She was presented with a special "Juvenile Oscar" in 1940 for her iconic performance in The Wizard Of Oz and with so many terrific films afterward (especially Meet Me In St. Louis), it's hard to believe that it would be another 15 years before Judy Garland would be called up to the big game again.
Judy had not appeared on the silver screen since she had been fired from MGM in 1950, but she made a splashy comeback with the Warner Brothers remake of A Star Is Born. When the film was released, it was pretty obvious that she was going to be nominated for an Academy Award, so when she was, Judy was the odds-on favorite to win for Best Actress.
She had just given birth to her third child a few days before the ceremony and could not attend but was so favored to win that a remote camera was set up in her hospital room, allowing her to give her acceptance speech.
Judy didn't get the chance to give that speech as presenter William Holden opened the envelope and announced to a shocked audience that the winner was Grace Kelly for The Country Girl. The Academy does not release voting results, but late last year, it was revealed that there was only a six-vote separation between Judy Garland and Grace Kelly.
It's yet another Oscar irony that A Star Is Born is a film that people still talk about (and with reason, it's a pretty damn good movie), yet The Country Girl is largely forgotten.
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