Entertainer shares his love of Judy Garland in show

If David de Alba isn’t Judy Garland’s biggest fan, he’s certainly on the short list.

De Alba’s devotion to the late and legendary singer/actress can be seen, first, in the Garland memorabilia he has collected over the years, ranging from original music scores to a pair of shoes Garland wore in one of her movies to an entire collection related to her memorable turn in the 1939 classic film “The Wizard of Oz.”

But beyond all that are the decades that de Alba has devoted to portraying Garland in musical presentations aimed, he says, at introducing Garland and her talent to younger fans and rekindling a passion for Garland in older fans who remember her but, perhaps, may have forgotten how good she was.

On Sunday, de Alba will present “By Myself on a Lonely Stage 2015: David de Alba’s Tribute to Judy Garland” at the Onyx Theatre, 953 E. Sahara Ave. The show, aimed at people ages 21 and older, begins at 2 p.m. and tickets are $18 and $20. For tickets and more information, visit www.onyxtheatre.com or call 702-732-7225.

The show will feature de Alba singing some of Garland’s songs, telling stories about her life in her own words, and offering his own anecdotes about the intersection of his life with hers.

De Alba says one thing that differentiates his show from other such shows is that, rather than merely lip syncing to Garland’s recordings, “I have always performed live.”

That goes back to his days performing at Finocchio’s, a landmark San Francisco nightclub that for decades was famous for presenting female impersonator shows.

De Alba says he has been paying tribute to Judy Garland since 1965 and even met Garland herself in 1968 at a Chicago theater.

“I talk about it in my show,” he says. “I said I did an imitation of her, and in her Dorothy Gale-type attitude, she said with a little-girl face, ‘So do you like me that much?’ I said, ‘Of course, I like you that much.’ ”

But make no mistake: De Alba says his portrayal of Garland isn’t campy or kitschy.

“The thing about my performance is, I’m not doing the typical drag queen (performance), and that word, to me, is a put-down, something very cheap, to try to get applause from the audience,” de Alba explains. “I have always (done) actor-singer impressions.”

There is no “vulgarity” in the show, de Alba adds; his mission is to present Garland with finesse.

“I don’t do women onstage. I do ladies.” he says. “There’s a difference.”

Who are his audiences? First, de Alba says, are “people over 50 who know who Judy Garland is, and I can, more or less, refresh their memory.”

Then, he continues, are people too young to remember Garland, who died at age 47 in 1969, or who, even if they do recognize her from “The Wizard of Oz” and movies they see on TV, don’t realize that Garland also found great success on TV and onstage.

Even fans may forget how versatile Garland was. De Alba says that, along with her lighter films, Garland turned in effective dramatic performances in such films as “Judgment at Nuremberg,” for which she was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar.

De Alba was born in Cuba and moved to the United States when he was a kid, shortly after the Cuban Revolution. He knew of Garland then, but admits that he wasn’t yet a fan. That would come during de Alba’s adolescence, in Chicago, when two women who owned a local sandwich shop asked de Alba if he’d like to listen to some Judy Garland records.

“I was new in town,” de Alba says. “I said, ‘Sure.’ ”

The women played for de Alba Garland’s live 1961 Carnegie Hall double-album.

“I was so impressed,” says de Alba, who visited a local record store the next day to search out Garland albums. He found that there even was a Judy Garland fan club.

“So,” he says, “I became connected with those people, and they started to send me a newsletter.”

He caught up on Garland’s film work, listened to her music, learned more and more about her and would see her perform whenever he could. The first Garland show he caught was at a theater in Chicago.

“It was interesting to me as a teenager to see young teenagers, all these kids running to the front of the stage trying to shake her hand,” he says. “There was a lot of fervor, a lot of love.”

Even then, he was taken by the singer’s bond with, and sincere gratitude for, her audiences.

“Of course, she would say, ‘I hope I’m singing enough for you today. I want to sing so beautifully. But I know you pull me through, no matter what.’

“A lot of people now, these days, don’t even take a bow and don’t even say thank you to the audience. You don’t see the thankfulness to be there.”

De Alba also was taken by Garland’s down-to-earth humor. Once, he recalls, Garland, who voiced the female lead in the 1962 animated film “Gay Purr-ee,” told an audience that “ ‘I’m sure you were disappointed. You wanted to see Judy Garland and all you see is a female cat onstage.’ And she started laughing.”

De Alba, meanwhile, always had been interested in music and performing. One day, while being made up to perform in a show in Chicago, his mentor, a makeup artist and hairstylist, noted that de Alba could look like Judy Garland and suggested that de Alba work up an act based on her.

Using costumes created by his grandmother, de Alba began to perform in venues around Chicago as both a dancer and, he says, as Judy Garland. In 1969, de Alba moved to San Francisco, where he became a cosmetologist with a celebrity clientele and, also, a performer at the Finocchio club.

“Of course, there you’d have to sing live, and the other thing was, you’d have to look real,’ ” he says. “And I looked real.”

Besides portraying Garland, de Alba would develop portrayals of Liza Minnelli and an original character he called “Boy-Chic.” The latter was “me doing my own act,” he says, and inspired by a Cuban singer named Olga Chorens.

Chorens — whom de Alba also met — was “my Spanish inspiration,” de Alba says, while Garland was “my American inspiration.”

Part of Garland’s continuing allure is that she was “such a tiny woman with such a powerful voice,” de Alba says.

“She could break your heart. And when she would sing, you would think she was singing just for you.”

De Alba’s collection of Judy Garland memorabilia is another product of his love for the singer. Included in it are dresses and garments she wore onstage, a pair of shoes she wore in a scene of 1963’s “I Could Go On Singing,” photographs, lobby cards, rare film posters, and musical arrangements from her shows.

Then, he says, “I have a Wizard of Oz Room with a miniature Emerald City.”

De Alba says he’d like to create a show that would revolve around his Finocchio days.

“Next year, I would like to do my Finocchio’s backstage memories in which I will bring Boy-Chic out to close the show,” he says, and offer the audience “anecdotes about my Finocchio Club days.”

But, for now, his focus is on Garland. De Alba says his impression is based on the singer in her late 40s. In telling her story, he does touch on a few of the less cheerful aspects of her life, which ended with a drug overdose after several marriages and struggles with drugs and alcohol.

Even that 1968 meeting de Alba shared with Garland is, in retrospect, infused with a measure of melancholy. As he talked with Garland, “my mother was next to me,” he recalls. “Judy said, ‘Who is this lovely lady?’ I said, ‘That’s my mother.’

“Those who know anything about Judy knows she didn’t get along with her mother. So Judy said to me, ‘I wish I had a mother like you have. ’ ”

And, de Alba says, “eight months later, (Garland) passed away.”

Contact reporter John Przybys at jprzybys@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0280 or follow @JJPrzybys on Twitter.