A Star Of Meet Me In St. Louis Revealed She Was The Target Of A Deadly Plot During Filming
It’s another busy day on the MGM lot as Vincente Minnelli directs Judy Garland and child star Margaret O’Brien in musical Meet Me in St. Louis. O’Brien moves towards her mark, unaware that in the next few moments she will face almost certain death. Far above her, an assassin is moving, planning to end her young career.
O’Brien plays Garland’s little sister Tootie and she’s loving making the movie. Many years after the 1944 musical came out, in 2019, she would tell the Los Angeles Times, “Judy was so much fun to be with on the set that she was making me laugh before the scene.” This became a problem when O’Brien was asked to cry in one scene.
There’s an old rumour around Hollywood that Minnelli had a cruel scheme to provoke tears from the young actress. He is supposed to have told her that her beloved pup was ill. But O’Brien denied this was true. She said that her mom would simply not have tolerated such cruel behavior.
Ultimately, O’Brien did manage to cry — because she didn’t want to be defeated in a kids’ game. “I’ll tell you how they got me to cry.” She said to the Los Angeles Times. “I was in a contest with June Allyson [on the MGM lot] of who was the best crier, because June cried in a lot of her movies. I wanted to win the contest.”
O’Brien was desperate to let Allyson win, so when her mom told her, “but June is such a great, great actress. She always cries on cue,” you can bet that she was fired up. Brushing aside the suggestion of fake tears, O’Brien said that her response was, “I thought, I’m not letting her win the contest. I started crying.”
