Lorna Luft opens up about mom Judy Garland, Stonewall and more at Hollywood Museum’s LGBTQ+ Pride Month event

It was a privilege to be in the room at The Hollywood Museum last night when Hollywood royalty Lorna Luft was presented with the Judy Garland Legacy Award during the museum’s annual LGBTQ+ Pride Month event.

Miss Luft is so well-spoken and thoughtful and gave a very moving speech.

“I stand here tonight and I am extremely, extremely proud. And the pride that I have in my heart is I am Judy Garland’s daughter,” she said. “My mother was an extraordinary force, and we all know about the endless talent and her brilliant sense of humor. And her stunning wit. But maybe you don’t know about her passion for humanity. She was so passionate about making sure that everyone had an equal chance in life.”

She shared that one of her earliest, most vivid memories was Garland was making the film The Child Is Waiting in which she portrayed a music teacher in a school for special needs children. She made sure her daughter was on a set of the film whenever she could be so she could have lunch and get to know “these beautiful, wonderful, kind, and generous children.”

“She said to me, ‘If you have kindness, and if you have generosity, and if you have a loving spirit and heart, we’re all the same,” Luft recalled. “It was so important to my mom’s personality.”

Because Judy Garland – a beloved icon to the LGBT community at the time – died in London shortly before the historic Stonewall uprising in New York City in 1969, there are some who believe the two events are connected. Many have dispelled the myth but that has not stopped “many, many, many” people over the years from asking Garland’s youngest daughter her thoughts on the event that is considered the beginning of the modern-day LGBTQ+ rights movement.

“I was 16 years old in 1969 and I had just lost a parent so I didn’t know,” Luft said Thursday night. “But I went on to educate myself that I went on to talk to a great many people who were there and who told me the stories of what happened that night. And I thought to myself, ‘This is an incredible, wonderful and a big responsibility.’ Because on that night in 1969, people rose up. And they said it to the New York City Police Department who were about to throw them in jail, in a tiny little bar in Greenwich Village. They rose up and they said ‘Not tonight!’”

Luft now sits on the board of The Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative and was present when President Barack Obama named the Stonewall Inn in a national monument: “I will always, always be there,” she said. “I will always stand with and alongside the LGBTQ+ community.”

She shared that she has been invited to take part in many Pride parades over the years but the one that will always stand out in her mind the most was in Sydney, Australia, and she spotted at least 300 people dressed as her mother singing the Garland classic Get Happy.

“I didn’t think it was at all strange,” she said, laughing.

Luft pointed out that while Stonewall was 54 years ago, “we haven’t come a long way in the sense of how we may be going backwards. And we cannot allow that to happen.”

Same-sex marriage became legal and LGBT people can serve openly in the military among other legal gains and the culture has certainly progressed when it comes to understanding and acceptance. But over the past year, more than 400 pieces of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation has been proposed and pushed by Republican lawmakers in many states.

“I’m exhausted from screaming and yelling because it doesn’t do any good,” Luft said. “The only thing that we have a constitutional right to do is voting. That is something that we must treasure. I’m not just talking in the general election, I’m talking school board elections.”

Luft was one of three honorees at the event (the others were JoJo Siwa and Kevin Spirtas) which helped kick off opening night of the museum’s exhibit “Real to Reel: Portrayals and Perceptions of LGBTQ+ in Hollywood.”