THE ex-husband of Judy Garland has claimed the 16-year-old icon was GROPED by the munchkins on the set of The Wizard Of Oz.

The shock revelations were found in a recently discovered memoir by Sid Luft, who died in 2005.

12 Judy Garland starred in The Wizard Of Oz when she was just 16 but Sid said the munchkin actors took advantage of her Credit: WWW.LMKMEDIA.COM

He said: “They thought they could get away with anything because they were so small. They would make Judy’s life miserable on set by putting their hands under her dress. The men were 40 or more years old.”

Judy – who was married to Sid for 13 years from 1952 – became a Hollywood icon after the movie.

But the child star turned self-destructive diva and eventually succumbed to her life-long addiction to prescription drugs, dying of an overdose aged just 47.

Sid, the second of Garland’s five husbands, witnessed both her epic triumphs and chaotic descent from inside the showbiz bubble.

12 Judy pictured with Sid in 1951 Credit: AP:Associated Press

As Judy’s tour manager and film producer he oversaw a triumphant period in Judy’s career which saw her play a string of comeback concerts in the 1950s and get nominated for an Oscar.

But throughout their passionate relationship Sid watched helpless as his wife was trapped in a destructive cycle of pill-popping, dangerous dieting and suicide attempts.

The window into Garland’s chaotic existence has been laid bare by the publication of a memoir Sid began writing after their divorce in 1965.

Luft died in 2005 and the unfinished book was discovered a year ago among among his archives and has now been published entitled, Judy and I: My Life with Judy Garland.

12 Judy with Sid and their children Lorna, seven, and Joe, five, at their home in Chelsea, London in 1960 - with Judy's daughter from first marriage Liza, left Credit: Getty Images

The couple’s relationship began amid scandal as Judy was still married to first husband Vincente Minnelli, Liza’s father, and Sid was in the process of divorcing his wife actress Lynn Bari.

They met at a Manhattan club and Sid was instantly smitten sensing an "electrical force" coming from Garland who was “glowing like a ripened cherry".

Sid recalled: “It was virtually impossible to be cool around Judy since I lusted so entirely after her.”

Of the first night they spent together he said: “I was to discover just how different Judy was from other women. She was uninhibited, giving herself over to her passions so completely.”

12 Judy as a 23-year-old in 1945 Credit: Getty Images

But during the heady days of their early romance the producer confesses how he couldn't bring himself to ask about the "thin scars" he spotted on the insides of Judy’s wrists.

It was only over time that he saw first-hand the actress’s heavy use of amphetamines and barbiturates which left her in black depressions, with suicidal thoughts.

He wrote: “She was married to the drugs before she met me, and she never really got divorced.”

He tells how Judy, born Frances Ethel Gumm, began to open up to him about the dark chapter in Hollywood history where executives at MGM studios fed uppers to top child stars like Judy, Mickey Rooney and Elizabeth Taylor so they could work long hours.

But after a while Judy began to get a buzz from the drugs , as Sid wrote: “Judy admitted she felt she grew inches when she took Benzedrine.”

12 Judy, pictured in London after her split from Sid Credit: Getty Images

Sid met Judy in 1950 when her career had hit rock bottom. At 27 she was out of work and had been dropped by MGM after two suicide attempts and a stint in hospital for drug abuse.

Sid helped reverse the actress’s flagging fortunes by organising acclaimed concerts at the London Palladium and on Broadway in New York.

But the success didn’t come without an emotional price. In the run-up to her Broadway show Judy revealed she was pregnant with Sid’s baby and he panicked about what it would mean for the production.

He admitted: “Because of my negative reaction, Judy didn’t confide in me where and when she was going to have the abortion. I wasn’t attentive. I didn’t send flowers.”

And while Judy's career was resuscitated, Luft quickly began to realise her drug demons were far from banished.

12 Judy with Liza Minnelli, Lorna Luftand Joey Luft at New York's Idlewild Airport in 1962 Credit: Rex Features

An insomniac, Garland would roam their house at night or lock herself away before knocking herself out with sleeping tablets.

Sid wrote: “There was torment in her face. She picked herself up by getting speed from someone. Her eyes were red-rimmed and she became more and more remote.”

Even on the nights they slept in the same bed he said it was obvious his wife was "on something".

But her drug use accelerated after the birth of their first child, Lorna Luft in 1952 when Judy found herself in the grip of postnatal depression.

It was during this period that Sid rushed home after receiving a call saying Judy had been found unresponsive in the bathroom.

“I could feel my heart in my temples. Judy was wedged in between the bath and the door. I finally got it open and picked her up. Blood, bright red in sharp contrast to the whiteness of her skin, was pouring out of her neck. Judy had cut her throat with a razor blade.”

12 Judy in the 1961 movie Judgement At Nuremberg Credit: Rex Features

Doctors were called to the house to perform a blood transfusion in her bedroom. The next morning Sid found his wife in cheerful form sitting up in bed and wolfing down a huge breakfast of eggs, pancakes, sausage and toast with extra marmalade.

He recalled: “She quickly ordered a three-string pearl choker from Saks and she never took it off. She wore it to bed.”

Several years later, the couple were in Washington DC for a series of concerts Luft had arranged for Judy which she was reluctant to perform.

On the fifth morning Garland made yet another suicide attempt.

“When Judy came out in her short white lace negligee, her arms were in front of her and she said, ‘Look, darling, what I’ve done!’ Her wrists had been slashed and she was bleeding profusely.”

Again Garland was patched up by a doctor and ordered a selection of pearl bracelets as a disguise for her arms.

