An Academy Award nominee for Best Actor, Eastwood won Best Director and Best Picture for his Western film Unforgiven (1992) and his sports drama Million Dollar Baby (2004). His greatest commercial successes are the adventure comedy Every Which Way but Loose (1978) and its action comedy sequel, Any Which Way You Can (1980). Other popular Eastwood films include the Westerns Hang 'Em High (1968) and Pale Rider (1985), the prison film Escape from Alcatraz (1979), the war film Heartbreak Ridge (1986), the action film In the Line of Fire (1993), and the romantic drama The Bridges of Madison County (1995). More recent works are Gran Torino (2008) and The Mule (2018). From 1967 to 2020, Eastwood's company Malpaso Productions has produced all but four of his American films.
Garland was known for interacting with her audiences during live performances; The New York Times obituarist wrote that Garland possessed "a seemingly unquenchable need for her audiences to respond with acclaim and affection. And often, they did, screaming, 'We love you, Judy – we love you.'" Garland herself explained in 1961: "A really great reception makes me feel like I have a great big warm heating pad all over me ... I truly have a great love for an audience, and I used to want to prove it to them by giving them blood. But I have a funny new thing now, a real determination to make people enjoy the show." The New York Times writer described her as both "an instinctive actress and comedienne". The anonymous contributor commented that Garland's performance style resembled that of "a music hall performer in an era when music halls were obsolete". Close friends of Garland's insisted that she never truly wanted to be a movie star and would have much rather devoted her career entirely to singing and recording records. AllMusic biographer William Ruhlmann believes that Garland's ability to maintain a successful career as a recording artist even after her film appearances became less frequent was unusual for an artist at the time. Garland has been identified as a triple threat due to her ability to sing, act, and dance, arguably equally well. Doug Strassler, a critic for the New York Press, described Garland as a "triple threat" who "bounced between family musicals and adult dramas with a precision and a talent that remains largely unmatched". In terms of acting, Peter Lennon, writing for The Guardian in 1999, identified Garland as a "chameleon" due to her ability to alternate between comedic, musical and dramatic roles, citing The Wizard of Oz, The Clock, A Star is Born and I Could Go On Singing – her final film role – as prominent examples. Michael Musto, a journalist for W magazine, wrote that in her film roles Garland "could project decency, vulnerability, and spunk like no other star, and she wrapped it up with a tremulously beautiful vocal delivery that could melt even the most hardened troll".
More InfoBy the time of her death in 1969, Garland had appeared in more than 35 films. She has been called one of the greats of entertainment, and her reputation has endured. In 1992, Gerald Clarke of Architectural Digest dubbed Garland "probably the greatest American entertainer of the twentieth century". O'Brien believes that "No one in the history of Hollywood ever packed the musical wallop that Garland did", explaining, "She had the biggest, most versatile voice in movies. Her Technicolor musicals... defined the genre. The songs she introduced were Oscar gold. Her film career frames the Golden Age of Hollywood musicals." Turner Classic Movies dubbed Garland "history's most poignant voice". Entertainment Weekly's Gene Lyons dubbed Garland "the Madonna of her generation". The American Film Institute named her eighth among the Greatest female stars of Golden Age Hollywood cinema. In June 1998, in The New York Times, Camille Paglia wrote that, "Garland was a personality on the grand scale who makes our current crop of pop stars look lightweight and evanescent." In recent years, Garland's legacy has maintained fans of all different ages, both younger and older. In 2010, The Huffington Post contributor Joan E. Dowlin concluded that Garland possessed a distinct "it" quality by "exemplif[ying] the star quality of charisma, musical talent, natural acting ability, and, despite what the studio honchos said, good looks (even if they were the girl next door looks)". AllMusic's biographer William Ruhlmann said that "the core of her significance as an artist remains her amazing voice and emotional commitment to her songs", and believes that "her career is sometimes viewed more as an object lesson in Hollywood excess than as the remarkable string of multimedia accomplishments it was". In 2012, Strassler described Garland as "more than an icon... Like Charlie Chaplin and Lucille Ball, she created a template that the powers that be have forever been trying, with varied levels of success, to replicate."
More InfoWriting for Turner Classic Movies, biographer Jonathan Riggs observed that Garland had a tendency to imbue her vocals with a paradoxical combination of "fragility and resilience" that eventually became a signature trademark of hers. Louis Bayard of The Washington Post described Garland's voice as "throbbing", believing it to be capable of "connect[ing] with [audiences] in a way no other voice does". Bayard also believes that listeners "find it hard to disentwine the sorrow in her voice from the sorrow that dogged her life", while Dowlin argued that, "Listening to Judy sing ... makes me forget all of the angst and suffering she must have endured." The New York Times obituarist in 1969 observed that Garland, whether intentionally or not, "brought with her ... all the well-publicized phantoms of her emotional breakdown, her career collapses and comebacks" on stage during later performances. The same writer said that Garland's voice changed and lost some of its quality as she aged, although she retained much of her personality. Contributing to the Irish Independent, Julia Molony observed Garland's voice, although "still rich with emotion", had finally begun to "creak with the weight of years of disappointment and hard-living" by the time she performed at Carnegie Hall in 1961. Similarly, the live record's entry in the Library of Congress wrote that "while her voice was still strong, it had also gained a bit of heft and a bit of wear"; author Cary O'Dell believes Garland's rasp and "occasional quiver" only "upped the emotional quotient of many of her numbers", particularly on her signature songs "Over the Rainbow" and "The Man That Got Away". Garland stated that she always felt most safe and at home while performing onstage, regardless of the condition of her voice. Her musical talent has been commended by her peers; opera singer Maria Callas once said that Garland possessed "the most superb voice she had ever heard", while singer and actor Bing Crosby said that "no other singer could be compared to her" when Garland was rested.
More InfoGarland was left in a desperate situation which saw her sell her Brentwood home at a price far below its value. She was then cast in February 1967 for the role of Helen Lawson in Valley of the Dolls by 20th Century Fox. According to co-star Patty Duke, Garland was treated poorly by director Mark Robson on the set of Valley of the Dolls and was primarily hired so as to augment publicity for the film. After Garland's dismissal from the film, author Jacqueline Susann said in the 1967 television documentary Jacqueline Susann and the Valley of the Dolls, "I think Judy will always come back. She kids about making a lot of comebacks, but I think Judy has a kind of a thing where she has to get to the bottom of the rope and things have to get very, very rough for her. Then with an amazing inner strength that only comes of a certain genius, she comes back bigger than ever".
More InfoSubsequent celebrities who have suffered from personal struggles with drug addiction and substance use disorder have been compared to Garland, particularly Michael Jackson. Garland's elder daughter Liza Minnelli had a personal life that was almost parallel to that of her mother's, having struggled with substance use disorder and several unsuccessful marriages. Paglia observed that actress Marilyn Monroe would exhibit behavior which was similar to that which Garland had exhibited a decade earlier in Meet Me in St. Louis, particularly tardiness.
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