Presenting Lily Mars

Presenting Lily Mars is a 1943 American musical comedy film directed by Norman Taurog, produced by Joe Pasternak, starring Judy Garland and Van Heflin, and based on the novel by Booth Tarkington. The film is often cited as Garland's first film playing an adult type role (although For Me and My Gal, released the previous year, is also often credited thus). Tommy Dorsey and Bob Crosby appear with their orchestras in this Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer production. Plot Lily Mars (Judy Garland) is a small-town girl with big-city ambitions. She contrives to audition for a Broadway producer whose father was the local physician and whose family piano her father also happened to tune. However, the producer wants nothing to do with her. She then heads to Broadway hoping to convince him to cast her, but after a series of disappointments, the best she can manage is an understudy job. Cast Judy Garland as Lily Mars Van Heflin as John Thornway Fay Bainter as Mrs. Thornway Richard Carlson as Owen Vail Spring Byington as Mrs. Mars Marta Eggerth as Isobel Rekay Connie Gilchrist as Frankie Leonid Kinskey as Leo Patricia Barker as Poppy Janet Chapman as Violet Annie Ross as Rosie Douglas Croft as Davey Ray McDonald as Charlie Potter Charles Walters as Lily's Dance Partner in Finale Lillian Yarbo as Rosa, Isobel's maid (uncredited)