Edens played an important part in the career of gay icon Judy Garland. The two met in 1935 when Edens was called in to replace Garland's father, Frank Gumm, an amateur pianist, at Garland's audition at MGM. Edens was quick to appreciate her talent and became not only her musical mentor but also a lifelong friend.

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Edens wrote a song for Garland to sing at Clark Gable's birthday party in 1937. It not only delighted Gable but also favorably impressed the producer of Del Ruth's Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937), who had Garland sing it in the film.

After working with Garland on a couple of other projects Edens served as musical director for The Wizard of Oz and also as rehearsal pianist for Garland. Garland's daughter Lorna Luft credits Edens with teaching her mother to have the courage to show her vulnerability in her performances. "Without Roger," she commented, "we might never have had 'Over the Rainbow,' at least not the way we remember it."

Edens continued to contribute to Garland's professional success. He provided her "Born in a Trunk" number for A Star Is Born--uncredited because he was under exclusive contract to MGM and the film was a Warner Brothers production.

Edens and Charles Walters were also key in arranging Garland's 1951 triumphant vaudeville act at the RKO Palace Theatre, which won rave reviews from the critics.

Edens' professional star continued to rise. Freed chose him as producer of two movies, Donen's Deep in My Heart (1954), featuring the music of Sigmund Romberg, and Funny Face (1957).

By this time the heyday of the movie musical was coming to an end and various members of the Freed unit had moved on. Edens worked on a few more films, notably Walters' The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964) and Kelly's Hello, Dolly! (1969), but also pursued other opportunities. During the 1960s he renewed his professional association with both Garland and Merman, penning material for their nightclub acts. He also coached Katharine Hepburn for her performance in Alan Jay Lerner and André Previn's stage musical Coco in 1969.

Edens succumbed to cancer on July 13, 1970 in Hollywood.

Edens' career is a stunning success story, the more remarkable because his achievements came in an era of widespread . Gay performers sometimes resorted to "lavender marriages" or invented fictitious wives to conceal their sexual orientation. Even working behind the scenes and in the congenial atmosphere of the Freed unit, Edens, according to Mann, kept a photo of his ex-wife on his desk for years although he was living openly with another man.

Mann also recounts the touching recollection of Frank Lysinger, an MGM messenger boy whom Edens had befriended around 1939. Edens often invited him to dinner along with Lena Horne and musical director Lennie Hayton, gatherings of "two officially unsanctioned" couples since studio head Louis B. Mayer had forbidden Horne, an African-American, and Hayton, who was white, to date each other. Edens, who championed Horne at the studio, also tried to bring happiness to her personal life.

This kindness and compassion were typical of Edens' character. His collaborator and long-time friend Kay Thompson described him as "a darling man," and Michael Morrison, another friend and the business partner of gay actor William Haines, commented that "all sorts of people were drawn to him."

Edens was a model of professional success and personal dignity.

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Responsible for many of the most popular and critically praised films of Hollywood's golden age, George Cukor became typed as a "woman's director," a phrase that may have also alluded to his homosexuality.

The fragile persona and emotion-packed voice of actress and singer Judy Garland are powerfully linked to gay culture and identity; she appealed especially to gay men, but also to lesbians.

Among the top five motion picture actors from 1928 to 1933, William "Billy" Haines later became one of the most successful interior designers in the country.

One of Hollywood's greatest directors, Vincente Minnelli kept his sexual orientation quite private, but his gay sensibility is visible in many of his films.

Living the paradoxical life of an openly closeted gay man, songwriter Cole Porter introduced non-normative values and risqué double entendres into what was one of the most pedestrian and hackneyed of cultural forms.

Composers and lyricists Robert Wright and George "Chet" Forrest, partners in life and art, specialized in adapting themes from classical music into engaging tunes for movie scores and stage musicals.