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Life story of Judy Garland
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Taylor Clark Mrs. Schilling Honors English 3 April 2014 Judy Garland Judy Garland definitely had her ups and downs on her way to stardom. Garland was born in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. Her real name is Frances Gumm, which later changed when she became a star. Her childhood was not what you could call perfect, she was forced into singing and acting by her mother. Her mother was very gifted and had many talents, when Garland was only 2 her mother saw that she had talent and made her perform all around the country. They had many other family problems due to her father's homosexuality and were many times forced to leave certain areas because of this, they sometimes even had to live out of their car because they had no where else to go. Finally Garland was signed by MGM and this was a huge step in her life and also her families. Soon after getting signed her father passed aways and this took a huge toll on Garland’s family life and career. After her father’s death and she got back to working she was faced with the problem of people telling her that her weight was a problem which s...
Lucille Mulhall was born on October 21, 1885 in Oklahoma and died December 21, 1940 in Oklahoma when she got in a terrible vehicle accident. She is the first born child of Zach (1847-1931) and Mary Agnes Mulhall (1859-1931). Her sister’s name is Margaret Reed (1906-1925) and she was the last child born. She married her first husband in 1916 and his name was Martin Van Bergen. Lucille then divorced this man and married a man named Thomas Loyd Burnett (1871-1939). He was born in Denton County, Texas and died in Wichita County, Texas on December 26, 1938. Lucille Mulhall was a soft spoken and beautiful young lady. She was very feminine and had a very good education. When she was a teenager, she was known as one of the top cowboy performers in
painting in Chicago and Mexico, before she realized she had no talent for it. Moving to
Josephine Baker Josephine Baker was an African American woman who had to overcome discrimination and abuse in achieving her dream of becoming a singer and dancer. She did this during the 1920s, when African Americans faced great discrimination. She had a hard childhood. Her personal life was not easy to handle. Furthermore, she overcame poverty and racism to achieve her career dream.
Moreover, she managed to get a lot of fame in the same movies in which she started off small. Another thing that we can draw on from her incredible career is the fact that she was able to diversify so much that her career span over a range of different genres including theater, film, music and others.
Shirley Temple was born on April 23, 1928, in Santa Monica, California at 9:00 p.m - a time significant to her because it told her she would always have a bit of catching up to do if she wanted to be on time for dinner (Black 5). As the youngest child and only girl in her family of five, she was her mother’s pride and joy. She had two supportive parents, Gertrude and George, and two older brothers, Jack and George Junior. Gertrude Temple was a stay-at-home mom while George went to work as a bank teller, which played in Shirley’s favor when she needed someone to manage her money later in life (Blashfield 55). Gertrude Temple has been called the first stage mother (Blashfield 22) for good reason. Shirley Temple was acting before she could read, so her mother helped her memorize her lines. Temple’s mother served as her private costume designer, and never failed to make the young star’s performance her best yet, by encouraging her to “Sparkle, Shirley Sparkle!” (David 2).
A dancer, singer, activist and spy, Josephine Baker was a star and a hero. Baker grew up poor, but her rocky start did not hold her back from success. Baker had major achievements for a black woman in her time; she was the first African-American to star in a major film. Baker was first to integrate a concert in Las Vegas. Even though Baker got her start during the Harlem Renaissance, her true claim to fame was her success in France. She was the first black woman to receive military honor in France. Since Baker was so successful in Europe, she was able to spy for the French resistance during World War II. Although Baker was very successful in France and had found success during the Harlem Renaissance, she was not welcomed in the United States due to segregation and racism. Racism did not stop Baker from being a part of the Harlem Renaissance.
These attributes gave her the key to working with the most notable producers, script writers and musical producers in the history of Broadway. Her many shows gave her the opportunity to understand herself as a Broadway actress and her voice stands alone to all of the people who followed. Her voice will live on in theaters and she will continue to remain a pinnacle of Broadway history.
On February 12, 1938, in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Judy Sussman entered the world. Judy's mother, Esther Sussman was constantly reading and tranquil. Judy and her mother went to the library frequently. Judy's father, Dr. Rudolph Sussman, was a day dreamer who adored fun and games. Judy and her father were very close. She referred to him as “Doey Bird” or just “Doey”. Judy and her father played games and he tucked her into bed every night. Judy also had a brother, David, who was four years older than she. David was the average older brother who would annoy and play with his younger sister. Judy was also close to her grandmother “Nanny Mama” who lived close by. Judy loved her family and was very close to them.
Singer/actress Lena Horne's primary occupation was nightclub entertaining, a profession she pursued successfully around the world for more than 60 years, from the 1930s to the 1990s. In conjunction with her club work, she also maintained a recording career that stretched from 1936 to 2000 and brought her three Grammys, including a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989; she appeared in 16 feature films and several shorts between 1938 and 1978; she performed occasionally on Broadway, including in her own Tony-winning one-woman show, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music in 1981-1982; and she sang and acted on radio and television. Adding to the challenge of maintaining such a career was her position as an African-American facing discrimination personally and in her profession during a period of enormous social change in the U.S. Her first job in the 1930s was at the Cotton Club, where blacks could perform, but not be admitted as customers; by 1969, when she acted in the film Death of a Gunfighter, her character's marriage to a white man went unremarked in the script. Horne herself was a pivotal figure in the changing attitudes about race in the 20th century; her middle-class upbringing and musical training predisposed her to the popular music of her day, rather than the blues and jazz genres more commonly associated with African-Americans, and her photogenic looks were sufficiently close to Caucasian that frequently she was encouraged to try to "pass" for white, something she consistently refused to do. But her position in the middle of a social struggle enabled her to become a leader in that struggle, speaking out in favor of racial integration and raising money for civil rights causes. By the end of the century, she could look back at a life that was never short on conflict, but that could be seen ultimately as a triumph.
