Judy Garland and Jack Kennedy
They met in 1954, at the Hollywood premier of A Star Is Born, a film long considered Judy’s finest performance.
At the time, Kennedy was thirty-seven and the junior senator from Massachusetts.
His sister, Patricia, had recently married Peter Lawford, Judy’s friend and co-star in Easter Parade.
Kennedy asked Lawford to introduce him to Judy at the premiere.
Judy’s husband, film producer Sid Luft, has said their meeting on the night of the premiere was the start of a friendship which continued even after Kennedy became president.
Luft: “In the coming years, JFK would ring Judy from either the White House or Camp David and ask her to sing to him over the telephone.”
Several people close to Judy have said Kennedy would request “Over the Rainbow.”
And sometimes, Judy would telephone him and ask for advice.
Her daughter, Liza, has said Judy never publicized the phone calls because she didn’t want to “cash in on anything like that.”
Their friendship was strengthened when Judy rented a house next door to the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port for a summer season.
Judy and her children became friends with the entire Kennedy family.
Three weeks after Kennedy’s assassination, Judy sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” on her December 13, 1963, CBS television show.
During the taping, Judy prefaced the song by looking into the television camera and saying, “This is for you, Jack.”
But CBS removed the dedication during film editing because it was considered ‘too political.’
But it didn’t matter.
Everyone knew who the song was for.
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I’ll see you on Monday.
— Brenda
Banner image: Judy Garland in “A Star is Born” (1954). IMDB photo.
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