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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.
After two years of intermittent dating, they were married on March 15, 1969 in London. Although hundreds of guests were invited to the reception at Quaglino's, only 50 people attended. Liza Minnelli, Garland's eldest child, did not attend, saying, "I can't make it Mamma but I promise I'll come to your next one!"Rob Baker, "Communists, bombs and pigeon with pineapple – curious tales about three of London's oldest restaurants", The Telegraph, 11 December 2019
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."
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, 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."
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.
"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."
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.
In 1985, he bought Franklin Castle, a historic four-story stone mansion on Franklin Boulevard in Cleveland, Ohio. for $93,000 ($ today) and remodeled the home for $2.1 million.
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