Minnelli, ten years her senior, had never married before. Though he controlled hundreds on a sound stage, he wasn’t successful in seizing the reins as husband. He was too gentle. She continued to mingle with her old crowd; sought and found her sensations; quarreled with her mother.
By this time, we knew many of Judy’s problems and were delighted to hear that she was pregnant. Maybe motherhood would bring her back to her senses. Before Liza was born, I wanted to give her a different kind of baby shower, with only men invited. Judy was in a depressed mood. She bowed out with a note: “I’d have been a dull guest of honor, but it was a wonderful idea. Thanks for thinking of me. Forgive me, and after March I’ll be rarin’ to go. I’ll be my old self again.”
Unfortunately motherhood rarely produces miracles. Though the birth left Judy weakened, she scurried back to work again. Metro issued glowing reports about her health, but her previously ravenous appetite had strangely deserted her, and she stayed pathetically thin. She got through her pictures only on nervous energy and doctors’ help. She was so near the borderline that when I visited her in her dressing room on the set of The Pirate, in which she was co-starring with Gene Kelly, she was shaking like an aspen leaf. She went into a frenzy of hysteria. Everybody who had once loved her had turned against her, she said. She had no friends.
Even her mother, Judy said, tapped her telephone calls. “She is doing everything in her power to destroy me.”
I said: “You know that isn’t true. Nobody in the world loves you as your mother does—and has all your life through all your troubles.”
But she cried out against her mother; against Ida Koverman; against all those who had helped her out of so much potential trouble. She was carried out of the dressing room, put in a limousine, still wearing make-up and costume, and put to bed. But she rallied and finished the picture.
The gulf between her and Minnelli widened. He tried to force her to eat, but she couldn’t. In fits of temperament, the couple parted many times. But he was always on hand to help.
The road got rougher. Something desperate was happening to her. The sad chronicle of studio suspensions began. Then Metro bought Annie Get Your Gun for her and assigned as director the “man with the bull whip,” Buzz Berkeley. She went into a weeping rage when she was told she’d have to work for him again and refused point-blank to do it. So the studio gave her Charles Walters in his place. But then nothing could have improved the situation for her.
She recorded the songs which are collectors’ items—I often sit and play them in my den at night. Then day after day, with a million dollars of Metro’s money already invested, she didn’t show up for work. Her bosses took her off the picture. Betty Hutton was brought in to replace her, which was one of their biggest mistakes. They should have waited until Judy got well.
When Judy walked into my den after hearing the news from Mayer himself, she looked middle-aged. She stared into space, blamed herself for her troubles. “I understand the studio’s problems at last. I’d been there so long I’d forgotten you have to conform to their plans. Mr. Mayer promised to take care of me. He said he’d give me so much to live on while I’m out of work.”