Judy & I: My Life with Judy Garland

Sid ‘One-Punch’ Luft, amateur-boxer, producer and Judy Garland’s third husband was the one man in her life who stuck around, helping her achieve a meteoric comeback in the 1960s. It was Luft who reversed the fortunes of an apparently faded career, seeing her triumph at Carnegie Hall, in ‘A Star Is Born’ and ‘The Judy Garland Show’.

Previously unpublished, Sid Luft’s intimate autobiography tells their story in hard-boiled yet elegant prose. It begins on a fateful night in New York City when the not-quite-divorced Judy and the not-quite-divorced Sid meet at Billy Reed’s Little Club. A straight-talking sharp shooter, Sid fell for Judy hard and fast and the romance persisted through separations, reconciliations, and later divorce. However, her drug dependencies and suicidal tendencies put a tremendous strain on the relationship.

Sid did not complete his memoir; it ended in 1960 after Judy hired David Begelman and Freddie Fields to manage her career. But Randy L. Schmidt, acclaimed editor of Judy Garland on Judy Garland, seamlessly pieced together the final section of the book from extensive interviews with Sid, most previously unpublished.