Raymond Stanley's Show Buzz

Judy Garland's infamous Melbourne Concert

If there was one international entertainer above all others in the early 1960s whom Australians wanted to see in person it was the legendary Judy Garland. There had been repeated rumours she would make a concert tour Down Under, but always such reports had proved to be false.

Then in March 1964 impresario Harry M. Miller gave me the exclusive news that his company Pan Pacific Promotions had, in the face of extremely stiff competition, signed up Garland.  She would give two concerts at the Stadium in Sydney on May 13 and 16 and one concert at the Festival Hall in Melbourne on May 20.

Miller stressed that it was not a question of the amount being paid Garland that had enabled him to sign her up instead of his rivals, but the fact  that the reputation of Pan Pacific Promotions - which had been in existence less than 12 months - had clinched the deal.  However, some of Miller’s rivals confided in me they had had the opportunity to bring Garland to Australia, but considered it too risky an operation.  At the time this sounded like a case of ‘sour grapes’.

Miller promised me a 30-minute interview with the star alone, with my tape recorder, provided I was able to get the news that he had signed her up highlighted in Variety  and The Stage. This I was able to do. Obviously it would assist him in obtaining other overseas artistes of Garland’s calibre.

Naturally there was much local media coverage on Judy Garland’s pending visit.  Extravagant claims were made as to the amount she was being paid, not  the least that it would be the highest ever to an entertainer in that part of the world.

I had seen Garland perform at the London Palladium in 1951.  Then she had appeared to be a dumpy figure dressed all in black and my main memory was of her standing at the back of the stage regarding the audience with an almost frightened look in her eyes.  This vision had never been erased from my mind;  perhaps her forthcoming concert would do just that.

Garland made her two scheduled appearances in the Sydney Stadium - with the audience on all sides.  Friends who attended both concerts told me that by and large, making allowances, the two probably added up to one concert.  It was enjoyable and - no, she did not really disappoint.

Certainly Harry Miller must have been happy.  He took out  heart-shaped advertisements in the Melbourne papers proclaiming:  “Harry M. Miller loves Judy Garland because..... last Saturday night at the Sydney Stadium she was just unbelievably fantastic!”

Garland was due to arrive in Melbourne on Sunday May 17;  her concert to take place the following Wednesday.  Ten days previously Melbourne reporters had received invitations to meet her at the airport, and then be her guests at a reception at her hotel.  This later was postponed to the day before the concert, as the singer apparently wanted to motor from Sydney to Melbourne to see something of the countryside.

By this time rumours were starting to float around that Harry M. might not be loving Judy Garland quite as much.  Then, instead of journeying by car, Garland travelled by overnight train:  taking 12 hours instead of the customary one by air.  She arrived on the Tuesday, looking very tired, on the arm of her actor-friend Mark Herron.  Again the press reception was cancelled.  It never did take place.

The Judy Garland concert at Festival Hall had been mooted for some weeks as the event of the year, even topping a Fonteyn/Nureyev season and almost The Beatles.  In local theatre and television circles much switching around had taken place so that the audience on the night could be said to be one of the most notable ever assembled in Melbourne.  Everywhere one looked among the 7,000 gathered there one could see a ‘name’.

Garland was due to appear at 8.30 p.m. and the audience  began to assemble before 8 p.m.  When 8.30 came and went people were not unduly perturbed:  they had read that her Sydney concerts had been half an hour late in commencing, due to many late arrivals.

By 9 p.m. the audience had become restless and there were periodic bursts of slow hand clapping.  At 9.20 came a loudspeaker announcement:  “It is quite obvious Miss Garland has been delayed”.  This was met by a huge uproar on the part of the waiting crowd and quickly was followed by the statement:  “Miss Garland is on her way and will be with you soon”.  Loud cheers.

At 9.30 p.m. a handful of members of the audience went to the box office, demanded refunds, were given them and left.

Soon afterwards the 30-piece orchestra came onstage, began to play an overture and received a huge ovation.

At 9.37 p.m. Garland, attired in white, entered from one side of the audience and was helped onto the Festival Hall stage by her friend, Mark Herron.  She walked slowly across it, blowing kisses and smiling at the applauding crowd.

She seemed to have difficulty in getting started, went to her musical director, lightly smacked him on the hip, took his baton and began to ‘conduct’ the orchestra.  But this was not what the audience had come - and waited - to see.  Some people commenced to slow hand clap her whilst other local fans yelled out:  “We love you Judy.  We love you”.

“I love you too”, said Garland.

“You are late”, someone shouted.

“I couldn’t get out of my hotel”, replied Garland smoothly.

“Have another brandy”, a man called out.

“Give her a chance”, cried another, and elsewhere there were shouts of “We love you Judy”.

The orchestra went into ‘When You’re Smiling’ and to a terrific ovation the star sang the number in the famous Garland voice, and it looked as if the evening had been saved.

She swung into a medley of some of her well known numbers.  Then, seeing a photographer in the second row having difficulty with his camera, stopped dead in her tracks and began a one-sided ad lib with him and posing.

