Judy Garland: World's Greatest Entertainer

If you're a fan of the great Judy Garland, you can never go wrong purchasing any title written by John Fricke. He loves, respects, and honors Judy in every sentence he writes. He puts class into every work he has contributed towards, be it a book or a compact disc booklet. His research is comprehensive and exhaustive. This book is a MUST for any fan of Judy - from a neophyte to octogenarian! Kudos, John. The fans of Judy salute you!

Other books will tell you what brought Judy Garland down, but no other book will show you in such loving detail what made Judy soar. I know a lot of devout Judy fans, and for each of them, this is their favorite Judy book. The reviewers below are bizarrely out of sync with the majority of Judy people on this title. Every page literally overflows with detail, insight, and love.

This book covers the sad, sweet, drug-addled life and times of Judy Garland. It's all in here! The diet pills, the drugs, the childhood that never was, the little girl just longing to be loved loved loved! There is absolutely nothing better than putting some Judy music on, and crackin' open this book, and laughing and crying right along with Judy. I was fortunate enough to have met her through a friend of a friend, and I can tell you, she was absolutely the sweetest person on the face of this earth. We all miss her terribly.

Never will i forget the day my copy of this book came in the mail. Not knowing exactly what i was getting as many JUDY books have been read by myself, this 1 was 'sent from JUDY herself'!! Mr. Fricke should be very pleased with what he has done. Hopefully an honor or two-maybe....This is THE JUDY book!!!! Yes it tells everything about her and her life, the ups and downs, the pills, the 'everything'. But most importantly it tells, and shows through hundreds of beautiful pictures, what JUDY was and always will be-THE WORLDS GREATEST ENTERTAINER!!! Tho i've had the book a couple of years now, i still find myself looking through it for hours. looking at all the photographs, the concerts photos, the behind the scenes movie photos, the personal photos, the studio photos, and reading, and reading, all the while her 'CARNEGIE HALL' concert is still 'doing' what it 'did' all those years ago! GARLAND, doing what she still does, giving that voice of hers to ALL OF US!!! 2 or 3 hours can slip by as i read and look and change albums on the phonograph, and yet it seems like only moments. But, as we know, that is what made JUDY so GREAT!!!! You never tire listening to her. And to have this added gift given by Mr. John Fricketo us, only keeps her alive for those of us to young to have been honored by seeing her 'live'.THANK YOU MR. JOHN FRICKE!!!!!! JUDY, I'M SURE, IS PLEASED AS PUNCH THAT SOMEBODY FINALLY GOT IT RIGHT!!! [And I wouldn't be surprised if, when your time came, she wasn't there waiting with open arms to say, 'THANK YOU!!!']

Even if I weren't a dyed-in-the-wool true-blue Judy Garland fan, Fricke's book would make me one. Without a doubt, I feel that this is the most careful, thorough, and loving pictorial tribute to Garland I've ever seen. Thumbing through this book, as I listened to the stunning 1961 Carnegie Hall Concert, I was struck by how completely, how thoroughly the many faces and phases of Garland are represented in this book--from the little girl with the leather lungs; to the MGM musical doll; to the glamorous cover girl of the 40s; to the serious movie actress; to the television star of the early 60s; to the most powerful of the Garland personas: the concert Garland, in utter control of her rapt and adoring audiences. She's all there. In all her modulations. In all her transmogrifications. You see it in her face on every page; you see it in her stance and her stride, so much so that you almost expect her to jump off the page and do "Get Happy" on your living room floor; you hear it, because her voice, almost literally, leaps off every page of Fricke's very alive book. This book is Judy Garland in constant motion. What you see, what you hear, is pure Judy, pure genius, all talent. I cannot thank John Fricke enough for this marvelous and colorful tribute.If he can do this for Judy Garland, I would love to see what he could do for Ella Fitzgerald. The world is still waiting for her life in pictures.But the title of this book is indeed accurate: WORLD'S GREATEST ENTERTAINER. The epigraph by Frank Sinatra is right on the mark: "The rest of us will be forgotten, never Judy." Thank you John.--Dan