Get Happy : The Life of Judy Garland

Rating:
Summary: Tabloid bio
Review: It is obvious that this author went for the big dollar payoff with lots of sexual conjecture and supposition on all counts. Does nothing for Judy's life, her legacy. Reduces her to tabloid trash...which she never was. A grand life gets the tabloid treatment. There was much more to her than this book could ever dredge up.

Rating:
Summary: After a long wait, disappointing
Review: There was much anticipated for Clarke's decade long effort to chronicle Garland's life, however, the end result falls far, far short of this exepctation. Quite simply, it is a typical Hollywood tabloid biography that makes liberal and annoying use of people's (mostly dead people, that is,) thoughts and ideas about Garland's life. There is so much that is based upon good old fashion gossip that it is hardly worth the effort. Clarke also seems to be able to contact the dead as he is able to say what all these (dead) people were feelinga nd thinking on many occasions. So and so felt guilty, so and so felt silly, Judy felt this....yet it is based solely upon his interpretation. A big disappointment.

Rating:
Summary: Pompous and prurient
Review: This latest biography of the legendary singer-actress JudyGarland focuses shamelessly on sex -- her father's desperatehomosexual indiscretions, and Judy's own supposed penchant for performing a certain sexual act (in restaurants, etc.) -- and alternately tosses about quotes by Milton and Baudelaire in a shabby attempt to be high-minded. The literary liftings (used to describe, for instance, what one of Garland's many nervous breakdowns must have felt like, since Clarke clearly hasn't got a clue) are so out of left field that they're laughable. And the graphic sexual details are so ugly, gratuitous (and unconvincing) that they make you want to take a very long, very hot shower. Mr. Clarke may have written a well-regarded biography of Truman Capote way back when, but this new book is just plain sleazy. Quoting better, dead writers can't redeem its gutter-level take on one of the century's greatest performers.

Rating:
Summary: New info...where
Review: The same old stuff, but with lots of misleading quotes and notes. Author describes his sources but they are nothing more than quotes taken out of context and hearsay. The most unsavory of details go to the classic anonymous sources. Everything he writes is based on people's own impressions. A tired Hollywood tabloid bio. He claims to have access to all this secret material. For one thing those Garland tapes - "Judy's autobiography" please, every fan has these...they sell them right on the net for $20. This guy got paid a lot of money and took ten years to write nothing spectacular.

Rating:
Summary: Needs a new title....
Review: The correct title to this book should be Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland ....According to What People Said, or Thought or Believed. Nearly the entire book is one giant personal opinion and speculative idea. The actual facts that are put forth are hardly relevatory, rather they provide the same info. Clarke colors so much of the story with his own take that it makes for a very hollow work. Nothing new in photos, either. He shows no great resepct for the subject or her life, has the usual and expected amount of anonymous stories with many of a sexual nature which are STRICTLY conjecture with no facts. In short, nothing great at all.

Rating:
Summary: surprising new information
Review: Gerald Clarke wrote an excellent bio of Truman Capote and he does it again! You would think after many books there would be nothing new to say about Judy but Clarke finds new information and he writes with intelligence, taste and sensitivity.

Rating:
Summary: The closest Autobiography we will ever have!
Review: I can't believe some of the reviews I've read here. Obviously, if you only know Judy Garland from Oz or St. Louis, you have no business reading this book until you know more about her & her tortured life. I've read all of the books including Lorna Luft's very own & found this one to be by far the most honest, straight-forward, non-biased, truthful book available about Judy. It is NOT a book about her movie career - there are already many of those - it's a book about her sad & troubled life. My only complaint is that there weren't enough pix to reference to as the story was being told - I had to pull out some of my others to see what the author was describing. I have been a fan since I was very young, & when I heard this book was coming out, I could not wait. I have treasured each page I've read & it only makes me more sad that Judy's life had to end so soon & so many people had to miss out on all of her wonderful talents. Wouldn't it have been wonderful to see Judy at Oz's 50th Anniversary! If you love Judy & know of her troubled life, this book will fill your heart & make you miss her even more. Her death was totally & completely unnecessary & no one should ever have to suffer like Judy did - especially someone who provided so much happiness to those around her. We miss you Judy & this book brought you back to life for just a short while!

Rating:
Summary: Judy Garland by Clarke
Review: This book is what made me a Judy fan, where before I had only been a Judy admirer from afar. I read this book without having read any reviews or knowing anything about the controversy surrounding it. I found Mr Clarke's treatment of Judy candid and sympathetic, but not sentimental or rose-colored - which is what I have a feeling Judy fans didn't like about it. In spite of the sordid details, and as the trajectory of her life story spiraled downward, I found myself liking Judy the Person more and more - flaws and all. I appreciated the quotes Clarke used from Judy herself to describe her life - they show how refreshingly honest and humble she was, especially toward the end. I did not appreciate his long-winded, professorial essays about various side subjects and the sex-obssessed leaning of the book. I did not appreciate the $10 words he uses that leave you running to a dictionary to figure out what he means. I ended it feeling that I wanted to know a little more about the making of her films than just start and end dates and a little less about the sex. Where the book excels is at the beginning, where Clarke really did his research into Judy's parental history, unhappy aspects of her early life, her father's pederasty and her "love affair" with her Dad. It explains much about her subsequent histrionic behavior and constant striving for normalcy, especially in the romance and marriage departments. Controversial or not, trashy or not, I still recommend the book. If you can't love her, or at least sympathize with her, by the end of this book, you're probably not a true fan.

Rating:
Summary: What a life...
Review: Clarke's book, though sometimes turning towards the tabloid journalism route, has much to say, and there's a lot of things that will jar some Garland admirers. On the whole, however, the book is riveting, and gives quite a bit of insight into her early years, which explained much of her erratic behavior later in life. Once started, it was hard to put down.