Judy Garland, who would have turned 100 on Friday (June 10), made awards show history numerous times. She was the first woman to win a Grammy for album of the year and the first woman to receive the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes. She was also the first woman to introduce two Oscar-winning songs: “Over the Rainbow” and “On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe.”
Garland won two Grammys, a juvenile Oscar (as those special awards to young performers were then called) and a special Tony. She also received three Emmy nominations. Not a bad showing, to be sure, but less than an artist of her talent and stature deserved.
Garland died in 1969 (at age 47), but she has never really left us. The 2001 TV miniseries Life With Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows received top ratings and won five Emmys, including outstanding lead actress in a miniseries or a movie for star Judy Davis and outstanding supporting actress in a miniseries or a movie for co-star Tammy Blanchard as young Judy.
Renée Zellweger won an Oscar for best actress for playing Garland in the 2019 biopic Judy. She paid tribute to the great star in her eloquent acceptance speech: “I have to say that this past year of conversations celebrating Judy Garland across genders and … across generations and across cultures has been a really cool reminder that our heroes unite us. … Miss Garland, you were certainly among the heroes who unite and define us, and this is certainly for you.”
Here’s Garland life and legacy in awards show moments.
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Feb. 29, 1940: Academy Awards
Received a special Oscar at the awards banquet, held that year at the Cocoanut Grove at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. The award was inscribed “To Judy Garland for her outstanding performance as a screen juvenile during the past year.” Garland had two films that year, Busby Berkeley’s Babes in Arms and the immortal The Wizard of Oz. Mickey Rooney presented the award to his Babes in Arms co-star, after which Garland sang “Over the Rainbow,” the Oz standout which had moments earlier won best original song.
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March 13, 1947: Academy Awards
“On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe,” which Garland performed in The Harvey Girls, won the Oscar for best original song. (Dinah Shore sang the song at the Oscars.) This was the second song that Garland introduced in a film to win the Oscar. She was the first woman to introduce two Oscar-winning songs. For the record, awards in this category go to the songwriter(s), not the performer(s).
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March 30, 1952: Tony Awards
Received a special Tony Award, inscribed: “Judy Garland, for an important contribution to the revival of vaudeville through her recent stint at the Palace Theatre.” Garland’s engagement at the Palace ran from Oct 16, 1951, to Feb. 24, 1952. Garland returned to The Palace in 1956-57 and 1967. Her daughter Liza Minnelli had her own show there, Liza’s at the Palace, in 2008-09. It too received a special Tony – special theatrical event. Liza’s show included a tribute to her mother’s show at the same venue.
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Feb. 24, 1955: Golden Globe Awards
Won a Golden Globe for actress in a leading role – musical or comedy for her knockout performance in A Star Is Born. The winner in the equivalent award for motion picture drama was Grace Kelly, who tamped down her looks and glamour in The Country Girl. Both were strong performances, but most oddsmakers had Garland ahead in the upcoming Oscar race for best actress.
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March 30, 1955: Academy Awards
Lost the Oscar to Kelly, prompting comedian Groucho Marx to quip in a telegram: “Dear Judy, this is the biggest robbery since Brink’s.” (He was referring to an armed robbery of the Brink’s Building in Boston five years earlier, which was then the largest robbery in American history.) So what happened? In their classic book Inside Oscar, authors Mason Wiley and Damien Bona theorized: “Hollywoodites reckoned that Grace, with [films] in the wings at both Paramount and MGM, had more studio support than the unemployed Judy, who wouldn’t make another film for six years.” In retrospect, the writing was on the wall when “The Man That Got Away,” the smoldering torch song that Garland sang in the film, lost the Oscar for best original song to the perfectly pleasant title song from Three Coins in the Fountain. Garland, who gave birth to her third child, Joey Luft, the day before the Oscar ceremony, didn’t attend the ceremony. In her absence, Rosemary Clooney sang “The Man That Got Away.”
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1956: Emmy Awards
Received her first Emmy nomination for best female singer. At the Emmys on March 17, 1956, she lost to Dinah Shore, whose The Dinah Shore Show was a big hit.
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March 5, 1962: Golden Globe Awards
Became the first woman to receive the honorary Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes. (The award was first presented in 1953 to Walt Disney.) “I’m very, very grateful and overcome,” she said in her acceptance speech. “The last year has been such a wonderful year for me and I have so many people to thank.”
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1962: Academy Awards
Nominated for best supporting actress for the drama Judgment at Nuremberg. At the Oscars on April 9, 1962, Garland lost to Rita Moreno for West Side Story. Moreno’s win set her on the path to EGOT status, and good for her, but with this loss, Garland went 0-2 at the Oscars (in competitive categories).
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May 29, 1962: Grammy Awards
Became the first woman to win a Grammy for album of the year for her classic live album, Judy at Carnegie Hall. She won a second award, too, best solo vocal performance, female (beating four other pretty fair singers – Peggy Lee, Billie Holiday, Lena Horne and Ella Fitzgerald.) The album also won Grammys for best engineering contribution, popular recording and one for best album cover (other than classical). The blockbuster album topped the Billboard 200 for 13 weeks, the longest run on top for an album by a female solo artist in the chart’s first 15 years (March 1956 until 1971, when Carole King’s Tapestry held the top spot for 15 weeks).
