- Houston City Auditorium -

A Star For 25 Years
(Advance Article)

From the time she started her screen career as a child in 1936, the name of Judy Garland has ranked with Hollywood's top stars.  She won an Oscar when she was 14 for her work in "The Wizard of Oz." In the years 1940, 1941 and 1945, she was named the "money making" star of the year. In 1951 she established a record at the Palace Theatre in New York for her solo performance. 

Although she has made many pictures, she is best remembered for "The Wizard of Oz," the Andy Hardy pictures with Mickey Rooney; "Meet Me in St. Louis," one of the most delightful of Hollywood musicals; and "Easter Parade." Her last picture,  which her husband, Sid Luft, produced in 1954 was "A Star is  Born." Later this spring, she is going to Hollywood for a role in "Judgment at Nuremberg," dramatization of the war criminal trials.

In her Houston show, she will sing many of the songs from her old pictures, backed by Shep Fields and his orchestra which will be augmented by members of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.

Miss Garland is being brought here by J. David Nichols.

About a half dozen songs into the performance she gave before an adoring audience which completely filled the City Auditorium Thursday night, Judy Garland paused for a moment. 

"People think of me," she said, picking her words carefully, "as someone who sings a sad kind of ballad, or else throws up her hands and goes aaaaaahhhhhhhHHHHHHH!"

"I like to sing something in between. Jazz."

Whereupon Miss Garland, pudgy and cheerful in a short black dress and abbreviated blue jacket, summoned forth a detachment of eight brass and rhythm men from Shep Fields 30-piece orchestra and charged into some middle-age jazz.

Actually, "people" have Miss Garland down pat. She is a spiritual descendant of Al Jolson, with a hint of mammy in her voice. Her magnetism exerts itself most powerfully (and then it is easily capable of lifting several tons of scrap iron) when she is singing ballads with a built-in sob, or throwing up her hands, as she does with invigorating abandon in "San Francisco," and uttering an ecstatic aaaaahhhhhHHHHHH!

If her voice is deep and warm and irresistibly touching in those bluesey ballads she seems so fond of (she has a particular affinity for Harold Arlen Songs), it can also be hard as a diamond, at once edged and shimmering, in the ones which have to be driven home.

Miss Garland herself Thursday evening was a model of insouciance, scampering across the stage, joking about a reluctant microphone, twirling its wire around like a lariat, pausing in mid-song to tell a story or doing a troublesome throat.

She came on without introduction, and after a standing ovation from a gathering which included people of all ages, opened the show with a gal, promptly followed by "It's Almost Like Being in Love" conjoined to "This Can't be Love." Then a ballad,  "Do It Again," then a dancing exhilarating "You Go To My Head," then a melancholy whistling-in-the-dark item called "Alone Together".

After that the jazz: Enthusiastic but undistinguished-- "Puttin on the Ritz" "How Long Has This Been Going On?"

I liked her best when she slipped back into the old metier. She turned out a throbbing fully felt "The Man That Got Away" (a Harold Arlen tune if I remember correctly) and her voice became a knife blade for "San Francisco," which closed the first part of the program.

The lady came back in toreadors and a shiny jacket and obviously glad of it. She ignited this part of the proceedings with a resounding "That's Entertainment" switched to a moody "I Can't Give You Anything But Love," then went wild with a driving "Come Rain or Come Shine," which opened with bongos.

It was a triumphant "Evening With Judy Garland" at City Auditorium Thursday night. 

Her fans were jammed to the top balcony, and when Judy walked on stage after Shep Fields' Orchestra introduced her with a medley of Judy Garland favorites, she was given a standing ovation.

They laughed at her antics with the dead microphone and her anecdotes about her tour.

They sang along with her when invited, and they gave another standing ovation at the end of the two-hour show.

They kept calling for more, stormed the stage to try to touch her, and reluctantly let her go after four encores.

Still possessing that beautiful, expressive face she had as a child movie star, she is frankly much heavier, but does not mind.

