Willam Shatner Says Judy Garland Was 'Fragile' When They Filmed “Judgment at Nuremberg” in 1961
Willam Shatner Says Judy Garland Was 'Fragile' When They Filmed “Judgment at Nuremberg” in 1961
Virginia ChamleeThu, February 19, 2026 at 5:31 PM UTC
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William Shatner; Judy Garland
JC Olivera/Variety via Getty; Michael Ochs Archives/Getty
William Shatner is sharing his experience working with Judy Garland on the 1961 film Judgment at Nuremberg
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, the actor said Garland was "fragile"
He added that she was "an enormous talent" and that the experience making the film was a formative one
William Shatner is opening up about his time working alongside the late Judy Garland.
The Star Trek icon, 94, spoke to Entertainment Weekly about the 1961 film Judgment at Nuremberg, in which he played young Captain Harrison Byers opposite Spencer Tracy's Chief Judge Dan Haywood. Garland starred as Irene Hoffmann, a German woman called to testify at the Nuremberg trials.
The film, directed by Stanley Kramer, would earn Garland an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress (she lost the award to Rita Moreno in West Side Story).
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Speaking to the outlet, Shatner recalled what it was like working with the Hollywood legend.
"She was very fragile," the actor said.
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Shatner told EW of Garland: "She was an enormous talent. And when she came on to do her scene, I hadn't seen anything of her since that experience so many years ago. There she was, doing her fragile bit. And it was part of a continuity that I treasure."
Garland, who died in 1969 at the age of 47, became a household name starring as Dorothy Gale in the 1939 adaptation of L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz. Just 16 years old at the time of the movie's filming, the intense pressures she faced after fueled her well-documented struggles with alcohol and drugs.
Told by studio executives she had to watch her figure, Garland would often go to extremes to lose any extra pounds. In a memoir, her former husband detailed how, when she was filming 1950’s Summer Stock, she stopped eating altogether. She was also reportedly just 80 pounds while making 1943’s Presenting Lily Mars.
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Said Shatner of filming Judgment at Nuremberg, "It was a marvelous, astounding experience for a young actor."
"I was new to the movie game then, and here I was amongst all these giants who'd come in for a day or two and be filmed and leave," he told EW. "It was a journey. It was beautiful."
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