Johnnie Ray was best man at her wedding to fifth husband Mickey Deans.
Groucho Marx called her not winning an Oscar for A Star Is Born (1954), "the biggest robbery since Brink's." Hedda Hopper later reported that her loss to Grace Kelly for The Country Girl (1954) was the result of the closest Oscar vote up till that time that didn't end in a tie, with just six votes separating the two. In any event, it was a heartbreak from which she never really recovered and which has remained a matter of some controversy ever since.
Liza Minnelli originally wanted Mickey Rooney to deliver Garland's eulogy, but she was afraid that he wouldn't be able to get through it. So James Mason did it instead.
Liza Minnelli said that Judy planned on calling her autobiography "Ho-Hum".
1952: Received a Special Tony Award "for an important contribution to the revival of vaudeville through her recent stint at the Palace Theatre.".
1961: Her record "Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall" garnered five Grammy Awards and remained at the top of Billboard's charts for two months.
1997: Posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
1998: Garland's album, "Judy at Carnegie Hall" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
2006: Her performance as Vicki Lester in A Star Is Born (1954) is ranked #72 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time.
3/23/90: Pictured on one of four 25¢ USA commemorative postage stamps honoring classic films released in 1939. The stamp shows Judy Garland as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz (1939), along with Toto (portrayed by Terry). The other films honored were Beau Geste (1939), Stagecoach (1939), and Gone with the Wind (1939).
6/10/06: Pictured on a 39¢ USA commemorative postage stamp in the Legends of Hollywood series.
6/12/64: She married Mark Herron, although her divorce from Sidney Luft was not settled. They were married in Mandarin by a Buddhist monk, and the validity of this marriage is not clear.
6/27/69: Her funeral was held in Manhattan at the Frank E. Campbell funeral home at Madison Ave. and 81st St., and 22,000 people filed past her open coffin over a 24-hour period. Ex-husband Vincente Minnelli did not attend. James Mason delivered the eulogy. Her body had been stored in a temporary crypt for over one year. The reason for this is that no one had come forward to pay the expense of moving her to a permanent resting spot at Ferncliff Cemetery in Ardsley, NY. Liza Minnelli had the impression that Judy's last husband, Mickey Deans, had made the necessary arrangements but Deans claimed to have no money. Liza then took on the task of raising the funds to have her properly buried. Death was caused by an "incautious self-overdosage of Seconal" which had raised the barbiturate level in her body beyond its tolerance.
A close friend was Katharine Hepburn, with whom she would regularly stay during her most serious bouts of depression in order to recover.
According to her biography on the A&E channel, as a young adult in her early acting career, movie producers had her going to six different doctors for prescription drugs, without any one doctor knowing about the other five. It was this process that led to her addiction.
According to singer Mel Tormé, she had a powerful gift of retention. She could view a piece of music once and have the entire thing memorized.
Adding to her appeal within the gay community, Garland always acknowledged her gay fan base at a time when homosexuality was seldom even discussed. Late in her career and in dire need of money, she even accepted work singing in a New York City gay bar.
After serving as the music director on her short-lived CBS series, Mel Tormé wrote a vicious tell-all book about his talented but challenging former boss. So frustrated from the experience, his words in "The Other Side of The Rainbow: With Judy Garland on the Dawn Patrol" portrayed Garland as hopelessly drug-addicted, unprofessional and a horror to work with.
Always had crooked front teeth, for which an MGM dentist fitted her with removable caps to wear in her films, including The Wizard of Oz (1939).
As a teenager on the MGM lots, she was good friends with Lana Turner and Ann Rutherford.