Judy Garland Trivia
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57 free Judy Garland trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This Judy Garland trivia quiz follows the girl born Frances Gumm in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, from a chorus of 'Jingle Bells' at age two through the Gumm Sisters, the name George Jessel gave her, the MGM audition without a screen test, and the studio that called her its 'little hunchback' and fed her chicken soup and pills. Then the films: the blonde wig they tried on Dorothy, the Juvenile Oscar, Mickey Rooney and the backyard musicals, Meet Me in St. Louis and Vincente Minnelli, Easter Parade, 'Get Happy', the firings from Annie Get Your Gun and Royal Wedding, and A Star Is Born and 'the biggest robbery since Brinks'. The last stretch covers the comebacks and the crash: the London Palladium and the Palace, the Special Tony, Carnegie Hall and the first Album of the Year Grammy won by a woman, the CBS series scheduled against Bonanza, the March on Washington, the Melbourne walk-off, five husbands, the IRS liens, and the London bathroom where it ended at 47. Then the legacy: 'Over the Rainbow' as the AFI's number-one movie song, two stamps, and Renee Zellweger's Oscar. Difficulty runs from easy to expert and is shown on every question. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. Try our Wizard of Oz and Classic Hollywood quizzes next.
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Q 01What was Judy Garland's birth name?
Frances Ethel Gumm
Frances Ethel Gumm. Named for her parents, Frank and Ethel, she was plain 'Baby' at home and on stage, while the real Dorothy of the family was one of her two elder sisters.
Q 02In which state was Garland born?
Minnesota
Minnesota. A pair of Dorothy's ruby slippers was stolen in 2005 from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, her home town, and turned up thirteen years later in a sting operation.
Q 03By Garland's own account, which song did she sing again and again at her stage debut, aged two?
Jingle Bells
Jingle Bells. Thrilled by the applause at a Christmas show, she sang it over and over, the story goes, until her father came out and carried her off the stage of the theatre he ran.
Q 04Which 1934 event drew Garland and her sisters to Chicago, where a comedian urged a new surname?
The World's Fair
The World's Fair. A Chicago theatre is said to have billed the trio as the Glum Sisters, and the comedian George Jessel, on the same bill, reportedly urged a fresh surname, and the trio became the Garland Sisters.
Q 05Whom did Garland bitterly describe as the real Wicked Witch of the West?
Her mother
Her mother. In a 1967 television interview Garland recalled Ethel standing in the wings and threatening to wrap her round the bedpost and 'break you off short' if she did not go out and sing.
Q 06Which song did Garland, 13, sing on national radio in 1935 as her father lay dying?
'Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart'
'Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart' went out on the Shell Chateau Hour while her father lay in hospital with meningitis. He died the next day, and the song became a standard in her concerts.
Q 07Which studio boss is said to have called the teenage Garland, under five feet tall, 'my little hunchback'?
Louis B. Mayer
Louis B. Mayer ran MGM, where Garland was judged against glamour girls such as Lana Turner. The studio kept her on diets, and she stayed insecure about her looks for the rest of her life.
Q 08Garland got MGM's attention singing 'You Made Me Love You' at whose birthday party?
Clark Gable's
Clark Gable's. Roger Edens had rewritten the old hit as a fan letter, 'Dear Mr. Gable', and Garland sang it again to the star's photograph in Broadway Melody of 1938.
Q 09When Garland ordered a regular meal, the MGM commissary was reportedly told to serve her only what?
Chicken soup and black coffee
Chicken soup and black coffee; some accounts add cigarettes and appetite pills. Garland later wrote that the studio kept its young stars going on pep pills, then knocked them out with sleeping pills.
Q 10Hollywood legend says MGM first wanted which Fox child star, rather than Garland, as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz?
Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple is the name in the legend, but Oz historians dismiss it: they say the part was being written for Garland from the start.
Q 11What was Garland made to wear as Dorothy in early filming before the look was scrapped?
A blonde wig
A blonde wig, worn with heavy baby-doll make-up. Stand-in director George Cukor scrapped the look, restored her own dark hair and told her to be herself.
Q 12Which honour did Garland receive for The Wizard of Oz?
Academy Juvenile Award
The Academy Juvenile Award, a small statuette, honoured her screen work of 1939. It was the only Oscar Garland ever won; two nominations as an adult both ended in defeat.
Q 13Which bandleader broke the teenage Garland's heart by eloping with Lana Turner in 1940?
