Stars Through Time, Part 2

…..
“I wish, I wish upon a star
Take me to the time where you are”
….”What happened?” asked Sarah as she looked around at her environment a little shaken
“It happened!” replied Kristen, “Oh my goodness it happened!” Kristen repeated almost crying “Look!” she said with tears now forming in her eyes.
As Sarah looked at her surroundings she noticed that they were no longer outside Grauman’s Chinese theatre but were in a very cool, jazzy, but smoky nightclub. On the wall they saw a poster
“Mel Torme, Live and in Person
The current musical director of The Judy Garland show
Saturday, 30th of August, 1963”
Then next to the poster they saw a calendar which had the exact date one: 30th September 1963.
“Oh my….” said Sarah before Kirsten interrupted:
“Mel Torme? I mean really? I don’t want to see The Velvet Smog! Have we done it wrong? Has it brought us to the wrong place?”
Sarah was almost getting over the shock of discovering that she was actually in the past when suddenly she stopped dead as if she had seen a ghost.
“What is it?” asked Kristen
“Err…we aren’t here to see The Velvet Smog….look”
As they both looked over at a small group at a table, they saw amongst them a tiny woman but with an enormous presence, the woman was wearing a beautiful strappy dress which was white and with a blue and green flowery petal design on it. She was also wearing pearls around her neck, she had the most incredible pale porcelain skin and the most beautiful face and she let out the most infectious laugh they had ever heard!
“It’s Judy!” they both said together in a kind of whispered awe.
As they said this, they couldn’t help but notice that she had spotted them. Judy smiled at the girls and then slowly stood up out of her seat and headed over towards the girls.
“Oh my god, she is coming,” Sarah gasped
“Oh you’ll have to pinch me,” continued Kristen
“Why hello dahlings!” offered Judy as she approached the girls “I didn’t see you come in but you both look a little bewildered and might I say, slightly terrified…is everything ok?”
“Well…err…how we can explain…” struggled Sarah
“Well we’re not from this part of town, we are visiting and we are very unfamiliar but we are massive fans of you, Ms Garland. We saw Mel Torme playing here tonight and figured you would be offering support” offered Kirsten, almost struggling to hide her awe and excitement but completely impressing Sarah with how she could think so fast on her feet.
“Oh you dahlings,” responded Judy “Yes, I am here to support Mel but how sweet of you to come and see me…I tell you what, you can stay and be my guests”
“Really?” Sarah said astounded
“Yes of course, but just one thing……enough of this Ms Garland stuff, call me Judy, I’m a singer, not a school mame!”
Sarah and Kristen both laughed as Judy showed them to their table and they both thought, “she is not just a singer to us! She is a goddess!”
As Judy took Sarah and Kristen to their table, she introduced them to her other guests. Her companions consisted of; Glenn Ford, whom Judy was currently dating and whom Sarah and Kristen found incredibly handsome; Roger Edens; Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows. Judy was keeping them all thoroughly entertained until Mel Torme was to appear but now she had two more people who she was intent on entertaining and making feel comfortable. Judy had picked up on how something was a little different with the two girls that she was now keeping company, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Sarah and Kristen, however, had decided that they would explain to Judy how they got there after Mel performance when they could get a quiet moment with her, they knew it would just seem crazy if they were to blurt it out now in front of anybody.
“So do you like Mel Torme?” asked Judy to the girls
Sarah and Kristen both looked at each other as if to say, “how do we answer this?” they actually despised him for the inaccurate book he wrote on Judy about his time on TJGS, which was published a year after Judy’s death.
“Hmm….he’s ok, but not my taste exactly,” replied Sarah in a diplomatic manner, to which Kristen nodded in agreement.
Judy let out a sweet giggle and grabbed Sarah’s hand and whispered, “Between you and me, I admire Mel but he’s a right pain in the butt to work with. He has such an ego on him, but still he’s a colleague and he has been such a great help”
Kristen then moved in closer to hear what was being said, Judy put her arms around both Sarah’s and Kristen’s shoulders and continued, “Mel has offered to work with me on a book to chronicle my work and time on the TV show, he claims to be an excellent writer and wants people to see how hard we have worked, so we have spoke about writing it after season one has ended…so for that, I certainly owe him this tonight at the very least!”
Sarah and Kristen were actually livid at this; how he had fooled Judy in to thinking he would help her like that! They looked at Judy’s beautiful face and those soulful brown eyes just poring with emotion and thought about that dreadful book which Judy would never live to see so couldn’t give her own experience or point of view and they both thought and wished, “I really wish that star so bright, would give Mel his comeuppance tonight, Judy is a genuine true star, she is the brightest of them all by far!”
“Oh look girls, it’s almost time for Mel to appear,” said Judy as she pointed to the clock turning 10pm “He’s never late like me so you don’t want to miss the beginning” she chuckled
The master of ceremonies took to the stage:
“Ladies and gentleman, for one night only, that singer, actor, composer…the “Velvet Fog” himself…Mr Mel Torme…”
There was applause from the audience as Mel approached the stage, and with that, as he went to step on to the first step he completely lost his footing and fell flat on his face on to the side of the stage. The audience gasped…
“Oh dear…I guess it’s going to be one of those nights!” giggled Judy as Sarah and Kristen had to almost put napkins in their mouths to stop them from bursting in to fits of giggles “I wonder what his next trick will ne…”
…To be continued….
