Judy Garland at 100: Still ‘The World’s Greatest Entertainer’
Jon Burlingame editorJudy Garland, who would have turned 100 years old this week, wasn’t just billed as “the world’s greatest entertainer” – in her time, she really was.Garland was much more than just little Dorothy Gale from Kansas who once had an adventure in far-off Oz. She spent 45 of her 47 years in show business, eventually making 34 feature films and more than 200 radio appearances, releasing 80 singles and 12 albums, making 60 TV appearances (including 30 of her own shows), and doing 1,100 concerts.“She had the amazing ability to convey joy and pathos and humor and sincerity and honesty,” says author and Emmy-winning producer John Fricke (“Judy Garland: A Portrait in Art and Anecdote”), “yet by giving of herself on that level, she had no guard, no protective shield.