In March, photos circulated online of Renee Zellweger looking unrecognizable but not for the controversial reasons people had been speculating about in recent years.
Zellweger was made up to look like a 40-something Judy Garland in the final months of her life for a new biographical film about the show business legend. It’s safe to assume that Zellweger, 49, sees “Judy” as a great opportunity to continue her career comeback after a six-year hiatus from Hollywood and after the warm reception that “Bridget Jones’s Baby” received in 2016.
With “Judy,” she has the juicy role of playing Garland as she was seeking her own comeback after years of setbacks due to deteriorating health and drug and alcohol abuse.
But with “Judy” looking for an awards-season release in November, at least one prominent figure connected to Garland is slamming the whole idea of the film: Garland’s daughter Liza Minnelli.
In a post on Facebook, Minnelli responded to a report that she approves of the film or that she “bonded” with Zellweger over the latter’s portrayal of her mother, the Guardian reported.
“I have never met nor spoken to Renée Zellweger,” Minnelli wrote. “I don’t know how these stories get started, but I do not approve nor sanction the upcoming film about Judy Garland in any way.”
The film opens in December 1968 when Garland traveled to London to perform in a series of sold-out concerts at London’s Talk of the Town nightclub. After Garland’s June 1969 death from a barbiturate overdose, critic Roger Ebert wrote that her famous voice had long since lost its power but “in the last years, it was her soul that audiences came to experience.”
This period of Garland’s life has been chronicled before in a stage musical called “End of the Rainbow,” which was nominated for three Tony Awards in 2012, Variety reported. The film also delves into Garland’s behind-the-scenes battles with management, her relationships with musicians and fans, and “the unfolding family drama” that provided the backdrop to the London performances, Variety added
Perhaps it’s the part about the “unfolding family drama” that Minnelli doesn’t like.
Garland was married five times, including for six years to director Vincente Minnelli, Liza Minnelli’s father. And Minnelli’s relationship with her legendary mother was, not surprisingly, complicated.
In a 1984 interview with the New York Times, Minnelli described life with her mother as a series of “constant melodramas.” Her mother was both proud and jealous of her talent, while Minnelli grew up to become the “sensible” one in the relationship. By the time Minnelli was a teenager in the 1960s, she had became her mother’s confidante, listened to her rants about “studio atrocities and mean-spirited producers.” She also became adept at coping with her mother’s pill-taking and suicide attempts.
‘”There were no middles, no times when I was just tranquil,” Minnelli told the Times. She was 23 when her mother died. “I was used only to screaming attacks or excessive love bouts, rivers of money or no money at all, seeing my mother constantly or not seeing her for weeks at a time.”
It sounds like “Judy” has lots of emotionally powerful material to draw from. It could provide Zellweger with a tour de force opportunity. But maybe Minnelli is particularly unhappy about this bit of casting, though it’s hard to know why.
After all, if anyone were to play Garland, why not Zellweger? For one thing, Zellweger proved her musical chops in “Chicago” in 2002. But more than that, Zellweger has talked about facing her own challenges as a Hollywood star overwhelmed by fame and as a woman, like Garland, trying to stay relevant in an industry that has long seen little value in women over 40.
Starting in 2010, Zellweger turned her back on making movies after finding early A-list success with “Jerry Maguire,” “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” “Chicago” and “Cold Mountain,” for which she won an Academy Award for best supporting actress.
Zellweger said she wanted to take time away from movies in order to “grow,” she told the Hollywood Reporter. She said: “If you don’t explore other things, you wake up 20 years later and you’re still that same person who only learns anything when she goes out to research a character. You need to grow!”
But in recent years, the narrative about Zellweger has focused on questions about her appearance and speculation by social media and even a critic in a much-pilloried column that she’s had “work done.”
Zellweger has refused to engage in that discussion. That was true in her interview with the Hollywood Reporter when she wouldn’t directly discuss the controversy.
She would only say: “I’ve never seen the maturation of a woman as a negative thing. I’ve never seen a woman stepping into her more powerful self as a negative.”
“But this conversation perpetuates the problem,” she continued. “Why are we talking about how women look? Why do we value beauty over contribution? We don’t seem to value beauty over contribution for men. It’s simply not a conversation.”
It’s well known that Garland spent much of her career struggling with her weight and with not fitting the classic starlet ideal. On this issue of actresses being harshly judged by their looks, she and Zellweger probably could relate.
Now Zellweger likely hopes that playing Garland will help return the conversation to her established talent as an actress. But it will be interesting to see if Minnelli’s disapproval of the film dampens enthusiasm for it or for Zellweger’s continued effort to return to the A-list.
