“I’ve always taken ‘The Wizard of Oz’ very seriously, you know,” she once said. Her most celebrated role came in 1939, when at 16 she portrayed an orphaned farm girl from Kansas named Dorothy Gale in “The Wizard of Oz.” Young Dorothy longed to leave her tedious life on the farm and travel somewhere over the rainbow, where skies were always blue, as she sang in the video clip below. The pressure continued in Hollywood: Studio heads told her she wasn’t pretty enough, deepening insecurities that dogged her throughout her career. She had a strained relationship with her mother, a fierce stage parent, and was devastated when her beloved father died of meningitis in 1935. She was the daughter of vaudeville professionals, who encouraged their three daughters to go into show business, and she grew up with the pressure of her parents’ expectations. Garland, who died at 47 on June 22, 1969, was born Frances Ethel Gumm on June 10, 1922, in Grand Rapids, Minn. The seeds of her discontent were sown when she was very young. Garland’s dream of fame did come true, but she never found peace of mind.Įven after she ascended to worldwide stardom, she constantly sought the love, adulation and acceptance that she felt had eluded her since childhood.

“Somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue, and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.” When Judy Garland sang one of the best-known songs in movie history in “The Wizard of Oz” in 1939, “Over the Rainbow,” one line summed up her brilliant career as an actress and singer:

Written on His Skin by Simone Stark