For her next number she sat on a chair and several people at the side called out:  “We can’t see you Judy, bring your chair nearer”.  This she did with the comment:  “Can you see now baby?”

She had the audience in her hand with ‘The Trolley Song’, ‘Love Of My Life” and again with “The Man That Got Away’.  This was the Judy Garland they loved and had come to see.

She obviously had been troubled all this time with the microphone and its very long lead.,  Fiddling with this, she went into her ‘San Francisco’ opening routine and seemed a little put out that the audience was ahead of her in its intro (having of course heard it on LP).  She toyed with the mike again and claimed it squeaked;  but she was making it do so.

Someone yelled:  “Act your age Judy!”

She walked to the end of the stage from where the remark had come and, staring into the darkness, cried:  “I’m younger than you are.  I’m supposed to be temperamental and I’m being temperamental!”

From then on she bickered quite a bit as to what she would or would not sing, with some sections of the audience pleading with her to get on with her song and others loyally chanting:  “We love you Judy”.  Somehow she got through ‘San Francisco’ and left the stage as intermission was announced.  It was lO.15 p.m.

The intermission lasted 25 minutes, during which time some of the audience left in disgust.  At  10.40 Garland - in white blouse this time - was back on stage and attempting to sing ‘Putting On The Ritz’, but again was experiencing trouble with the microphone cord, making remarks to orchestra, audience and herself.  At one point she cooed:  “If you print that you’ll get sued so fast!”

She complained - quite reasonably - about the noise from the air-conditioning.  A woman shouted out:  “I’m hot under the collar”.  “Me too”, retorted Garland.

It now appeared that the last thing she wanted to do was sing, despite repeated requests to so do and slow hand claps from the audience which increased.  But from isolated patches throughout the hall came “Never mind Judy, we love you”.

“Why don’t we just have a sparring match?”, she asked.  Then she remembered the remark about acting her age.  “Since I’ve been in Australia they’ve printed my age as 42 - I’m 41.  But I have a lot of experience”.

Ever since the intermission there had been a steady trickle of people leaving, which increased more and more throughout the banter.  Again the ironic clapping and cries of “We love you Judy”.  But Garland only muttered:  “That’s all you deserve - the man who said that”.

By now the whole show had deteriorated with Garland showing no sign of singing another song.  More and more people left the hall.  Then the orchestra suddenly struck up and Garland went into ‘Rockabye’ and seemed for a moment to be her old self.  But again she was getting entangled in the mike cord.

She made several feeble attempts at singing numbers - like ‘A Foggy Day’ - forgot the words, and in the end rushed it off quickly and snappily.

Finally she began a number which the orchestra obviously had not rehearsed - ‘I’ll Go My Way By Myself’.  As she went along she seemed to be making up the words.  Then she broke off to the heckling of the audience.

Singing now almost hysterically and with tears in her eyes, she jerked out the last line - “It’s so lonely by myself..... Good night!” - and rushed off the stage.  The time was 11.07 p.m.

For the next ten minutes the orchestra blandly played again and again the refrain from ‘Over The Rainbow’ as people yelled out for Garland.  But she did not return.  The lights went up and all around were serious faces, some tear-stained.  The disillusionment of the great Judy Garland was complete.,

Local papers the next day gave front page headlines to the proceedings.  The tone was one of sorrow rather than anger.  They obviously wanted to find excuses for her extraordinary behaviour, but were unable to do so.

A special edition of Truth was rushed onto the news stands within hours with the front page headline:  “Judy drunk?  No.... says manager.”  The evening paper The Herald  reported her manager as saying she had a touch of laryngitis and that he considered the singer had given ‘an adequate performance”.

A steady stream of members from the audience besieged the offices of Pan Pacific Promotions the next day, trying to have their money refunded, but were disappointed.  They were told by Garland’s manager that she had given ‘a satisfactory performance’.

I contacted Miller at his hotel but he had little to say.  He had no explanation for her odd exhibition, merely saying she had been really fabulous at her Sydney concerts, but admitted he had not spoken to her since the previous Saturday night.

“We fulfilled our responsibility’, he emphasised.  “We paid her her salary, made all he necessary arrangements - the rest was up to her”.  Then he admitted he had watched the performance from the back of the hall but had found it too much to bear and left at 10.50 p.m.

The musicians who had accompanied Garland were reported in the press as being enraged, with the Victorian secretary of the Musicians’ Union claiming it was the most humiliating treatment musicians had ever had to bear in Australia.

“Miss Garland poured insults on them”, he was quoted as saying.  “The insults reached a peak when, after completely messing up a song, Miss Garland turned to the orchestra and said:  ‘What are we supposed to be doing - playing cards?’”

Later Garland and Herron left for Hong Kong for a rest.

Her last picture, I Could Go On Singing, had not yet been screened in Melbourne, although advertisements for it had been prominently displayed in a city cinema foyer.  These were now taken down.

It was some considerable time later that the film was shown in Melbourne - at a small cinema for less than a week - and it was advertised as starring Dirk Bogarde, with Garland’s name in much smaller letters.  I attended a Friday night performance of it; there was just a handful of people in the cinema.