In the United States of the 60s, that was the password, the key for gay men to recognize others with whom they shared S- identity.
When the homo-S world was lived in private. The influence of the character that Judy Garland played in 'The Wizard of Oz' was already evident, as it is obvious, almost five decades later, that the colors of the flag that represents the movement make a clear allusion to the song 'Over the Rainbow', that the actress sang in the mythical film. To make matters worse, his funeral took place on June 27, 1969, just one day before the Stonewall protests, which in turn took place as a result of the beating that some policemen beat a group of homo-S in a friendly bar.
New Yorker. The connections between Judy Garland and the gay world are multiple and varied, but if one of them had to prevail over the rest, critics would talk about the identification of homo-S with the suffering suffered by the actress, whose life involved a series of obstacles. typical of a melodramatic serial that would lead her to premature death. Even in the films before her death, when she went from the merriment of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical to more dramatic roles such as 'Winners or Losers' (Stanley Kramer, 1961) or 'Angels without Paradise' (John Cassavetes, 1963). If the Montgomery Clift thing was the "longest suicide in history", the Garland thing was not far behind and it would give for a thousand and one films with much more drama than the one that the "Judy" that she played (with Oscar) ever had included) Renée Zellweger.
Garland's problems originated in her childhood when her mother took advantage of her talent as an artist to exercise what today would clearly be understood as child exploitation. Metro Goldwyn Mayer, the studio she worked for from the mid-1930s until 1950, was largely to blame for that treatment. To endure hours and hours of work, the studio executives gave her pills that ended up creating a strong addiction that she would drag on for the rest of her days. To this was added the eternal insecurity of the star that she, surrounded by beauties such as Lana Turner or Hedy Lamarr, felt that her physique was too ordinary, a flaw when it came to becoming a great star. Being called "my little hunchback" by L. B. Mayer didn't do much to boost her self-confidence.
A series of unhappy marriages, including the one she formed with Vincente Minnelli after meeting on the set of 'Date in St. Louis', would do the rest of her life. In the last decade of her life, Judy had reinvented herself. Since Metro Goldwyn Mayer, fed up with her continuous neuroses and the delays caused by her fears, fired her, she shot 'A Star Is Born' for Warner and disdained the cinema for the benefit of the stage, where she found a second source of income. finances and a new professional life.
Her third husband, Sidney Luft, prompted that turnaround that coincided with her gay cult. Despite everything, Luft would not stay in her life definitively either, since they divorced in 1963 and then two other husbands came. In fact, her daughter Liza once said to her: "Another husband, Mom?" Between spouse and spouse, her shows showed the physical weakness that she suffered from her because of the depression and her fondness for barbiturates. In one of them, held in Melbourne in 1964, she appeared an hour later than expected, which caused a large part of the 70,000 attendees to boo her and the concert to end early.
In March '69, Judy Garland married a much younger businessman, Mickey Deans. The videos that remained from that day make clear her physical decline. Tired-eyed, extremely thin, and fragile, she Judy seemed a pale shadow of what she once was. Added to her addictions was the accumulated fatigue from so many performances, necessary to bring her finances up to date. Deans, from whom she would also end up separating, would be the involuntary witness of the misfortune that was to come. On the morning of June 22, when he went to the bathroom of the home they both shared in London, Garland was found sitting on the toilet with her face scratched. The actress had died of an overdose of barbiturates. Although the official version called it cardiac arrest, the rumor mill ended up confirming that it was probably a suicide or an involuntary intake of pills. The fact is that millions of people regretted that that adorable girl and a young woman from the musicals produced by Arthur Freed had such a tragic ending.
A few days later, the beating of several boys by law enforcement officers in a New York venue, which would serve as the definitive seed for the gay movement, would be directly related to her death. When the police entered the premises, a group of gays celebrated the life and work of the actress, whose 'rainbow' would serve as an eternal metaphor for all those who feel the festivities that commemorate that day as their own; for those who, day after day, and like Dorothy in 'The Wizard of Oz', know that they are no longer "in Kansas", who prefer to enter a universe as colorful as the one in the film, in which everyone can love to whoever pleases.
