Follow a Star · 1935–1962
Judy Garland
The voice that never needed a film
Garland has no long-running radio programme of her own, which is exactly why her radio life is worth following: it is scattered across other people's shows for twenty-seven years. The journey starts with a thirteen-year-old billed as a guest on Shell Chateau, runs through the wartime forces broadcasts where she was one of the most requested singers in the world, settles into the long Bing Crosby partnership, and ends with her looking back at herself on a retrospective series.
63 recordings across 7 chapters
Chapter 1 · 1935–1939
Before the rainbow
Shell Chateau in November 1935 — she is thirteen, the studio orchestra is enormous, and nobody has heard of her. Then Baby Snooks, Good News with Clark Gable, and her first turn for Bob Hope.
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Guest - Judy Garland
Shell Chateau · 1935 · 59 min
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Snooks Why-Because Guest-Judy-Garland
The Baby Snooks Show · 1938 · 2 min
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ep027 Guests Clark Gable and Judy Garland
Good News · 1938 · 1h 2m
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Guest - Judy Garland
The Bob Hope Program · 1939 · 30 min
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BSs 19--Why - Because w Judy Garland
The Baby Snooks Show · 1912 · 2 min
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BSnks Why - Because (w Judy Garland)
The Baby Snooks Show · 1912 · 2 min
Chapter 2 · 1941–1942
Sparring with a block of wood
Two Chase & Sanborn Sundays opposite Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy — the first of them broadcast on 7 December 1941, the afternoon the news came in from Pearl Harbor.
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Guest - Judy Garland — 7 Dec 1941
Edgar Bergen and Charlie Mccarthy · 1941 · 29 min
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Guest - Judy Garland — 21 Jun 1942
Edgar Bergen and Charlie Mccarthy · 1942 · 29 min
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41-12-07 Judy Garland Charlie Santa Helpers bad sound
Edgar Bergen and Charlie Mccarthy · undated · 7 min
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42-06-21 Charlie Bergen Judy Garland Discusss the Rubber Shortage
Edgar Bergen and Charlie Mccarthy · undated · 1 min
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42-06-21 Charlie Judy Garland plus Bergen Talks with Mortimer Snerd about Cuisine
Edgar Bergen and Charlie Mccarthy · undated · 4 min
Chapter 3 · 1943–1948
Command Performance and Mail Call
The Armed Forces Radio Service shows were made on request from servicemen overseas, and Garland was requested constantly. No sponsor, no clock, and the biggest bills in American entertainment: Crosby, Durante, Danny Kaye, Sinatra, Dinah Shore.
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Groucho Marx, Betty Grable, Judy Garland
Mail Call · 1943 · 29 min
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Judy Garland, Kenny Baker, John Charles Thomas, Virginia O'Brien
Command Performance · 1943 · 29 min
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Bob Hope, Lee Sweetland, Judy Garland, Johnny Mercer
Command Performance · 1943 · 29 min
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Judy Garland, Jimmy Durante, Bing Crosby
Command Performance · 1943 · 30 min
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Judy Garland, Dinah Shore
Command Performance · 1943 · 29 min
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Bob Hope, Betty Hutton, Judy Garland, Jimmy Durante, Lana Turner
Command Performance · 1943 · 30 min
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Jack Benny, Judy Garland, Johnny Mercer, Delta Rhythm Boys
Mail Call · 1944 · 30 min
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Judy Garland, Jimmy Durante, Bing Crosby
Mail Call · 1944 · 31 min
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Bing Crosby, Judy Garland
Command Performance · 1944 · 29 min
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Judy Garland, Danny Kaye, Helen Forrest
Command Performance · 1944 · 30 min
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Judy Garland, Merry Macs, Bob Hope
Mail Call · 1945 · 29 min
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Judy Garland, Phil Silvers
Command Performance · 1946 · 28 min
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09 (35) Bob Hope, Judy Garland, Claudette Colbert
Command Performance · 1948 · 29 min
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20 (58) Judy Garland, Kenny Baker, John Charles Thomas, Virginia O'Brien
Command Performance · 1948 · 29 min
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03 (61) Bob Hope, Lee Sweetland, Judy Garland, Johnny Mercer
Command Performance · 1948 · 29 min
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28 (81) Judy Garland, Jimmy Durante, Bing Crosby
Command Performance · 1948 · 30 min
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30 (91) Judy Garland, Dinah Shore
Command Performance · 1948 · 29 min
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13 (92) Bob Hope, Betty Hutton, Judy Garland, Jimmy Durante, Lana Turner
Command Performance · 1948 · 30 min
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12 (106) Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland
Command Performance · 1948 · 29 min
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03 (122) Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra
Command Performance · 1948 · 29 min
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15 (129) Bing Crosby, Judy Garland
Command Performance · 1948 · 29 min
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19 (134) Judy Garland, Danny Kaye, Helen Forrest
Command Performance · 1948 · 30 min
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01 (241) Judy Garland, Phil Silvers
Command Performance · 1948 · 28 min
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335a Judy Garland - Tommy Dorsey - Over The Rainbow - I May Be Wrong But I Think You're Wonderful
Afrs V Discs · 1944 · 5 min
Chapter 4 · 1945–1946
Acting, and a memorial
Lux Radio Theatre put her in the hour-long version of The Clock with John Hodiak in January 1946. A month before that she sang 'Look for the Silver Lining' on the broadcast memorial for Jerome Kern, dead five days earlier.
