Cynthia S. Terwilliger

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Judy Garland’s Last Concert in Chicago

Front row center seat ticket.  Red rose, thrown from a bouquet Miss Garland received after her final performance and autograph. This rose was intended for Bobby Cole, her director. It went further than she intended and I caught it. Miss Garland signed this autograph for at the stage door after the concert.  Next to the front door of her limousine, I told Miss Garland what an honor it was to be at the concert and for her to take time to stop and talk to her. She reached up and touched by cheek and said thank you and then signed the little piece of paper I had in my hand.

The news clipping is from Irv Kupcinet’s column appearing September 17, 1967. 

All of these items have remained in my possession until now.
I think it is time to share it with other Garland fans.

I had the remarkable opportunity of seeing Judy Garland three times in concert: The first was when I was a junior in high school on May 7th, 1965 at the Arie Crown Theatre in Chicago. I was in the upper rafters of the 5,000-seat theatre. The second time I saw her was on a Saturday night during her four week August run at the Palace in New York City. I picked up an orchestra seat ticket the day before the performance. The best, however, was on Saturday, September 15, 1967 at Chicago’s Civic Opera House. Her last public performance in Chicago.

When I found out she was coming to Chicago, I had written for tickets and asked to be as near the front as possible. I was disappointed to find they were nearly in the back of the orchestra seating in the 3.600 capacity theatre. I drove into Chicago from my hometown of DeKalb. I met a college friend who had come up from central Illinois by train. When I arrived in Chicago mid afternoon, I went to the ticket window and told my story and asked if there were any closer seats. I was given row 3AAA. I thought that was great! I would be in the third row. Much to my surprise, they were front row center seats, just to the right of Bobby Cole (Judy’s conductor).

I knew it would be a late night, because I knew from the Palace performance that there was a vaudeville act that went on first. Judy would appear a little after 10:00 pm. The same remarkable thing happened that I had experienced at the Palace. After the intermission, as the lights started to go down, everyone was on their feet clapping, yelling and some standing on their seats. With each song played during the overture, the roar of recognition was deafening. When the orchestra started the Man that Got Away, the decibel level went through the ceiling. I don’t remember the last song of the overture, but suddenly the audience turned en masse toward the back of the theatre and there she was in the spotlight coming down the aisle. The roar got louder as the balcony caught sight of her. It was like being at a Michigan football game, you could not hear yourself clapping. She went up the stairs to the stage just to my right. It must have been 10 minutes before she could sing her first song.

Each song was recognized immediately within the first tow notes of the introduction, people would roar and then you could hear a pin drop as she started to sing … on every song! Over the Rainbow was like a spiritual experience. Judy was funny, engaging, relaxed … danced … made comments, threw the cord of the microphone over her shoulder, made the Garland hand gestures and missed words (it seemed to me the same words she had “forgotten” in New York, I wonder if the missed words were just part of the act). The audience would roar when she would run her hand through her hair, raise it outstretched in the air or place or fist on her hip … every iconic move was acknowledged by the audience.

At one point, she sat on the steps and a young man sitting three seats to my right handed her a towel.
She quipped, ”Oh, it’s from the YWCA”, everyone roared.  When she tossed it back to the young man, he looked like he was going to faint.

It seemed that the curtain calls and encores went on for about 25 minutes. At the end of the performance, she was given two or three dozen red, long stemmed roses. Judy began tossing them to the members of the band in the orchestra pit, while they all kept playing. The one she tossed to Bobby Cole went a little astray and I reached over the rail and grabbed it, hitting his shoulder in the processes. He glared at me over his right shoulder. I didn't care; I had a rose touched by Judy Garland!

The show ended about 12:30 am. We went around to the stage door to see her get in the Lincoln limousine that was waiting for her. I was standing by the front passenger wheel, expecting she would come out the furthest set of doors and get in the back seat. She came out the set of doors nearest to me and ended up standing right in front of me. I knew she was petite, but she looked like a peanut next to me, as I am 5’9”.

As she was waiting for the door to be opened, I found myself saying “Miss Garland you were wonderful, what a terrific experience, you were just wonderful”, or something to that effect.

She turned full face, looked me right in the eye, put her right hand on my left check and said, “Thank you, that means so much”. Then she turned, got into the car and drove off. It seemed to all be in slow motion. It’s a moment in time that I can still “feel”. I cannot tell you how many people were at the stage door, I don’t think there were many as it was really late at night.

I did not get her autograph as there were no programs and I didn’t think to take anything for her to sign. The next day, I wrote Miss Garland a note saying how kind it was of someone of her stature to take time to acknowledge a young college kid. I thought it showed so much class. I also said I wanted to be sure that she had received and read my note, as I was sending it to the Ambassador East Hotel, where I knew she was staying because Irv Kupcinet wrote it in his Sunday column. But, I was not sure that they would deliver my note. I enclosing a self-addressed stamped envelope and a piece of stationary for her to let me know she had gotten it.

