Marilyn's tragic plea to Judy Garland: Actress begged her fellow star to be her confidante because she was one of the few people who understood what it was like to be so famous

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Marilyn Monroe begged Judy Garland to become her confidante because she was one of the few people who understood the pressures of being so famous.

Miss Monroe saw Miss Garland, the Wizard of Oz star who battled drink and drug addiction, as a kindred spirit and once followed her around a party to tell her: ‘I’m scared!’

In desperation Miss Monroe said: ‘If we could just talk, I know you’d understand’.

Marilyn Monroe begged Judy Garland to become her confidante because she also understood the pressures of fame

Miss Garland did not believe Miss Monroe who died of an overdose in 1962, had wanted to hurt herself and thought she had been ‘deserted by her friends’ and had too many pills around her.

The relationship between the two women was revealed in the memoir of Miss Garland’s third husband Sid Luft, ‘Judy and I’, which is out in March.

According to extracts in People magazine, Miss Garland spoke about it in an article for Ladies Home Journal, a US magazine, in 1967 that is reprinted in the memoir.

Miss Garland became famous at 17 thanks to the Wizard of Oz but her life unraveled afterwards. Miss Monroe was the most famous celebrity of her age but her demons led to her premature death at the age of 36.

Miss Garland wrote: ‘That beautiful girl (Monroe) was frightened of aloneness - the same thing I’d been been afraid of.

‘Like me, she was just trying to do her job - garnish some delightful whipped cream onto some people’s lives, but Marilyn and I never got a chance to talk.

Judy Garland was a singer, actress and vaudevillian who rose to international fame as Dorothy in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz

‘I had to leave for England and I never saw that sweet, dear girl again. I wish I had been able to talk to her the night she died’.

That final meeting happened at a party where Miss Garland said that Miss Monroe followed her from ‘room to room’.

Miss Monroe said: ‘I don’t want to get too far away from you. I’m scared!’

Miss Garland said: ‘We’re all scared. I’m scared, too!’

Miss Monroe said: ‘If we could just talk, I know you’d understand’.

Miss Garland replied: ‘Maybe I would. If you’re scared, call me and come on over. We’ll talk about it’- but they never did.

Miss Monroe, star of films Some Like it Hot and The Seven Year Itch, died in 1962 at the age of 36

Looking back at Miss Monroe’s plight Miss Garland wrote: ‘You shouldn’t be told you’re completely irresponsible and be left alone with too much medication.

‘It’s too easy to forget. You take a couple of sleeping pills and you wake up in 20 minutes and forget you’ve taken them. So you take a couple more, and the next thing you know you’ve taken too many’.

According to Mr Luft, Miss Monroe’s death in 1962 was ‘especially troubling to Judy since Marilyn had been one of Judy’s telephone pals during her years of insomnia’.

In the book he tells he Miss Monroe used to come and visit him and Miss Garland and their two young children where she sat by the fire saying very little.

He said that their visitor looked ‘sweet and very unhappy’ and talked about one of her husbands, whom she was separated from, being nice but clueless about how to make love to a woman.

Miss Garland’s warnings about Miss Monroe did little to alter her own fate, which was eerily similar as she died of an accidental overdose in 1969 at the age of 47.

Miss Garland had been married five times, seen a psychiatrist from the age of 18 and had three children including a daughter, Liza Minnelli.