Chapter 5 · 1946–1952
The Crosby years
The longest thread in her radio life: Philco Radio Time, the Chesterfield Show, the General Electric hour — sixteen surviving appearances, including one where she takes the host's chair and Crosby is the guest.
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Philco Radio Time (46-49) (7) Guest - Judy Garland
Bing Crosby · 1946 · 27 min
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Philco Radio Time (46-49) (19) Guests - Leo McCarey, William Frawley and Judy Garland
Bing Crosby · 1947 · 29 min
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Philco Radio Time (46-49) (74) Guest - Judy Garland
Bing Crosby · 1948 · 29 min
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Chesterfield Show (49-52) (3) Guest - Judy Garland
Bing Crosby · 1949 · 30 min
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Chesterfield Show (49-52) (37) Guest - Judy Garland and Bob Hope
Bing Crosby · 1950 · 31 min
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Chesterfield Show (49-52) (38) Guests - Judy Garland and Bob Hope
Bing Crosby · 1950 · 30 min
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Chesterfield Show (49-52) (45) Guest - Judy Garland
Bing Crosby · 1950 · 30 min
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Chesterfield Show (49-52) (54) Guest - Judy Garland
Bing Crosby · 1951 · 29 min
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Chesterfield Show (49-52) (58) Guest - Judy Garland
Bing Crosby · 1951 · 30 min
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Chesterfield Show (49-52) (59) Guest - Judy Garland
Bing Crosby · 1951 · 29 min
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Chesterfield Show (49-52) (60) Guests - Judy Garland and Les and Mary Paul
Bing Crosby · 1951 · 29 min
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Chesterfield Show (49-52) (61) Guest - Judy Garland
Bing Crosby · 1951 · 28 min
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Chesterfield Show (49-52) (108) Guest - Judy Garland
Bing Crosby · 1952 · 29 min
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Chesterfield Show (49-52) (109) Guest - Judy Garland
Bing Crosby · 1952 · 30 min
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Chesterfield Show (49-52) (110) Guest - Judy Garland
Bing Crosby · 1952 · 30 min
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General Electric Show (52-54) (4) Guest - Judy Garland as Host
Bing Crosby · 1952 · 29 min
Chapter 6 · 1944–1962
Kraft, the Treasury and The Big Show
Kraft Music Hall in 1948, the Treasury's Guest Star quarter-hours, and the February 1951 Big Show with Groucho Marx — NBC's last, loudest attempt to out-spend television.
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MC #072 1944-01-05 Jack Benny, Judy Garland
Guest Star · 1944 · 30 min
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Judy Garland
Kraft Music Hall · 1948 · 29 min
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March Field, CA - 1st 'I'm in Love' Judy Garland, Doris Singleton (v)
The Bob Hope Program · 1951 · 29 min
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ep15 Groucho Marx, Judy Garland
The Big Show · 1951 · 1h 28m
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Guest Star 1952-07-13 (277) Judy Garland
Guest Star · 1952 · 14 min
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EC 1956-xx-xx w Jack Benny Durante Jolson and Garland
Guest Star · 1956 · 26 min
Chapter 7 · 1956–1957
Radio remembering her
Recollections at Thirty went through NBC's own discs to build a history of broadcasting, and kept returning to her — the twelve-year-old audition, the Bergen debut. She was thirty-four when it aired.
What the record cannot tell us
Garland never had a sponsored series of her own, so every chapter here is somebody else's programme. Where a surviving title does not name her she is not claimed — several known appearances survive only as undated fragments, and those are left off rather than guessed at.
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