Artie Shaw
Q 21Which number did Garland ask to add to Summer Stock, appearing visibly slimmer than in the rest of the film?
'Get Happy'
'Get Happy' was her own choice. She wore the tuxedo jacket and fedora from a number cut from Easter Parade, in what proved her last film for MGM.
Q 22Which friend brought Judy Garland onto his radio show in 1950, telling listeners 'she needs our love'?
Bing Crosby
'And she came out and that place went crazy. And she just blossomed'; eight appearances that season relaunched her.
Q 23At which London venue did Garland launch her stage comeback in April 1951, months after leaving MGM?
The Palladium
Artie Shaw was her first serious adult romance, and she believed they would marry. He did not feel the same, and his surprise elopement left her devastated.
Q 14Whose first screen appearance came opposite Garland in For Me and My Gal (1942)?
Gene Kelly's
Gene Kelly's. Garland had pushed for the Broadway star of Pal Joey to get the part, then helped him adapt his stage acting for the camera and backed him against director Busby Berkeley.
Q 15Why did Garland balk at the first lyrics of 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas'?
They were too bleak
They were too bleak to sing to little Margaret O'Brien, Garland said, fearing audiences would think her a monster. Songwriter Hugh Martin resisted, then wrote the gentler words heard in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944).
Q 16Whom did Garland marry in June 1945 after clashing with him on the set of Meet Me in St. Louis?
Vincente Minnelli
Vincente Minnelli directed a film Garland at first resisted making. They fought on set, became a couple during the shoot, and their daughter Liza was born in March 1946.
Q 17Which Oscar-winning song did Garland introduce in The Harvey Girls (1946)?
'On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe'
'On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe' won Best Original Song for Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer. The film follows the Harvey House waitresses who worked along that real railway's route in the Old West.
Q 18Which dancer came out of retirement to partner Garland in Easter Parade (1948) after her original co-star was injured?
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire had announced his retirement in 1946, but MGM offered him the part when its star broke an ankle, and the injured man backed the move.
Q 19Who replaced Garland when MGM suspended her from The Barkleys of Broadway in 1948?
Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers was brought in when MGM removed Garland and suspended her in July 1948. Migraines and a growing dependence on sleeping pills had kept her off the set for days at a time.
Q 20Garland was fired from which role in 1949, with Betty Hutton taking over?
Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun
Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun: Garland had recorded all her songs when MGM fired her in May 1949. She had clashed with director Busby Berkeley, who was himself sacked days before her.
The Palladium booked her for four weeks from 9 April 1951, and she was a critical and popular smash. It began the concert years that carried the rest of her career.
Q 24For what did Garland get a Special Tony Award after her record 1951 run at the Palace Theatre?
Reviving vaudeville
The engagement was called 'one of the greatest personal triumphs in show business history'.
Q 25Whom did Garland marry in June 1952, her tour manager and later producer of A Star Is Born?
Sidney Luft
Sidney Luft fathered her younger children, Lorna and Joey, and steered her return to the concert stage. The marriage, her longest, ended in divorce in 1965.
Q 26Which number was added to Garland's 1954 comeback film after director George Cukor had left the production?
'Born in a Trunk'
'Born in a Trunk' was shot in July 1954 under dance director Richard Barstow, with Garland's mentor Roger Edens supervising. Its medley of old standards includes 'Swanee'.
Q 27Who beat Garland to the 1954 Best Actress Oscar, with a TV crew already set up in her hospital room?
Grace Kelly
Grace Kelly won for The Country Girl. NBC had built a camera platform outside Garland's hospital window, a day after she gave birth to her son Joey; she later joked that the crew packed up and left without a word.
Q 28Which co-star of A Star Is Born later gave the eulogy at Garland's funeral?
James Mason
James Mason told mourners her great gift was that 'she could wring tears out of hearts of rock.' Press and public were shut out, but a loudspeaker carried his words to a room upstairs.
Q 29For which 1961 film did Garland earn a Best Supporting Actress nomination?
Judgment at Nuremberg
Judgment at Nuremberg gave her a songless part as a German woman persecuted under the Nazis and called to testify. It was her first on-screen role since A Star Is Born seven years earlier.
Q 30Which illness put Garland in hospital in late 1959, with doctors warning she would never work again?
Hepatitis
Hepatitis had swollen her liver, and doctors blamed it partly on years of diet pills and tranquilizers. Told she would be a semi-invalid, she was back on the concert stage within a year.