Stars through Time, Part One (ever wished you could travel through time to meet your favourite star?)
Kristen and Sarah sat in a cafe in LA; Sarah was visiting from Liverpool England and Kristen, a resident of California, had taken Sarah in to the city of LA where they could discuss and revisit the haunts of their idol, Judy Garland. They had met on a Judy Garland Facebook page over a year ago and had bonded and chatted every night over their passion for Judy, they had planned to meet up at some point but work and money restraints had always restricted them, however, finally Sarah had a new job working in a theatre company with her friend James in Liverpool and they had had a few successful plays which had brought her in a decent income but for less the stress of her last job, so she was now spending some much earned time off visiting the US and particularly her Judy friends such as Kristen.
Sarah and Kristen planned to visit places in Hollywood and do a short tour, including Judy’s homes, Sony Pictures which used to be MGM studios and CBS studios where Judy had filmed her weekly TV series exactly 50 years ago. At the moment, however, Kristen and Sarah were just discussing what they planned to do, where they planned to go and how much they loved Judy.
“You know I just adore Judy in pink like on the Hollywood Palace in 1965,” gushed Kristen as she looked through some photos from the special that she had purchased from ebay.
“Oh, me too,” replied Sarah “But more so I love her in red, like in Meet me in St Louis and the ‘I Don’t Care’ dress from In the Good Old Summertime…..I also love her in black dresses wearing pearls, like she did in the 1960s”
“Oh! I know what you mean!” gasped Kristen, “Wasn’t she just radiant?”
“Amazingly so,” Sarah replied “I just can’t believe how she and others never considered herself beautiful….I mean she was perfection…”
“Oh don’t get me started on that….there are several people I would love to have serious words with or get my revenge on for mistreating Judy or not admiring her beauty as they should…..if only we could somehow go back in time…” wandered Kristen
“Oh I hear ya there sister, I have a whole list here of who I would love to face…and yes, if only…..” continued Sarah
“You know,” Kristen giggled “There’s an old Hollywood myth around these parts that if two fans of a star from years gone by, who have genuine loving hearts and open minds, and have good intentions, place their hands in the hand prints of the star outside Graumans Chinese at exactly midnight and say the phrase “I wish, I wish upon a star, please take me to the time where you are” then it will take you back exactly 50 years in time to meet that star, and if the star has a genuine loving heart and an open mind then that star can then time travel with you by repeating the phrase whilst looking up at stars in the sky of an evening and following by stating the year they wish to visit”
“Oh yeah, can you imagine that…as if that would happen,” laughed Sarah in her slightly sarcastic Liverpudlian manner “and I thought Liverpool was bad for myths and fables…”
“I know it sounds silly” answered Kristen in her really soft and soothing Californian accent “But remember what it said about an open mind…”
“I know what you’re saying, but it’s hard to have an open mind with something that seems so illogical and impossible…I mean how would that even happen? Why has nobody done it before…..?”
“Just stop there…,” Kristen interrupted Sarah “How do we know nobody has done it? We don’t know everybody…maybe they kept it quiet, when it comes to somebody like Judy there is no point in trying to be logical as her magic just defies all ideas of logic, and you of all people know that, if you believe in Judy and her magic then maybe you could believe that something like this could happen!”
“Ok, I’m sorry”, replied Sarah rather humbled “I know what you mean, so often we have fantasised during our chats over facebook about how we would love to meet Judy and tell her how beautiful and loved she is, and teach those who hurt her a lesson…”
“So there you go. We were already planning to visit Grauman’s Chinese, so why not tonight? There is nothing to lose, if it doesn’t work then we just go about our plans as we intended”
“Ok,” smiled Sarah “It’s a date”
And with that she and Kristen shook hands, smiled at each other then finished their coffee whilst making plans to return to their hotel and shower and change before heading out for dinner and then heading off to Grauman’s Chinese to try out their little experiment, and they were comfortable in the knowledge that if it failed then they could just enjoy all the hands and footprints of those classic movie stars they adored so much!
The evening passed and Kristen and Sarah enjoyed dinner in a nearby Chinese restaurant, they then went dancing at a local jazz club and just enjoyed some real girly moments together, just enjoying each other’s company, giggling, chatting about girly things and of course the things they were passionate about, but every so often one of them would say “oh it’d be wonderful if Judy were with us!” and as the evening wore on, both girls genuinely started to hope and wish the legend of the star handprints was true and the more they wished then the more they both started to believe. Finally the clock struck 23.45 and the girls knew they better head off to the theatre and take their place in Judy’s handprints.
The girls found themselves standing by Judy’s handprints at 23.55…
“Just think Judy stood in this very spot 73 years ago” said Sarah in awe
“I know, it’s just amazing isn’t it?” replied Kristen
As the clock ticked closer to midnight with both the girls’ hearts pounding, they kneeled down to place their hands in the cement; Sarah took the right hand and Kristen took the left, and then they held each other’s hands clinging tight and hoping and wishing so much. With so much love and admiration in the hearts for this genius of a woman pretty much bursting out of them, as the clock struck midnight, together they almost harmonically sung out:
“I wish, I wish upon a star,
Please take me to the time where you are”
……..To be continued……
