| Mickey Deans | |
| Birth Name: | Michael DeVinko Jr. |
| Birth Date: | 24 September 1934 |
| Birth Place: | Garfield, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Death Place: | Northfield Center, Ohio, U.S. |
| Occupation: | Musician, entrepreneur |
| Years Active: | 1954–2003 (musician, writer and entrepreneur) 1960s–1978 (author) |
Michael DeVinko, Jr. (September 24, 1934 – July 11, 2003), known as Mickey Deans, was an American musician and entrepreneur. He is best known as the fifth husband and widower of actress and singer Judy Garland.
He was a disco owner, jazz pianist, and drug dealer.[1] During the 1950s and 1960s, he appeared at the popular New York City nightspot Jilly's on West 52nd Street. He also worked in Los Angeles, Reno, Miami Beach and the Virgin Islands.[2] By the time Deans met singer and actress Judy Garland in 1967, he had switched his occupation from musician to working as the manager of the Manhattan discothèque Arthur, owned by Sybil Burton, on East 54th Street.[3]
Deans met Garland at her hotel in New York City on March 10, 1967.[4] A mutual friend of theirs asked Deans to deliver a package of amphetamines to Garland's room in the St. Regis. He was dressed as a doctor, and he "delivered the medication she needed to get herself together to fly to work on Valley of the Dolls."
After two years of intermittent dating, they were married on March 15, 1969, in London.[5] Although hundreds of guests were invited to the reception at Quaglino's, only 50 people attended. In particular, Liza Minnelli, Garland's eldest child, did not,[6] saying "I can't make it Mamma but I promise I'll come to your next one!".[7] [8]
In her book Me and My Shadows: Living With the Legacy of Judy Garland, Garland's daughter Lorna Luft writes that when her mother married Deans, she was in the final stages of prescription drug addiction and “was dying in front of his eyes.”[9]
Rosalyn Wilder, who worked as a production assistant at Talk of the Town from 1959 to 1979, and who was present at Garland's wedding to Deans,[10] describes Deans as the “dreadful man who became her husband. … I mean if she put an advert in a newspaper for the most unsuitable person to take care of her, she wouldn’t have had a better response. … I don’t know what possessed… well, I know what possessed her because he gave in to her and he fed her all the things she wanted.”[11]
After the wedding, Deans tried to turn Garland's finances around. He envisioned a documentary and a chain of Judy Garland movie theaters. Neither materialized.[12]
Garland's daughter, Lorna Luft, recalled sharing a limousine with Deans after her mother's funeral in 1969. He insisted on stopping at a Manhattan office and it became clear to Lorna that he was striking his book deal only hours after her mother's funeral service.[13] [14]
"In a move that takes my breath away to this very day when I think of it, Mickey had scheduled a meeting and wanted me to go along," Lorna wrote, adding that Deans and another man "discussed some sort of business deal" in her presence. "Months later, someone told me the other man was a publisher, and that Mickey had arranged to stop by on the way back from my mother’s funeral to cut a deal on a Judy Garland biography. I don't know if it was true, but his book did come out a couple of years later under the title, ‘Weep No More, My Lady.’ Needless to say, I didn't buy a copy. Mickey Deans. What a putz."[15]
After Garland's death, Deans had a four-year relationship with Rose Driscoll, and they adopted a son, Richard.
He was later suspected in the 1983 murder of his boss, Roy Radin.[16]
In 1985, he bought Franklin Castle, a historic four-story stone mansion on Franklin Boulevard in Cleveland, Ohio.[17] for $93,000 ($ today) and remodeled the home for $2.1 million.
Deans died in Northfield Center, Ohio, on July 11, 2003, after a long illness. He was 68.[18]