Description: Ordinarily, the lives of subject's parents receive (often quite rightly) only perfunctory attention, but Judy Garland's parents were not only fascinating in themselves but played a major role in the woman she became. Judy's distinct voice was discovered early on, and her mother would take her audition in various theaters all over the mid-west (and afterwards, Judy was sure she was ushered outside so her mother could sleep with the local owner). There are her struggles to find a place for herself at MGM, where she was considered an ugly duckling almost unfit for starring roles -- and, incidentally, here the studio life is examined in all its complexity and absorbing detail, particularly the role of Louis B. Mayer in Judy's career. Her obsessive, frustrating, and sometimes brutal love affairs are all dramatized (did you know that Judy's mother, Judy herself, and Liza all married homosexual husbands?).

The reader is taken inside the making of such great films as "The Wizard of Oz, " "Meet Me in St. Louis, " and "A Star Is Born" -- and her electrifying stage appearances are portrayed as never before.

This emotional, absorbing story is bound to appeal to a wide variety of readers and can only enhance Gerald Clarke's reputation as a premier biographer, who is able to recreate and bring to life with sympathy and clear-eyed candor the most unusual and distinctive human beings.

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