12 Judy with James Mason in A Star Is Born Credit: Getty Images

Although Sid claimed his wife would never admit she was a substance abuser, she had confessed it was virtually impossible for her to work in front of the cameras without some kind of medication.

When she starred in 1954’s A Star Is Born which Sid developed and produced for her he put Judy’s doctor on the payroll for "maintenance medication".

But in the book he reflected: “In hindsight, I was enabling a lesser version of what MGM had blatantly and inhumanly jammed down her throat.”

Judy’s drug use was also linked to her lifelong struggles with her weight which Sid believed stemmed from her days as a child star when she was constantly bullied to stay slim.

12 Judy pictured in 1950 Credit: Getty Images

Judy had always loved binging on cheeseburgers, chilli, spaghetti and Chinese food, and at 4 ft 11in she could be underweight and still appear heavy on camera, so she turned to amphetamines to shed pounds.

In the later years of their marriage Sid described how he became like a "narco" trying to police his wife’s pill habit and discover her stashes.

He eventually discovered numerous members of their household staff – from carpenters to butlers – were providing Judy with pills.

On one occasion, Judy received a new white towelling bathrobe from upmarket store Saks Fifth Avenue.

It was sent by a friend but Sid discovered it had capsules of barbiturate Tuinal sewn into the lining.

On one raid of Judy’s room he found pills hidden in cigarette packets, her bath salts container loaded with sedative Seconal and the clothes hamper filled with empty beer and vodka bottles.

When Judy came out in her short white lace negligee, her arms were in front of her and she said, ‘Look, darling, what I’ve done!’ Her wrists had been slashed and she was bleeding profusely. Sid Luft

When Judy began mixing her drug cocktails with alcohol she became a ‘raging pixie’ according to Sid.

He recalled that during these binges: “The children stayed in one wing of the house. Judy would pay them visits wearing her lounging outfit or a robe. If she was immobile, the children were told Mother wasn’t available.”

In later years Judy also turned to drug Ritalin, usually prescribed to children with hyperactivity disorder, to calm her down.

But a toxic reaction to the pills caused her to balloon with Sid describing his wife as ‘helium-faced.’

But Judy’s drug dependency didn’t halt her social whirl and the couple socialised with a galaxy of the era’s most famous stars.

12 Judy and Sid, pictured in 1957 Credit: Rex Features

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall were neighbours, the disgraced Duke of Windsor and his wife Wallis Simpson were frequent dining pals and Frank Sinatra was a lifelong friend to Judy.

She also became close pals with equally fragile actress Marilyn Monroe and the pair would stay up all night talking on the telephone because they both suffered from insomnia.

Sid said: “Marilyn would also visit us at the house. It was work bringing her out but of course she may have been on some pill. Marilyn was sweet but very unhappy. She was separated from one of her husbands, whom she complained was a nice person, but sadly didn’t know how to make love to a woman.”

President JFK was another friend of Judy’s who would often telephone and ask her to sing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ down the phone to him.

12 The Wizard of Oz made teen star Judy into an icon Credit: Eyevine

Sid tells how Judy’s Hollywood set became a kind of surrogate family to the star who was a estranged from her own mother Ethel.

Although Sid tried to prompt a reconciliation, Judy saw her mother a ‘demon woman,’ a heartless stage mother who was put on MGM’s payroll to spy on her as a child.

He says: “Judy chose to feel permanently betrayed.”

When Ethel died suddenly of a heart attack in a car park in 1953 Sid tells how Judy was worried how it would affect her public image.

He said: “I had the job of seeding quotes to the press to diffuse the ‘cruel daughter’ image.’

He planted stories about secret houses Garland had purchased for her mother, trust funds she had set up and a will which left everything to Judy.

‘All lies’ Sid confessed in the book.

Sid reveals how late in life Judy also became obsessed with digging into rumours that her father Frank was a homosexual.

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The salacious stories were true and Frank’s transgressions once prompted the Gumms to move from Minnesota to California but the family friend whom Judy quizzed kept her in the dark.

“I didn’t see what sense it would have made to tell her”, he informed Sid.

In 1959 Sid noticed Judy was becoming increasingly bloating and persuaded her to see a doctor who discovered her liver was four times the normal and that she was close to death.

Miraculously, Judy rallied and was eventually able to continue with her career.

Sid found her new managers who clinched Judy a string of concerts and a lucrative television show.

But it was during this period that their marriage began to fracture and he discovered Judy was having a fling with one of her new handlers, David Begelman.

Sid and Judy engaged furious rows and disputes over the custody of their children, with Sid claiming his wife once ‘kidnapped’ Lorna and their son Joey and took them to London.

12 Judy backstage at London's Palace Theatre in 1967, two years before she died Credit: AP:Associated Press

They finally divorced in 1965 and Sid writes that the new managers embezzled large sums from Judy and by 1966 she was broke despite earning tens of millions throughout her career.

Sid tells how she said; “I have no money. I have no resources. I’m too sick to work. We’re going to be on the street.”

On June 22 1969 she died of an accidental overdose whilst in London with her fifth husband, American musician Mickey Deans, who she had wed just months earlier.

Sid said: ‘They say Judy had thirty or forty Seconal next to her bed. A lot of people took advantage of her. The years of abuse had taken their toll on her tiny frail body.’

More than 22,000 mourners filed past Judy’s glass-covered coffin.

Summing up his former wife Sid wrote: “Judy Garland was a very rare mix of shattered nerves and insecurities, self-destructiveness and suicidal tendencies but also a true genius. She was to me the greatest talent who ever lived.”

‘Judy and I: My Life with Judy Garland’ by Sid Luft is published by Chicago Review Press