{"id":360493,"date":"2026-09-12T20:50:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T01:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/liza-minnelli-shares-her-fathers-account-of-the-night-judy-garland-threw-her-pills-into-the-east-river"},"modified":"2026-09-12T20:50:26","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T01:50:26","slug":"liza-minnelli-shares-her-fathers-account-of-the-night-judy-garland-threw-her-pills-into-the-east-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/liza-minnelli-shares-her-fathers-account-of-the-night-judy-garland-threw-her-pills-into-the-east-river","title":{"rendered":"Liza Minnelli Shares Her Father\u2019s Account of the Night time Judy Garland Threw Her Capsules Into the East River"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Liza Minnelli is opening a family archive filled with photographs, letters and recordings she has kept for decades. She began with a letter from her father about Judy Garland and a promise Garland tried to keep during their honeymoon.<\/p>\n

Director Vincente Minnelli wrote that Garland acknowledged before their 1945 marriage that she was taking too many pills and told him she would stop with his support. During their honeymoon in New York, she turned that promise into a dramatic gesture beside the East River.<\/p>\n

While the newlyweds walked near Sutton Place, Garland asked Vincente to hold her hand and gripped it tightly enough for her fingernails to break his skin. She then reached into a handbag he had given her, pulled out bottles of prescription medicine and swept them into the water, according to the letter Liza shared and Entertainment Weekly<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Liza did not present the moment as the end of her mother\u2019s struggle with substance use disorder. Instead, she said she hoped the letter would show \u201chow hard, how long\u201d Garland fought an illness that remained part of her life until her death in 1969.<\/p>\n

Vincente Remembered Garland Gripping His Hand Before She Threw the Bottles<\/h2>\n
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Garland and Vincente married on June 15, 1945, after working together at MGM, most famously on Meet Me in St. Louis<\/em>. They traveled to New York for their honeymoon and stayed near Sutton Place.<\/p>\n

Before the wedding, Garland had already acknowledged her dependence on medication. In the letter, Vincente recalled her telling him, \u201cI know I\u2019m taking too many pills,\u201d before promising that she would try to stop if he helped protect her.<\/p>\n

The honeymoon walk became the physical expression of that promise. Vincente said Garland reached into an elegant handbag he had bought her, asked him to hold her hand and squeezed so tightly that her fingernails broke his skin. She then pulled out the medication and sent the bottles into the river with one sweep of her arm.<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil you were born, it was the best present of my life,\u201d Vincente wrote to his daughter, according to PEOPLE<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Liza Says the Rest of the Letter Is Too Intimate to Share<\/h2>\n

Vincente wrote the letter while working on his 1974 autobiography, I Remember It Well<\/em>. Liza said she asked her father to put his memories of his relationship with Garland on paper, but she chose to make only part of what he wrote public.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rest of what my father wrote is too intimate to share,\u201d she explained. Rather than publishing everything, she said she wanted the excerpt to give people a better understanding of her mother\u2019s long struggle with substance use disorder.<\/p>\n

Liza followed the honeymoon story with another memory involving her own birth on March 12, 1946. Garland required a cesarean section, and Liza said her mother became worried as doctors began administering anesthesia because she had been avoiding medication.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t taken anything! Please make sure the medicine doesn\u2019t hurt my baby,\u201d Garland said, according to Liza\u2019s account.<\/p>\n

Garland\u2019s problems with medication continued in later years, and Liza has never hidden what that meant for their family. Garland died in London on June 22, 1969, at age 47 from an accidental barbiturate overdose.<\/p>\n

The East River Story Had Been Told Before, but With Fewer Details<\/h2>\n

The basic honeymoon episode is not entirely new. Vincente included a shorter version in I Remember It Well<\/em>, describing a walk beside the river when Garland asked him to hold her hand, produced a vial of pills and threw it into the water.<\/p>\n

Liza\u2019s newly shared letter preserves a more personal telling. It describes the handbag as a gift from Vincente, Garland\u2019s fingernails breaking his skin, multiple bottles of prescription medicine and the importance he attached to the gesture before his daughter\u2019s birth.<\/p>\n

Her memoir, Kids, Wait Till You Hear This!<\/em>, published in March, describes the instability created by Garland\u2019s dependence on medication while emphasizing the affection between mother and daughter.<\/p>\n

By the time Liza was 13, she writes that she had become her mother\u2019s \u201ccaretaker,\u201d taking on responsibilities far beyond her age. She monitored medication, contacted doctors for prescriptions and at times replaced pills with aspirin when she feared her mother was taking too much.<\/p>\n

Minnelli Is Opening More of Her Family Archive<\/h2>\n