All About Judy Garland’s Marriage To Sid Luft, In His Own Words

Judy, a wrenching biopic out September 27, takes place in the final year of actress and singer Judy Garland’s life. In 1969, 46-year-old Garland (Renee Zellweger) performed a series of concerts at London’s Talk of the Town nightclub.

Each evening, a packed audience was treated to a performance of Garland at her most erratic, frayed by a lifetime of drug addiction and illness.

Two of Garland’s five husbands also had a front-row seat to her descent. At the time, Garland was married to Mickey Deans (Finn Wittrock), her fifth husband. She and her third husband, Sidney Luft (Rufus Sewell) had broken up after 13 years of marriage in 1965, but still were in touch because of their two children. 

The movie largely limits Luft and Garland’s interactions to heated arguments about their kids’ custody, but their relationship wasn’t always so contentious. There were happy days, too. 

In 1963, Sid Luft began writing a memoir about his marriage to Garland. The project would last the rest of his life. When he died in 2005, the memoir Judy and I: My Life WIth Judy Garland was completed posthumously by a journalist. It’s sweeping overview of Garland’s third, and longest, marriage, from the day Luft was “electrified” by her in a Manhattan night club, to its tumultuous decline. 

Luft, a movie producer, first met Garland on an MGM set in her pre-The Wizard of Oz days when she was 14 years old. They reconnected years later in 1950, right after Garland had been dropped by MGM and was, in his words, “on the slippery slope to a fadeout” at just 28. Though both Garland and Luft were married to other people at the time, they were instantly drawn to each other in that Manhattan night club. “She was uninhibited, giving herself over to her passions so completely,” he writes. 

Garland, who had been married twice before, pursued him, and he let her — despite misgivings. “I did not want to fall in love with a married woman; it seemed chancy,” Luft writes in Judy and I. 

From the start of their relationship, Luft made rehabilitating Garland’s career a personal project. “She was so incredibly talented that I knew she could land on her feet if she had some help. So what if the movies didn't want her? She could always sing,” Luft told The Telegraph in 2001. Before they married, Luft produced a series of hit shows in London and New York. Luft claims it “was the beginning of the cult of Garland.” In 1954, Luft would spearhead the first remake of A Star Is Born, Garland’s final turn as a movie star. 

Eventually, in 1952, Garland and Luft left their spouses. Before they married, Luft proclaimed his noble intentions. "I love Judy. I want to protect her from the trauma she once knew. I don't want her to be bewildered or hurt again. I want her to have happiness. Neither I, nor anyone else, can ever force her to do anything she doesn't want to do," he was reported to have said. 

However, their marriage was preceded by a dark spot. In 1951, while producing a theater show with Luft, Garland got pregnant. Luft reacted negatively, so Garland felt pressured into getting an abortion — her second abortion forced by a lover. “I was as unjustified as I was insensitive,” Luft writes in the memoir. Judy shows off more of Luft’s emotionally manipulative side. 

Soon after they married in 1952, Garland got pregnant again. Their daughter Lorna was born in November 1952; a son, Joseph, followed in 1955. 

But their marriage started to fall apart in the ‘60s. Luft blames money and drug problems for its decline. Garland had struggled with an addiction to prescription pills since she was 15, and MGM had forced her on regimen of stimulants to keep up with 20-hour days. By the ‘60s, she had a host of doctors prescribing pills to continue the habit. 

In 1965, Garland filed for divorce. Testifying before a judge, Garland stated that “[Luft] struck me many times" and "did a lot of drinking.” She won full custody of their two children. In the film version, Garland’s children long to live with their father. 

As Judy shows, their relationship was complicated, with enough drama to merit a memoir and a documentary called Sid & Judy. 

However the film portrays their marriages, Luft’s memoir gives an empathetic portrayal of a woman who was churned through the unfeeling star system. He recounts the near-ceaseless sexual harassment she endured as a teenager. On the set of The Wizard of Oz, the actors who played munchkins would “would make Judy’s life miserable on set by putting their hands under her dress.” 

Garland, Luft argues, was failed by a system. "Maybe she was doomed, but I also think her death was a kind of assisted suicide. A lot of people took advantage of her and made a bad situation worse,” Luft told The Telegraph. 
At the end of his life, Luft claimed he was still in love with Garland. "Whatever bad things happened, you don't fall out of love with somebody like her.,” he told the The Telegraph.“All I know is that if anyone tried to save a woman who was breaking apart, I did. I know that I did the best I could do, and it still wasn't enough.”