And when it comes to an appreciation of Garland's talent, well, she herself once offered one: ''I have a machine in my throat that gets into many people's ears and affects them.'' Try as he will to evoke mythology or Milton from time to time, Mr. For instance, it was set forth in Gerold Frank's credulous but thorough 1975 ''Judy,'' from which ''Get Happy'' borrows frequently. The basic trajectory of the star's life, from soulful baby precocity (she sang torch songs in childhood) to MGM heyday to descent into drug-addled misery, is thus well known. Among the newspaper and magazine articles that this book swallows as reliable source material are ''The Real Me,'' ''I'm Judy Garland - and This Is My Story'' and ''Judy Garland Achieves New Level of Poignancy.'' ''I must say I never thought I'd live to see the day when anyone would be tossed into the jug for saying Judy Garland had problems,'' wrote the columnist Dorothy Kilgallen after another reporter was briefly jailed for libel. Her triumphs and calamities were chronicled with tireless vigor. Clarke puts himself at a serious disadvantage in moving from a fresh, witty, reasonably unexamined subject like Capote to a woman whose entire adult life unfolded in a climate of sob-sister press scrutiny. In the long shadow of the author's splendid portrait of Truman Capote, ''Get Happy'' recalls James Agee's complaint that ''The Clock,'' a Vincente Minnelli film in which Garland starred, ''inspires ingratitude for not being great.'' It's the high-minded desperation that serves as ballast for ''Get Happy,'' Gerald Clarke's scandal-seeking yet curiously wan biography of Judy Garland. What do Odysseus, Sir Galahad and pigtailed little Dorothy from ''The Wizard of Oz'' have in common? Answer: lonely quests through hostile territory.

Gerald clarke judy garland