Judy Garland

Name at birth: Frances Gumm

Judy Garland's performance as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz (1939) won her a special Oscar and gave her a theme song for the rest of her life: "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." As a teenager Garland appeared in a series of cheerfully fluffy movies with fellow teen star Mickey Rooney, including Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938) and Babes in Arms (1939). In the 1940s she was a song-and-dance star in movies like Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). She married director Vincente Minnelli; their daughter Liza Minnelli became a star in her own right. (Garland eventually married five times.) In the 1950s Garland began touring as a singer and became famous for her emotional, high-energy live performances. Throughout her last two decades she struggled with addiction to prescription drugs and alcohol, and finally died of an apparent sleeping pill overdose at age 47.