The legendary Judy Garland was not a tragic figure insists her younger daughter Lorna Luft

Lorna Luft was only a teenager when her legendary mother died in 1969 of an accidental drug overdose.

But she doesn’t want anyone to think of Judy Garland as a tragic figure.

‘We all have our problems, every single one of us,’ Luft, 62, tells the Daily Express. ‘There has long been a myth about my mum being a tragic figure that has driven me nuts and it used to drive my mother nuts too. She never understood it because she truly wasn’t tragic.

‘She was incredibly warm and amazingly funny. She was smart and so gifted. She took us on the movie sets with her and at home she was a regular person.’

Garland was just 47 at the time of her death and left behind Luft, her younger brother Joey Luft and older sister Liza Minnelli.

‘When anybody loses a parent it’s incredibly hard and it never gets better it just gets different,’ she says. ‘Every single day something will come on the television or on the radio and I’m reminded that she’s not here.

‘You won’t ever get over losing a parent and nobody should ever expect you to but you learn to get through every day. You go through anger, then mourning, then sadness, then all sorts of grief that comes in different waves. There’s no time limit on grief.’

Luft is touring the UK with new show, Judy – The Songbook Of Judy Garland. In the show, she will sing many songs made famous by her mother in such classic films as The Wizard of Oz, A Star is Born and Meet Me In St. Louis.