Judy garland

“By the fall of 1942, Judy Garland moved out of the mansion she shared with David Rose and into an apartment in Westwood with Betty Asher. The two were never apart and were still lovers. They were photographed all over L.A. shopping, dining, and walking hand in hand. The couple was so obvious that MGM workers questioned Garland's actual sexual preferences. Asher and Garland were on-again off-again lovers for years, though Garland wasn't a lesbian. By then she preferred oral sex to intercourse and preferred women to men. Sexual experimentation was rampant in the permissive movie colony of the 1940s, so Garland wasn't the exception.

“During the last week of October 1942, both Asher and Garland attended a party in Brentwood where she was introduced to Tyrone Power, son of the legendary Tyrone Power, Sr. The 28-year-old actor was a major star and Garland was transfixed.

He had just seen her performance in Me and My Gal, which had just been released, and remembered for her the exact date that he had seen her movie: October 16. She was smitten and fell in love with Power. His wife, the gorgeous but androgynous bisexual French actress Annabella, was on an extended vacation. According to Power's best friend Watson Webb, ‘There was an immediate attraction between them, and by the time Annabella got back ... he was crazy about her.’ Power began secretly visiting Garland's duplex at 152 Glenroy Avenue, near UCLA.

“Tyrone Power was an enigma. He was handsome, intelligent, athletic, and talented, and had an almost mystical power over women even though he was bisexual or homosexual. But strangely, he seemed as interested in Garland as she was in him. Their intense sexual chemistry somehow quieted Power's sexual confusion. His studio planted hundreds of articles describing his power over women.

The July 193 7 Hollywood Magazine listed 40 actresses supposedly in love with him under the title, ‘They Carry a Torch for Tyrone.’ The November 1937 Movie Mirror Magazine offered ‘Tyrone Power's Bachelor Guide to Hollywood.’ When a studio pairing with Janet Gaynor fizzled, she married her own ‘beard,’ homosexual MGM costumer Gilbert Adrian. Of the Gaynor-Adrian wedding, Bob Cummings said ‘Janet Gaynor's husband was Adrian, but her wife was Mary Martin.’

“On April 23, 1939, Power had married the bisexual actress Annabella, 20 years his senior. It was in the context of their open marriage that he had the affair with Garland, who didn't know Power's proclivities. The two appeared in public arm in arm, clearly a couple, which no doubt alarmed Mayer and Mannix. Obviously, Mannix knew about the affair, since Garland was still sharing her Westwood house with Asher, and Asher reported everything to Mannix. Rumors about the relationship between Asher and Garland aside, a public relationship between Garland and Power, two married stars, was a bigger problem given that his studio's campaign to hide Power's homosexuality relentlessly bombarded fans with articles about his marriage.

“To further complicate matters, Power was enlisting in the Marines. Mannix and Strickling knew the unstable Garland wouldn't react well when her lover went to war, so they enlisted Asher as a double agent to help end the relationship. In January 1943, as Power was leaving for basic training, Garland asked him to divorce Annabella and marry her but he was noncommittal. He told Annabella he was in love with Garland, but she told him she didn't care. It was a stalemate; Power wouldn't ask for a divorce and his wife wouldn't offer one.

“Garland began filming Girl Crazy with best friend Rooney. She missed Power, and director Busby Berkeley's frantic filming pace and badgering sent her over the edge. She was ‘just a wreck’; only Rooney saved her from a nervous breakdown. Just a few weeks later she was confined to a hospital and found out she was pregnant with Power's child.

The baby was the wedge Mannix and Strickling needed as they plotted with Asher. They sent Garland to New York to visit Power in May 1943, and she waited in a hotel room with Asher. She tried to get Power on the phone, while Asher badmouthed him and kept calls he did make from getting to her. Asher told Garland that Annabella was pregnant (a lie) and that MGM had discovered Power entertaining his bunkmates by reading Garland's private love letters to them. This last deception was the final blow. A heartbroken Garland returned with Asher and never spoke to Power again. Garland would say of the relationship, ‘It really was different between Tyrone and me. It was no small affair.’

“Strickling arranged an abortion, and Garland and Asher settled back into their Westwood duplex. Over the next two years Garland ground out an incredible nine films. Musicals require more preparation and physical exertion than other film genres. Doing two musicals a year would be hard work; Garland more than doubled that. For several years Asher continued in her role as a mole for Mannix, still Garland's lover. Asher, as unstable as Garland, would eventually commit suicide, but would first serve as maid of honor at Garland's later wedding to Vincente Minnelli."

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