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Sun 30 November 2025 0:30, UK
Even some of the most iconic stars in Hollywood have had roles pulled from under their feet, cruelly taken away without any warning. It’s hard to believe that this could happen to some actors, but even Judy Garland was a victim of being fired from a movie that soon became a cult classic.
It was the 1960s, and no longer was Garland the young Dorothy Gale we’d seen in 1939’s The Wizard of Oz. The actor had struggled with addiction since then, having been stuffed with pills from a young age in Hollywood, and she would eventually pass away when she was just 47 in 1969.
Her story is a tragic one, and while she appeared in many iconic films, like Meet Me in St. Louis and A Star is Born, during the height of her career, by the final decade of her life, her roles were much more sporadic. She found success with Judgment at Nuremberg in 1961 before lending her voice to an animated film, Gay Purr-ee, the following year. Two more movies followed before her death, starting with the John Cassavetes drama A Child Is Waiting before she gave her final bow with I Could Go On.
Yet, she was meant to have a part in another film, which would eventually be released in 1967, but Garland was fired, leaving I Could Go On as her last appearance on the big screen. She was cast as Helen Lawson in Valley of the Dolls, which follows three women as they struggle with barbiturate addiction while entering Hollywood. It was a story that rang true to Garland’s own, with the character of Neely O’Hara, played by Patty Duke, supposedly inspired by the actor.
The movie was adapted from Jacqueline Susann’s book of the same name, released in 1966, which had become a huge hit. It actually stands as one of the best-selling novels of all time, so it’s not hard to see why producers were keen to make it into a movie – even though it’s not exactly very pro-Hollywood.
Sharon Tate played Jennifer North, and it became one of her most iconic roles before she would be tragically murdered by the Manson Family that same year that Garland passed away. The Valley of the Dolls might be well-known these days, inspiring songs by the likes of Lana Del Rey and Marina and the Diamonds, and even spawning the camp Roger Ebert-penned sequel (although it’s not really a sequel), Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, but it was panned by critics.
Perhaps it was a good thing that Garland was fired then, because it would’ve left her with a rather negatively received movie as her last role. But why was she dismissed from the film, anyway?
Garland was fired just a month after she signed on to the film, with Susan Hayward replacing her. The truth is, no one knows for sure why the actor was fired, but it seems like her own struggles with drug abuse and alcoholism had a part to play, which is darkly ironic, considering the story of the movie.
Duke revealed in an interview that Garland would be kept around waiting all day to film her parts, by which point “there were gentlemen around her who supplied her with wine and other things and so when she finally did get called to the set she couldn’t function very well.” Clearly, The Valley of the Dolls wasn’t meant to be for Garland.
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