Within a few days, a letter came in the mail with my handwriting on it. I held my breath as I opened it. It said, “Thank you, much love, Judy Garland”.

I framed the rose, the ticket stub, the Irv Kupcinet column and the autograph in a 11” x 14” picture frame. I trimmed the paper so that it fit in better, as I had the rose at an angle. It never occurred to me that this was not a very good way to have to have done that. I know now I should have left the note card intact. I can verify that it is original and whole, it has not been clipped form anything else.

This summer, I got thinking that I should take everything out of the frame it had been in for 41 years. That maybe it would be better for the rose. So, I did, but it is all the original items, unaltered. This has been one of my prize possessions for over 40 years.

Seeing Judy Garland in concert, catching a rose tossed by her, getting to talk with her, and then getting her autograph is one the highlights of my life. I remember it as if it were yesterday.

Attested to on June 22, 2007 (the anniversary of Miss Garland’s death on June 22, 1969) by:
Cynthia Terwilliger, 60 Woodland Road, Tryon NC 28722

Joan Crawford - Autographed Photo

The first time I saw Joan Crawford was on WGN television in Autumn Leaves, around 1960 when I was twelve. She became my favorite movie star. I had a scrap book with all the clippings from the movie magazines.

Aound 1961 or 1962 I wrote and asked for an autograph and got back an autograh of Johnny Crawford with just his stamped signature. I was pretty upset. No one had even bothered to read my letter let alone direct it to the right person! I wrote again and this time got through.

I received this personalized letter along with a typed note on blue stationary with Joan Crawford on the letterhead. She said she was sorry that I had such a time getting to her and that she knew how important these requests were to the people who made them and that she was delighted to autograph her picutre for me and was honored that I had requested it. The envelope had a return address on it. That started a correspondence over several years.

I’d write her letters telling her that I had bought a share of Pepsi stock so I could possibly go to a board meeting, was it true she was going to be in Chicago, how wonderful she was in Baby Jane. She answered each note I worte. I had about six of them.

Alas, all that remains today is this photograph. My scrap book was destroyed when our basement flooded. It has been in my possession in this frame for more than 45 years.

Attested to on June 22, 2008 by:
Cynthia Terwilliger, 60 Woodland Road, Tryon NC 28722

Barbra Streisand - Funny Girl Autograph

"Barbra" stage door autograph after evening performance of Funny Girl at the Winter Garden Theater. Ticket stub from Thanksgiving evening performance, November 25, 1965.

I was always a huge fan of Barbra Streisand. When I was a sophomore in high school, my mother and I flew from northern Illinois to New York City over the Thanksgiving weekend to see Barbara Streisand in Funny Girl. We had orchestra seats at the Winter Garden Theater and stayed at the Americana Hotel just across the Street from the back of the theater.

We stood in Times Square and watched the Macy’s Day parade in the morning and them took a train to White Plains to have dinner with my cousin. We got back in town for the evening performance. My seat was row T seat 114. It was an aisle seat on the right side. (It cost $9.90!). The date was November 25, 1965.

The musical had been going on for some time and the staging and costumes were a little dull. That all changed when Streisand took the stage. It was like Dorothy entering Oz; everything became brighter. She seemed to have this aura. She was everything I had imagined and more! After the performance we stood outside the stage door with hundreds of other people. They had poured out into the street across from the hotel. Policemen on horses were controlling the crowd. A limo pulled up, she zipped away. We only glimpsed the top of her head.

Friday evening we went to see Cyril Richard and Orson Bean in The Roar of the Greasepaint, the Smell of the Crowd at the Shubert Theater. We took a taxi back to the hotel after the performance and once again, the crowd was huge. My mother and I joined the group. I noticed a Thunderbird pull up and Elliott Gould get out with a small poodle. No one else seemed to know who he was. He entered the theater and came out alone about five minutes later.

I said to my mom, “he’s going to pick her up at the front door”. So, we trotted around the corner and joined a queue of about ten people. My mother had put some hotel notepaper in her purse at my insistence, just in case.

Five minutes later out she came. She signed autographs for all of us that were there. She didn’t speak or look at anyone directly. Then she got into the Thunderbird with Elliott Gould and the dog drove her away into the Manhattan night. For whatever reason, I cut the hotel name off the top of the notepaper; I guess I did not want it to detract from the autograph. I put the autograph and the ticket stub in this frame where it has remained for nearly 43 years. The autograph is a little faded, but much like it looked the night she signed it with a ballpoint pen.

Attested to on June 22, 2008 by:
Cynthia Terwilliger, 60 Woodland Road, Tryon NC 28722