Everything to know about Judy Garland’s marriages and children

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The late actress Judy Garland made a household name for herself in 1939, playing the lead role of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. Throughout her lifetime, she frequently appeared in musical collaborations with her second husband, director Vincent Minnelli, including Meet Me in St. Louis and The Pirate.

The pair would welcome a daughter in 1946, Liza Minnelli, who found similar success on the stage and screen. While Liza gained a “nepo baby” status of sorts as Garland’s daughter, her mother also had a few other children — but they didn’t quite follow in her footsteps.

Sidney Luft

Garland was most known for her marriage to Vincent, which lasted from 1945 to 1951. She then would go on to get married three more times — the first of which was to a show businessman named Sidney Luft. The moving force behind Garland’s Oscar-nominated role in A Star is Born, Sidney previously managed a dancer and actress named Eleanor Powell, per The Independent.

Garland and Sidney had two children together: a daughter named Lorna Luft who was born in 1952, and a son named Joseph “Joey” Wiley Luft in 1955. Lorna wrote a memoir about her mother and even appeared on her television series, The Judy Garland Show, in the 1960s. She also found success in the theater world, appearing in productions like Promises, Promises and Follies.

Joseph is a little harder to track down, as he opted to stay out of the showbiz world — unlike his sisters. However, he has done a few interviews speaking about Garland.

“I don’t want to talk about the bad things,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 2014. “That isn’t what my mom was about. She was a performer. She was a mother. She loved people. She was the most caring person. She had the greatest sense of humor.”

Things eventually grew tense in Garland and Sidney’s marriage, and the two officially divorced in 1965.

Mark Herron

While Garland didn’t have any more children, she did remarry a couple of times. One of these marriages was to Mark Herron, a fellow actor with appearances in 8 ½ and other film roles. They tied the knot in Las Vegas in 1965 but separated just five months later. Garland was eventually granted a divorce after citing abuse in the relationship.

Mickey Deans

Garland’s final marriage was to jazz pianist Mickey Deans in 1969, after they met two years prior. Liza famously didn’t attend their wedding, saying she would make it to her mom’s next one. Lorna also pointed out in her memoir that she could see her mother was “dying in front of [Mickey’s] eyes.”

A few months after their wedding, Deans found Garland dead of a barbiturate overdose in London in June 1969 at just 47 years old. Yet, even decades later, her legacy has lived on in Hollywood and through her three children.