This was one of the first films in her career that gave her the opportunity to be the attractive leading lady. Vincente Minnelli was assigned to direct, and he requested that make-up artist Dorothy Ponedel be assigned to Garland. Ponedel refined her appearance in several ways, including extending and reshaping her eyebrows, changing her hairline, modifying her lip line and removing her nose discs and dental caps. She appreciated the results so much that Ponedel was written into her contract for all her remaining pictures at MGM. From Wiki
I recently watched “Judy”, the “biopic”, starring Renee Zellweger as the very, very tragic Judy Garland, and fully expected to dislike it. All the annoying elements of the celebrity biopic are there: the sudden fame, the heights of achievement, the stardom, the celebrity pitfalls, the addictions, the disasters, the recovery. These films invariably excuse the subject’s poor judgments and weak character as the results of abuse or exploitation. They invariably feature a triumphant comeback moment or two. They invariably lie to you. They invariably invite you to admire the very thing that ruined them: the manipulation of the audience by the entertainment industry which sells you a contrived image, a fake personality, an escape fantasy that no one can possibly live up to. Judy Garland was both a product and a consequence of that manipulation.
One could very easily have imagined Zellweger turning to the camera at one point and asking the implicated audience, “are you enjoying this?”
Mickey Rooney insists that MGM never forced diet pills, amphetamines, barbiturates or any other substances on Judy, and that her downfall was entirely the result of her weak character, or her own choices, so there is a grain of salt to be absorbed in this story. (But then again, I’m not sure Rooney is a reliable source.) “Judy” correctly zeros in on the mom, who could have put a stop to it at anytime but, well, one must fulfill one’s dreams. A telling scene– which surprised me a little (because it was there, not because it happened) was Mayer putting it to Garland: don’t you want to be famous? The implication is that Garland was at least partly complicit in her own predicament. And that’s why Zellweger’s portrayal of Garland is more reserved and less self-pitying than the usual biopic (see “Rocket Man” for a pityful example).
Ignore the blather about her beauty: she never was beautiful, in the way the Lana Turner and Elizabeth Taylor– actresses her age– were beautiful. “Judy” wants you to believe she really was beautiful, but had no confidence in her beauty. Or is “Judy” just dramatizing how the people around her tried to persuade her to work: you look beautiful, you’re going to be great.
“Judy” takes a light touch to Garland’s own claims that Mayer touched her “inappropriately”: there is one sequence in which he touches her “heart” while telling her that that is where she sings from, and he leans in close in some scenes, but it is clear that director Goold didn’t want to go there.
She was fired from MGM in 1949 because she simply failed to show up for filming. Some websites perpetuate the myth: poor Judy! She had lots of good reasons to not show up. She was addicted to barbiturates, for one thing. She was in the middle of a divorce. She was depressed. But it is precisely the traditional Hollywood indulgence of excesses by celebrity stars that prevents actors like Judy Garland from taking responsibilities for their issues and addressing them.
Like Elvis, Garland died sitting on the toilet. Like Elvis, we didn’t hear about that detail until years later when someone close to the celebrity finally offered that one final eloquent and telling detail.