing off.

Click here for our video retrospective of great moments in Judy Garland's career.