This is positively the finest exhibition ever to be shown!

Although the practice of presenting Gold Records to million-seller discs wasn't in effect in 1939, this mock-up award was likely created in recent years by a fan who wanted to commemorate Judy's best-selling 78rpm recording of "Over the Rainbow." 

The Wizard of Oz soundtrack album—first issued in 1956 in conjunction with the television debut of the film—did, eventually, "go gold" for Garland and the cast.

Judy received her own, legitimate, Gold Record in 1962 for the fastest-selling two-disc set of its time, JUDY at Carnegie Hall. Captured "live and complete" during her New York concert of April 23, 1961, the album also won five Grammy Awards (including Album of the Year and Best Female Vocal Performance). From vinyl to tape to compact disc, it has never been out of print.

In 1939, M-G-M launched its own merchandising department by licensing Wizard of Oz toys, dolls, soap figures, games, Valentine cards, soap figures, and a couple of dozen other products. Since then, and especially since the film's 50th anniversary in 1989, there have been hundreds of commercially-marketed Oz items depicting Judy Garland as Dorothy, along with the other famous characters.

In the late 1930s, there were also "official" Judy Garland dresses, hats, and handbags. Her image over subsequent years has been licensed for (among other products) paint books, calendars, collector plates—and music boxes! In the photo at right, she poses with the 1940 Judy Garland doll, dressed in a replica of the finale costume from Strike Up the Band.

The music boxes above were commissioned by the Turner Entertainment Co. in the mid-1990s.

Coming soon! Judy Garland dolls—from Madame Alexander to Barbie!

After fifteen years and twenty-eight feature films, Judy Garland left M-G-M in 1950 and returned to her vaudeville and stage roots. Over the next nineteen years, she gave over eleven hundred theatre, concert, and nightclub performances.

Judy sang countless different numbers in these appearances, ranging from her own movie standards to classics from the Great Popular Songbook.

Her music for such shows was prepared by the best vocal arrangers and orchestrators of the day, including Roger Edens, Mort Lindsey, Nelson Riddle, Gordon Jenkins, and Conrad Salinger.

In this sequence (just click on the image), John Kelsch shows us some of Judy Garland’s annotated sheet music. In the background, you can just hear Mort Lindsey’s musicians tuning up for Act Two of JUDY at Carnegie Hall.

Her orchestras ranged in size from twenty to forty musicians. Each musician would have his own “chart” for every song in the act, marked up like these orchestrations Judy herself used when recording and rehearsing.