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August 14, 2006
We're not in Kansas anymore
The Wizard of Oz is one of my mother's favorite movies, and I remember watching it on TV when I was a kid, waiting for the moment when the flying monkeys would scare the bejabbers out of my little sister, as I smugly chuckled at her childish fear.
Of course, late at night, I might have cast a panic-stricken glance at the closet for the soon-to-emerge Wicked WItch of the West and her aerial simian henchmen had a momentary twinge, thinking about the silly villains and cheesy special effects.
But mom was right about Judy Garland; "Over the Rainbow" was a great song, and the teenage actress sang her heart out.
Judy lived a miserable life, filled with drugs and failed marriages, finally taking her last standing ovation by the time she was 47 -- although she looked a good twenty years older.
Her sordid personal life is captured in a passage from an essay by Mark Steyn, saluting ... well, illustrating the rather curious career of Australian entertainer Peter Allen.
Judy had spotted him when he and his partner (in every sense) were performing as the Allen Brothers in the Starlight Room at the Hong Kong Hilton in 1964.
After bringing them to London as her opening act, she took young Peter from Tenterfield under her wing. The fetching Aussie hunk found himself (more or less simultaneously) Judy’s pianist, her husband’s lover, and her daughter’s husband.
Back in the mid-Forties, Miss Garland had come home one day and found her then husband, Vincente Minnelli, in bed with another man. There followed her first suicide attempt. Two decades later, Liza Minnelli could top that: she caught Peter Allen, her new husband, in bed with his boyfriend on their wedding night.
Peter had been recommended to Judy by her fourth husband, Mark Herron. And Judy in turn pressed him on Liza. And Herron and Allen carried on a sexual relationship during their respective marriages to Judy and Liza.
One is all for being broad-minded and tolerant about these things and Peter Allen was certainly a good-looking lad in those days, but, how heartless does a guy have to be to screw his stepdaughter’s husband?
The boy from Oz, like the girl from Kansas, was lost in a strange world of deficient creatures: miring Liza Minnelli in her own pathologies as a toxic inheritance, Judy has no brain; blithely rogering his step-daughter’s husband, Judy’s spouse Mark Herron has no heart; and, unable to resist her mother’s scheming, Liza has no courage.
Ewwww.
I used to think Woody Allen having an affair with and marrying his stepdaughter was the ultimate in cringe-inducing Hollywood depravity, but the Judy-Liza-Peter connection is right up there in the pantheon of entertainment whack-a-doodle weirdness.
Did I say, "Ewwwwww"?
Almost forgot. Did you notice that the two horndog Allens are named Woody and Peter?
Wonder if it's a Tinsel Town type of onomatopoeia . . . .
Posted by Mike Lief at August 14, 2006 11:24 PM
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Comments
Okay, this is just creepy. Why in the world would any human being ever listen to what a Hollywood star has to say on any important topic...EVER???
On another note, I admire your use of the word "onomatopoeia." I personally had to look it up and I have never come across that word before. However, after looking it up, I'm not sure if you used it correctly. I do think I get what you mean, though.
Posted by: Thin Ice at August 15, 2006 12:36 PM