She is gay and cheerful and, particularly after she changed from her formal black dress with its electric blue satin jacket into slacks topped by a multi-colored beaded blouse, she cavorted with youthful zest.

Judy is a real trouper. She knew and held her audience. Establishing an informal atmosphere, she chatted and sang and danced a little.

She belted out songs like "Come Rain or Come Shine" and wistfully sang "I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby."

But the audience really got stirred up over "San Francisco," "Stormy Weather" and the "Trolley Song," and for her encores,  "Over the Rainbow," "Swanee," which she sang with the familiar old battered top hat, "After You've Gone," and "Chicago."

Judy responded graciously to the ovations and to the genuine display of affection for her.

She blew kisses to the audience and after the show she raced along the edge of the stage to try to shake hands with as many as possible.

She was brought to Houston by J. David Nichols.

We'll live a lot longer and attend many another show before we see and hear anything that even approaches what happened at the Judy Garland show in the City Auditorium last night. 

Judy was simply great, and the audience was simply wild. The moment she walked on, the packed house of more than 5,000 jumped to it's feet for a swelling roar of welcome.

By the time she was belting "Chicago," her final encore, the crowd had rushed forward, was pressing the stage and screaming is the only description possible.

I've never seen anything like it in my newspaper life. The wonderful reception she got in Dallas Monday was a whisper compared to the ringing approval Houston gave the gal.

If Judy ever decides to move here, run for Mayor, don't you run against. There wouldn't be a chance.

Everything went wrong at first, but it turned out so right.

An amplifier went on the hum, every time Judy hit a high note, the mike shivered and finally blew.

That's when the 'old pro' in Judy came out. She kidded about it, she and Maestro Shep Fields did an impromptu waltz. The mike head finally came off in her hand, but it didn't bother Judy. She handed it to a front row resident, went on singing.

She got tangled in the extra long mike cord, knocked over drum sticks and Shep's conducting light in the process. Plagued by a cold, she got a throat tickle, and had to chew a cough drop.

The heavily draped stage cut off the band volume, and she couldn't hear the accompaniment at times.

No temperament, however. Judy grins and asides to Shep and the audience. The crowd loved it, although Judy was worried.

"What will they think of me doing a lousy show," she wailed between halves.

"Honey, they love you, and are getting a kick out of it." she was told. "It's added something nobody dreamed of and the audience is getting a lot more than bargained for."

Everything fell into place the second half. The amplifier was replaced, and a new mike was added. The band moved three feet forward from under the drapes and she played a foot farther back from the footlights.

From then on, it was Judy's songs and the audience appreciation.

When she belted such things as "Rock-a-bye My Baby" with a strong, vibrant voice with a husky trace, they practically took the place apart.

It happened too, when she got torchy with things like "The Man That Got Away," and she'd quiet them to pin drop silence with a ballady bit. They sang along with "Bells Are Ringing" drooled at "You Made Me Love You."

By the time she got to "Over the Rainbow," the whole place was shaking. Including my knees.

She came back for encores, sang a couple, including a wide open "After You've Gone," but they wouldn't let her leave.

The curtain was down and the band stopped, but the tumult and shouting continued. Judy had to come back from her dressing room, sing another, while hundreds massed around the stage.

Happily she skipped side to side punctuating her song with "I love you" directed at the audience.

She hugged and kissed Shep Fields for a fine orchestra job and his conducting -- and he served it so richly -- and finally just had to quit.

She'd run out of rehearsed songs. Thirty-three to be exact. No performer ever worked harder or was so well-rewarded for her efforts.

There wasn't a vacant seat in the Auditorium and she didn't lose a customer until the last tune died. Even then, dozens congregated back stage and outside to get a look at her as she left.

Personally, I didn't think Houston would -- or could -- get so demonstrative, but we did, didn't we?

It was a wonderful tribute to a wonderful talent and while Judy may have had larger audiences in larger halls, no city ever took the gal to heart as Houston did last night.

"Gosh, weren't they just great?" she panted with tears in her eyes after the show.

They were Judy -- and I've got news for you.

So were you, Honey.