Mr. X Blind Item #1- Old Hollywood
There was a time, during the height of her career, that this A++ list singer/actress was almost cured of her addiction to speed. On the advice of her then (married) lover, a future Oscar winning director/writer, she underwent several psychoanalysis sessions at the Menninger Clinic. The shrink diagnosed her as being manic depressive and suggested that she temporarily retire and go off her current regimen of uppers and downers. Well, she went cold turkey with the pills (and it worked) but as for retiring, her stage mother from hell put a stop to that. The mother, one of the worst of all time, called up her shrink and screamed over the phone "NOTHING IS WRONG WITH MY DAUGHTER!!" (needless to say, the strained relationship between mother and daughter was further strained to the point of nonexistence). Mommy dearest also called up the head of the movie studio and the head demanded that the star go back to work because of time, money, blah blah blah. All attempts to get her off the pills failed due to her mother's sabotage and she took the next train back to Hollywood. Needless to say, the film she was set to start work on was one she didn't want to do att all but it turned out to be one of her best. As for her then lover, they broke up soon afterwards and he always regretted the fact that he didn't stop her mother sabotaging her daughter's sobriety.
Must be Judy Garland and Vincente Minelli?
ReplyDeletenot Minelli. Who else?
ReplyDeleteJudy Garland
ReplyDeleteRooney?
ReplyDeleteWas thinking Marilyn and Kennedy
ReplyDeleteOrson Welles for the director/writer
ReplyDeleteMeet me in St. Louis is probably the movie.
ReplyDeleteThinking Monroe /sir Lawrence Olivier- the Prince and The Showgirl(acclaimed work from her)
ReplyDeleteMonroe didn't have much of a mother figure of I recall, and this blind relies heavily on the overbearing mother.
ReplyDeleteSandybrook, I think you got it with Welles and the movie. Good job.
ReplyDeleteNot sure yet who the director is, but when I think stage mothers from hell my first thought is Natalie Wood.
ReplyDeleteThe director could be Nicholas Ray, but for some reason that doesn't ring right to me.
ReplyDeletethank you
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't describe Natalie Wood as a singer/actress though.
ReplyDeleteLiza Minelli maybe?
ReplyDeleteI like the Judy Garland guess. Her mother was known to a bitch from hell more than willing to sacrifice her daughter for money. It's been well documented that Judy tried to beat her habit a number of times. She was MGM's biggest star for a time and they tried to work her to death.
ReplyDeleteMy first thought was Garland. Who else had a crazy stage mother besides N Wood?
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like Garland as she took both uppers (for weight) and downers.
ReplyDeleteIf it is Judy, which was my first thought also. The movie is probably A Star is Born, I believe it was her last major starring role in a major studio picture.
ReplyDeleteThe studio put Judy on uppers as a teen to get her weight down, then would give her downers when she complained about not being able to sleep at night.
ReplyDeleteDorothy Dandrige and Otto Preminger?
ReplyDeleteI read somewhere once that Elizabeth Taylor had links to the Menninger Clinic, so she's my guess. Her mom was pretty awful as stage moms go.
ReplyDeleteIts Judy Garland and Joe Mankiewicz (who directed All About Eve, amongst others). He's told a story like this before w/out the speed, so this is hardly a blind item. It would have been in her MGM days, so well before A Star Is Born.
ReplyDeleteThe drug wasn't necessarily speed, it was Benzadrine, and no one knew how addicting it was or what it would do to her. This isn't even really a blind item- as Joe said if you've seen or read any Garland Biography this story usually gets told. It was Joe Mankiewicz and the movie was Meet Me In St Louis, which - as the story has been told a million times- she didn't want to do because she didn't want to play a teenager again after having success in adult roles (For Me and My Gal, Presenting Lily Mars).
ReplyDeleteJudy Garland.
ReplyDeleteJudy Garland's mother got her addicted to speed when studio executives declared Judy too chubby (around the time of Wizard of Oz). According to Garland's bio, she'd been an addict since the age of 14 and was also diagnosed as bipolar.
ReplyDeletesounds like garland
ReplyDelete:( RIP, Judy
ReplyDelete