William Shatner says Judy Garland was ‘very fragile’ after they labored collectively

William Shatner is reflecting on his time working with Judy Garland.

The Star Trek actor crossed paths with the Wizard of Oz icon after they each acted in Stanley Kramer’s Oscar-winning drama Judgment at Nuremberg in 1961. “She was very fragile,” Shatner remembers throughout a dialog with Leisure Weekly.

The Boston Authorized star, who performed younger Captain Harrison Byers reverse Spencer Tracy’s Chief Choose Dan Haywood, says that he was a longtime admirer of Garland’s.

“As an adolescent from Montreal, on occasion I would go down with my mother and father to New York and go to the theater,” he recollects. “And I noticed her on stage in Instances Sq. doing a live performance — however she was drunk.”

On the time, Shatner was unaware that Garland had a protracted historical past of habit, which made her inebriated state a shock. “I stored her pondering, ‘My God, she’s my heroine. And I believe she’s drunk,'” he remembers. “I used to be an adolescent. I assumed, ‘Why, she will’t probably be drunk on stage!’ And, effectively, she was, and made no sense. And I used to be so upset.”

Shatner later discovered extra about Garland’s struggles. “I started to examine her issues and what she was coping with.”

The actor remembers his temporary time working with the Star is Born actress fondly. “She was an infinite expertise,” Shatner says. “And when she got here on to do her scene, I hadn’t seen something of her since that have so a few years in the past. There she was, doing her fragile bit. And it was a part of a continuity that I treasure.”

Within the movie, Garland portrayed Irene Hoffmann, a German girl who is known as to the Nuremberg trials as a witness to testify about her alleged romantic entanglement with a Jewish service provider. Garland breaks down into tears as her character recollects her former acquaintance being delivered to trial for allegedly breaking racial purity legal guidelines.

Garland’s flip within the movie earned her an Oscar nomination for Finest Supporting Actress, although she finally misplaced to Rita Moreno in West Facet Story. Her costar, Maximilian Schell, gained the award for Finest Actor (beating out Tracy, who was additionally nominated in the identical class), and screenwriter Abby Mann gained the award for Finest Tailored Screenplay.

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Kramer additionally acquired the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award at that ceremony, and the movie acquired nominations for Finest Image, Finest Director, Finest Supporting Actor (for Montgomery Clift), and Finest Movie Modifying, in addition to nods for its Cinematography, Artwork Path, and Costume design, which have been then separated into black-and-white and shade classes.

“It was a wonderful, astonishing expertise for a younger actor,” Shatner says of the movie. “I used to be new to the film recreation then, and right here I used to be amongst all these giants who’d are available in for a day or two and be filmed and go away. It was a journey. It was stunning.”