The movie Lady Day: The Many Faces Of Billie Holiday paints an interesting, and thought provoking portrait of one of jazz and blues most charismatic, and influential artists. The incomparable talent of Billie Holiday, both truth and legend are immortalized in this one-hour documentary film. The film follows Holiday, also referred to as “Lady Day” or “Lady”, through the many triumphs and trials of her career, and does it’s very best to separate the facts from fiction. Her autobiography Lady Sings The Blues is used as a rough guide of how she desired her life story to be viewed by her public. Those who knew her, worked with her, and loved her paint a different picture than this popular, and mostly fictional autobiography.
Her lasting career was not given to her easily, therefore, creating an inspiring story full of hardships and success. Ever since she was a little girl, her dream was to become a successful and famous dancer. In New York City, when she was trying to fulfill her dream, she was unable to find a job in the theatre department. Instead of being discouraged, she decided to make something good come from it. She choreographed her own routines, created her own costumes, and organized solo recitals for audiences to enjoy. This event led her to the biggest adventure in her life that would later impact the world. She was invited to return back to London to pursue her education in the performing arts, so that she could further improve her talents that would make up her entire career.
Give light and people will find the way, Said Ella Baker. She was a woman, who even in the darkest hour, gave light to people everywhere. Being a Civil Rights activist in the 1930’s, she was one of the leading figures in the Civil Rights Movement. She dedicated her life to fighting for freedom and equality, and she deserves to be recognized worldwide.
Dr. Maya Angelou was born on April 4, 1928 in St. Louis Missouri. Angelou was raised in St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas. In Stamps she was faced with the brutality of racial discrimination, and a very traumatic incident where she, she was raped by her mother's boyfriend when she was eight, but because of this she also developed an unshakable faith and values of traditional African-American family. (Angelou)This shaped her poetry and her involvement in the arts. Where she began to sing and dance and planned to audition in professional theater but that didn’t work out well because she began working as a nightclub waitress, tangled with drugs and prostitution and danced in a strip club. In 1959, she moved to New York, became friends with prominent Harlem writers, and got involved with the civil rights movement. In 1961, she moved to Egypt with a boyfriend and edited for the Arab Observer. When she returned to the U.S., she began publishing her multivolume autobiography, starting with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings as well as several books of poetry and the third being Still I Rise in published in 1978. (Maya Angelou is born) Because of this life of hardship shaped her to who she is and was the inspiration for a lot of her poetry.
Her parents who at that time could not understand the choices she made are very happy for their daughter and what she has accomplish. When she left her home at the middle of a fight and never went back. She said,” I had to make my own way” and then lived in a Manhattan dance studio where she was training. Then she got an apartment with some friends in Manhattan Hell’s Kitchen. Since the time she move out of her home she started her showbiz career as a dancer in stage musicals and most notably in her tour to Golden musicals of Broadway and in a Japanese tour. Then she audition to be a fly girl in Fox’s hit comedy “In living Colors,” she beat out 2,000 other contenders in a nation wide competition. Then she cracked into Hollywood and she wanted to make a transition to acting, but she followed Color producer Keenan Ivory Wayans advice to stay with the show for a while before making any attempt to move on.
Whitney Houston is considered as one of the greatest singers of our generation. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, she holds the record of being the most rewarded female artist of all time. I chose her as my topic, because she represents resiliency and tenacity, despite her troubled experiences with drugs and her personal life. Whitney Houston comes from a family with an amazing, musical pedigree; her mother, Cissy Houston, was a successful back-up singer for Aretha Franklin and Elvis Presley. Dionne Warwick is her first cousin and Aretha Franklin is her godmother. In 1983, Houston was signed to Arista Records and music executive, Clive Davis, became her mentor and helped launch her successful career. Whitney Houston was known as the innocent, girl-next-door, who promoted positivity and love within her professional career. Houston's good-girl image was shattered, when she married R&B bad boy, Bobby Brown in 1992. Towards the late 90's, it was rumored that she was using drugs and she looked very thin. In 2006, Houston divorced Bobby Brown and entered into rehab, to end her addiction to cocaine and other drugs. The world was happy to see her healthy and singing again; everyone thought she had made a full recovery and was ready for her to appear back into the spotlight. Tragically, on February 11, 2012, Whitney Houston was found dead in her Beverly Hills hotel, she was 48 years old. Her mother, Cissy Houston, has written a book about her daughter's life, entitled: Remembering Whitney, which depicts the rise and fall of the tragic singer's life.