Get Happy

She lived at full throttle on stage, screen, and in real life, with highs that made history and lows that finally brought down the curtain at age forty-seven. Judy Garland died over thirty years ago, but no biography has so completely captured her spirit-and demons-until now.

From her tumultuous early years as a child performer to her tragic last days, Gerald Clarke reveals the authentic Judy in a biography rich in new detail and unprecedented revelations. Based on hundreds of interviews and drawing on her own unfinished-and unpublished-autobiography, Get Happy presents the real Judy Garland in all her flawed glory.

Here are her early years, during which her parents sowed the seeds of heartbreak and self-destruction that would plague her for decades . . . the golden age of Hollywood, brought into sharp focus with cinematic urgency, from the hidden private lives of the movie world's biggest stars to the cold-eyed businessmen who controlled the machine . . . and a parade of brilliant and gifted men-lovers and artists, impresarios and crooks-who helped her reach so many creative pinnacles yet left her hopeless and alone after each seemingly inevitable fall.