Judy Garland's A Star Is Born (1954): Hollywood's Most Complicated Comeback — A Fragile Icon, Studio Butchering, and an Infamous Oscar Upset

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By 1950, MGM was done with Judy Garland — and so, it seemed, was Hollywood. A Star Is Born was the film that was supposed to change all of that. After a devastating breakdown, the end of her studio contract, and an industry convinced she was finished, Garland spent the next two years rebuilding herself — on concert stages in London, Dublin, and New York. By 1952, she and her husband-manager, Sid Luft, were betting everything on one extraordinary project. This episode follows the making of the 1954 musical remake of A Star Is Born — the second of four A Star Is Born films, later remade with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson in 1976, and with Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper in 2018. The…