Renée Zellweger’s Garland biopic is a powerful reminder of the attitudes that infect youth-obsessed Hollywood
In 1962, Judy Garland received an Oscar nomination for her role in Judgment at Nuremberg and regarded it as an auspicious restart for her career. She had been thrown into the deep end of Hollywood’s unforgiving waters as a child actor, and since her early success, every aspect of her life had been marred by desperate attempts to keep her head above water. Unsuccessful marriages to other struggling artists, an addiction to drugs that was spurred on by abusive producers and, above all, her constant anxiety to control her appearance – all these problems were symptoms of her toxic relationship with Hollywood. “Isn’t this pretty good for somebody
Hollywood thought as too old, too fat and too undependable to offer a job?” she wrote. Judy, the new film starring Renée Zellweger, recounts the sad ending that she was heading for instead.