10 June: Judy Garland

Judy Garland was born on this date in 1922. Here are 10 things you might not know about her:

1. Her birth name was Frances Ethel Gumm, nicknamed “Baby” by her family. (Is this why the lead female character in Dirty Dancing is named Frances and called “Baby” by her family, I wonder?)

2. Her first performance was at the age of two, singing with her sisters Mary Jane and Dorothy at the movie house owned by her father. The song they performed was Jingle Bells. The sisters went on to perform together for the next 10 years. By 1934 the Gumm Sisters had changed their name to Garland, possibly thanks to comedian George Jessel noticing audiences laughing at their name and suggesting they change it to Garland, either after film critic Robert Garland or a garland of flowers. Frances changed her name to "Judy" soon after, inspired by a popular Hoagy Carmichael song.

3. She was signed by MGM at the age of thirteen. The studio was extremely critical of her looks and probably left her with lifelong insecurities about her appearance. They put her on a strict diet, including diet pills and made her wear rubber caps on her teeth and discs to alter the shape of her nose. She had to take school lessons at the studio and her classmates were Ava Gardner, Lana Turner and Elizabeth Taylor, all regarded as great beauties and Judy, though talented and a big earner, was deemed “the ugly one”. Studio chief Mayer referred to her as his "little hunchback", which wouldn’t have helped.

4. Until her make up artist on Meet Me In Saint Louis, Dorothy Ponedel, declared that she was a pretty girl and didn’t need the tooth caps and nose re-shapers and used make up techniques and eyebrow shaping to make Judy look good. Dorothy was thereafter always contracted to be her make up artist for all her films with MGM.

5. She was cast in Wizard of Oz at the age of 16 when she was 4 feet eleven and a half inches (151 cm) tall and wore a size five shoe. She was left handed and had a fear of thunderstorms and Earthquakes.

6. Her love life was never happy. At 17 she had her first serious romantic relationship with bandleader Artie Shaw, who was 29. However, he eloped with Lana Turner and Judy only found out when she read about it in the papers. Garland began a relationship with musician David Rose who proposed to her when she was 18, but he was already married at the time and the couple had to wait until he was divorced before they could wed. She got pregnant but the studio didn’t approve and insisted she have an abortion. The marriage ended in divorce after 3 years later. Gardland had an affair with Tyrone Power, which resulted in another abortion. In 1945 she married Vincente Minnelli and had a child with him, but they divorced in 1951. Her third husband was Sidney Luft, with whom she had two children but he was a compulsive gambler. Her fourth husband, Mark Herron, cheated on her with her daughter’s husband.

7. She was the first woman to win the Album of the Year Grammy, for Judy at Carnegie Hall, a recording of a legendary 1961 concert.

8. Garland was friends with John F. Kennedy. They would often speak on the phone and he was a listening ear when she'd had a bad day. He'd ask her to sing a few bars of Over the Rainbow to end their calls.

9. Garland was paid just $500 a week for The Wizard of Oz, while co-star Ray Bolger got $3,000 a week for playing the Scarecrow. Her best friend on the set was arguably Toto the dog, who would follow her everywhere.

10. Garland died at the age of 47 from a drug overdose. The day after she died there was a Tornado in Kansas.

Character birthdays

Cape: Has the power of healing but is also a psychopath who, during treatment as a teenager met and formed a relationship with another troubled teen, Vivian Patterson (Mask). Together, they figured out how to fool the psychiatrists into thinking they were cured and were discharged. The two children hid their sadistic tendencies from others, but would torture small animals and later people to the point of death for fun – then Cape would heal the creatures so they could do it over again. As adults, they became lovers and joined Combat Team Omega.

Disaster Area, aka Duncan Allen Rees. He has no powers but has been interested in marital arts and explosives since childhood and is an expert in both. As a teenager, he developed an obsession for destroying things and was convicted many times for vandalism. One night he was caught smashing up a warehouse and when arrested gave his name as "D.A. Rees". The arresting officer looked around at the scene of devastation and commented, "What does the D.A. stand for then, Sonny? Disaster Area?" and the name stuck. He planned to test one of his home made bombs on what he thought was a derelict house but which was inhabited by Leopold Smythe-Warner and the Demolition Squad. Rather than get angry, they laughed off the resulting damage and asked D.A. to join them.