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1962: Emmy Awards
Received a second Emmy nod for outstanding performance in a variety or musical program or series for The Judy Garland Show. The CBS special, which aired on Feb. 25, 1962, featured Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. Garland lost to Carol Burnett, the scene-stealing co-star of The Garry Moore Show, who would of course go on to headline a long-running variety show of her own.
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1964: Emmy Awards
Received a third Emmy nod for her weekly series, also titled The Judy Garland Show, which had a troubled, six-month run in 1963-64. Garland and Barbra Streisand, who was a guest star on the show, were both nominated for outstanding performance in a variety or musical program or series. In a perfect world, the legendary performer and the future legend would have tied for the award. Alas, neither of these gifted artists won. The award went to Danny Kaye for The Danny Kaye Show. Garland’s final career tally at the Emmys: 0-3.
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1981: Grammy Hall of Fame
“Over the Rainbow” was voted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. It was just the fourth recording by a female artist to be voted into the Hall. Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child” and “Strange Fruit” were the first two (in 1976 and 1978), followed by Les Paul & Mary Ford’s “How High the Moon” in 1979. Five more Garland recordings have since also been voted into the Hall – “(Dear Mr. Gable) You Made Me Love You,” “For Me and My Gal” (a collab with Gene Kelly), Judy at Carnegie Hall and the soundtracks to Meet Me in St. Louis and The Wizard of Oz.
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1991: Minnesota Music Hall of Fame
Garland, who was born in Grand Rapids, Minn., was inducted into the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame, in the same year as another top-tier music legend, Bob Dylan (who was born in Duluth). The Minnesota Music Hall of Fame, located in New Ulm, Minn., includes such diverse music stars as Prince, The Andrews Sisters and The Trashmen, best known for the 1963 hit “Surfin’ Bird” (all from Minneapolis), Sounds of Blackness (from Minneapolis/St. Paul), and Eddie Cochran, best known for the 1958 smash “Summertime Blues” (from Albert Lea). (Do you suppose the frigid winters inspire creativity?)
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December 1994: Grammy Awards
The Complete Decca Masters (Plus), a collection of Garland’s masters for Decca Records, received a Grammy nomination for best historical album. It lost to The Complete Ella Fitzgerald Song Books on Verve. Can’t argue with that.
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Feb. 26, 1997: Grammy Awards
Received a posthumous lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy. The year’s other honorees were Bobby “Blue” Bland, The Everly Brothers, Stéphane Grappelli, Buddy Holly, Charles Mingus, Oscar Peterson and Frank Zappa. A diverse group, to say the least.
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June 15, 1999: American Film Institute
Ranked number eight among female stars on the American Film Institute’s inaugural prime-time special, AFI’s 100 Years…100 Stars, which aired on CBS. Garland was the top female musical performer.
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March 7, 2001: “Songs of the Century”
“Over the Rainbow” is ranked No. 1 on the “Songs of the Century” project, a joint effort by the Recording Industry Assn. of America, the National Endowment for the Arts, Scholastic Inc. and AOL@School.
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Nov. 4, 2001: Emmy Awards
ABC’s Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows won five Emmys at the ceremony, which was postponed twice in the wake of 9/11. Judy Davis won outstanding lead actress in a miniseries or a movie; Tammy Blanchard won outstanding supporting actress in a miniseries or a movie for playing young Judy. The miniseries, with Garland’s daughter Lorna Luft credited as an executive producer, was also nominated for outstanding miniseries.
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2003: National Recording Registry
Judy at Carnegie Hall was inducted into the National Recording Registry, maintained by the Library of Congress.
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June 24, 2004: American Film Institute
“Over the Rainbow” topped AFI’s 100 Years…100 Songs, a list of the top 100 songs in American film in the 20th century The list was created by a panel of jurors selected by AFI, who voted from a list of 400 nominated songs. Garland had four other songs on the list – “The Man That Got Away” (No. 11) from A Star Is Born, “The Trolley Song” (No. 26) and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” (No. 76),” both from Meet Me in St. Louis, and “Get Happy” (No. 61), from Summer Stock. Gene Kelly was the only other performer with five songs on the list. (“Three Coins in the Fountain” was nowhere to be found on the list. ’Nuff said.)
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Sept. 3, 2006: American Film Institute
Garland had three films in the top 10 on AFI’s Greatest Movie Musicals. The roster of 25 films was unveiled in a concert at the Hollywood Bowl. The Wizard of Oz ranked No. 3 on the list, followed by A Star is Born at No. 7 and Meet Me in St. Louis at No. 10. Gene Kelly also had three films on the list, though not all of his were in the top 10.
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2008: Grammy Awards
Rufus Wainwright’s Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall received a Grammy nomination for best traditional pop vocal album. The album is a note-for-note re-creation of the album that won four Grammys 47 years earlier. Wainwright could be nominated again later this year for Rufus Does Judy at Capitol Studios, which he recorded last year at Los Angeles’ famed Capitol Studios.
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June 2014: Songwriters Hall of Fame
“Over the Rainbow” received the Towering Song Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
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Feb. 9, 2020: Academy Awards
Renée Zellweger won an Oscar for best actress for playing Garland in the biopic Judy. In her acceptance speech, Zellweger noted, “And though Judy Garland did not receive this honor in her time, I am certain that this moment is an extension of the celebration of her legacy that began on our film set. And is also representative of the fact that her legacy of unique exceptionalism and inclusivity and generosity of spirit, it transcends any one artistic achievement.”