{"id":6817,"date":"2019-07-11T13:00:22","date_gmt":"2019-07-11T20:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/?p=30000000424"},"modified":"2019-07-11T13:51:59","modified_gmt":"2019-07-11T20:51:59","slug":"judy-garlands-legendary-starry-night-in-long-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/news\/local-history\/judy-garlands-legendary-starry-night-in-long-beach","title":{"rendered":"Judy Garland’s legendary starry night in Long Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"

Think of all the fame that\u2019s gilded the stage of the old Long Beach Municipal Auditorium. Who would you like to travel back in time to see there? Elvis Presley in 1956, his breakout year? The Rolling Stones in 1964, touring in support of their debut album? The Beach Boys playing a couple of tunes at a Ritchie Valens memorial concert with Ike & Tina Turner in 1961? A newly plugged-in Bob Dylan with the Hawks in 1965?<\/p>\n

And so many others: B.B. King, Billie Holiday, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles. They all visited Long Beach.<\/p>\n

But for a night of fame, both onstage and in the audience, the hottest ticket in the past would very likely be \u201cThe Judy Garland Show\u201d at the auditorium on July 11, 1955.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Actress Leslie Caron, left, congratulates Judy Garland backstage at the Municipal Auditorium. Courtesy photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Garland was in the midst of one of her peak years in 1955\u2014she was 33 and riding high between her frequent and suicidal lows which found her in rehab and mental hospitals and being treated for alcohol and drug abuse since her teenage years, and there were still more of these valleys ahead of her.<\/p>\n

But it was different on a hot summer night in 1955 when she came to Long Beach. She had just embarked on a world tour, performing the evening before in San Diego. She had not meant to play the auditorium, wishing to steer clear of the L.A. area entirely, but she was lured to town to perform in a show to benefit the Exceptional Children\u2019s Foundation for special needs kids, her favorite cause.<\/p>\n

If Garland had meant to dodge her famous Hollywood friends by skipping L.A., it was a failed plan, because the sellout crowd of 4,300 contained enough star power to sate the appetite of a decade\u2019s worth of box offices.<\/p>\n

While regular folks paid $4 or $5 for a ticket to the show, the elite of Tinseltown shelled out $10 each to sit in the \u201cStar Section\u201d to hear Garland sing her classics interspersed with performances by comedian-singer Frank Fontaine of \u201cThe Jackie Gleason Show,\u201d the Hi-Lo\u2019s with their smash hit \u201cWhatever Lola Wants\u201d and the zany antics of the Wiere Brothers, a comic violin trio.<\/p>\n

Many of the stars arrived in cars, entering the Auditorium from a roped-off section of American Avenue (now Long Beach Boulevard): Jimmy Stewart, Ronald Reagan, Gary Cooper, David Niven, Lana Turner, Betty Grable, Jerry Lewis and Harry James.<\/p>\n

Garland\u2019s show was a stunning success. She reeled through her songbook: \u201cLet\u2019s Have a Party,\u201d \u201cThe Man That Got Away,\u201d \u201cRock-a-Bye Your Baby,\u201d \u201cA Couple of Swells,\u201d and the obvious show-closer, \u201cSomewhere Over the Rainbow,\u201d which brought the crowd to its feet with a lengthy standing-ovation, luring her back onstage for four encores.<\/p>\n

At the end, she asked the audience, \u201cWould you like to meet some of my friends?\u201d<\/p>\n

Would they!<\/p>\n

With news of Garland\u2019s Long Beach performance, her friend Frank Sinatra chartered a bus and packed it full of Hollywood\u2019s hottest entertainers, and the whole busload climbed up to the Auditorium stage: Sinatra, first, who referred to \u201ca bus full of my idiot friends\u201d he had chartered. He brought up Humphrey Bogart, who sang a snippet of \u201cMy Melancholy Baby,\u201d which Garland sang in \u201cA Star Is Born,\u201d for which she earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination.<\/p>\n