Debbie Wileman: A Rising Star Embracing Judy Garland’s Spirit
We are all guided by ghosts. Loved ones linger in our memories long after they’re gone. We follow laws passed down over centuries. And we’re inspired by icons of yesteryear. Spirits rule our lives in complex, comprehensive ways.
So, listen up and learn from their legacy.
Debbie Wileman has channeled her inner superstar since age 12 when she would entertain her nana. “I found I could sing a bit like Judy Garland, and I did it to make her laugh, really. That’s how it started.”
“I want to celebrate her positivity and her genius and her joie de vivre.”
And here’s how it’s going: “I’ve always sung, but I hadn’t done anything professional for, like, 13 years and COVID hit,” Wileman recounted. “I decided that I would sing a song every day on Facebook for my 600 mates … and on day three, I did an impersonation of Judy Garland because I’m a huge fan, and the videos started going viral.”
Internet fame led to IRL fabulosity.
“I got a message from an agent in America, a producer called Scott Stander,” Wileman said. “Initially it was just a Facebook thing that I did to cheer people up and all this has sort of sprang from that and it’s been amazing. I think people can tell when you do something for altruistic reasons, not greedy reasons. Karma has rewarded me in the loveliest way.”
Her collaboration with Stander soon yielded an ocean of OMG opportunities.
“I was in my late 30s at the time and I thought all my singing and acting dreams were over. And it’s astonishing to me that all this has come from that.”
The “all this” in question is a thriving career that conjures the magic of Judy Garland yet remains uniquely Debbie Wileman.
“It’s not just the voice,” she analyzed, “it’s the whole package. It’s her humor, it’s her wit, it’s her personality and her beliefs. She was very outspoken in her support for not only LGBTQ+ people, but also she was a big fan of the work that Martin Luther King Jr. was doing … She was quite ahead of her time.”
Garland has been so synonymous with gay empowerment that we all gleefully refer to ourselves as Friends of Dorothy, and Wileman has a theory as to why. “She was made to feel different and was made to feel ‘less than’ when she was an MGM contract player. People could … empathize with her struggles or see a bit of themselves in her, and vice versa.”
While many of us identify with Garland, Debbie Wileman actually embodies her, as you can hear in stunning detail on the album A Christmas Garland.
“It’s a huge honor,” Wileman said. “I’m really happy to have made a Christmas album and hopefully give fans of Judy Garland something that they want to listen to, because it’s all done with love … It’s exciting to be able to sing songs that she never got the chance to sing because they didn’t exist when she was alive, and to give them the sort of Judy flavor.”
To bring her ambitions to actuality, Wileman enlisted a little help from Judy’s friends.
“It’s just such a thrill to be mixing with people who knew Judy Garland, and it’s just a thrill to mix with Margaret O’Brien because she’s a fantastic actress and a star. And she was so kind and generous and up for a laugh.” O’Brien appeared in the Garland musical Meet Me in St. Louis back in 1944, but her style is eternally edgy. According to Wileman: “She has a pierced nose!”
This album smells like a modern classic.
“We were creating that feeling of a vintage Christmas album recorded in the ‘50s and ‘60s, but with a new slant,” Wileman said. “It was perfect to get Pat Boone, who was a superstar heartthrob of the ‘50s and ‘60s, to sing with me on Little Drummer Boy / Peace on Earth. It’s the David Bowie, Bing Crosby arrangement. So it was Judy as Bowie and Pat Boone doing Bing Crosby. And it was brilliant.”
Get out your hanky, because Wileman is spilling the tea on Pat Boone.
“I was really chuffed that he agreed to do it and he’s really gracious,” Wileman said. “I don’t know if we want to print this, but he’s 91 and he looks fantastic, he’s still going, he’s still performing. Just fabulous. He was my mum’s first crush when my mum was 4!”
Adorably scandalous!
“What was really special for this particular album was to record two songs by John Meyer, who was Judy’s penultimate amour,” Wileman said. “John had written a Christmas song for Judy Garland that she performed on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson called Till After the Holidays … and the only recording of her performing it is live on TV, so it was really exciting to be able to do a studio recording of that song with a full orchestra.”
Wileman befriended Meyer, learning the bittersweetness behind another tune he penned.
“He’d written a song for Judy on the day of her funeral,” Wileman said. “He felt everything flow through him — it was everything that she would have said.” The result: When Do the Words Come True. “It’s sung from Judy Garland’s point of view from a man who was engaged to her … Sadly, two months later he died.”
But Meyer left one beautiful parting gift for Wileman.
“He said to me in front of everyone, ‘I want you to record that.’ It was really special for me to be able to do that, gutting that he wasn’t there in the studio with us, he would have loved it. But, hopefully, he was in the ether somewhere.”
So, don’t fear the phantoms in your life; embrace them. Our foremothers and forefathers paved a yellow brick road of possibilities for us. Enjoy the journey … and then forge your own fantastical way forward. instagram.com/debwileman
JUDY GARLAND: WE NEED A LITTLE CHRISTMAS
7:30 p.m. Friday, December 26 at Plaza Theatre, Palm Springs. Celebrate the holidays with Debbie Wileman in this lush tribute that channels Judy Garland’s iconic voice, warmth and wit. Backed by live musicians and sprinkled with holiday favorites, it will be a nostalgic, joy-filled night on the historic Plaza Theatre stage. palmspringsplazatheatre.com