Liza Minelli

Yes, the entertainer's entertainer is back, and not a day too soon. It has been 6 long years since Ms Liza Minnelli has graced these shores in performance mode. It is high time that all those showbiz wannabes grasping at the edge of the stage were shown what a good old-fashioned get-up-on-a-stage-and-knock-'em-dead performer can do. And Liza with a Z sure knows how to knock 'em dead, even better than her mother could.

Somewhere over the rainbow
At 7:58 on the morning of 12th March 1946 Liza Minnelli was born, by carefully planned cesarean section to Judy Garland and Vincente Minnelli, a big star and a big director. MGM had another twinkle in the firmament of stars that they boasted were more numerous than the heavens themselves. And one of the first of those stars to visit the new star was Frank Sinatra. It was a promising start. But all was not well in the Land of Oz and, while the adult Minnellis struggled to make their marriage work, baby Liza was stuck in the middle. Unusually, Judy and Vincente competed with each other by seeing who could spoil the new arrival the most. Father Minnelli was the most doting of parents and revelled in spending time with his beloved daughter, playing with her, reading to her, spoiling her rotten. Judy, on the other hand, had a very hard time of it trying desperately not to repeat her mother's mistakes. Being a super mega star, always being the centre of everyone's attention, it was very difficult for Judy to suddenly become second-fiddled by an adorable baby. But try her damndest she did. Judy's mother had metamorphosised from mother to manager the minute Judy showed talent. Judy was determined not to do that with Liza.

When little bluebirds fly
From the age of 2 Liza began to be aware that all was not as it should be in her family. Judy was getting depressed, suicidal, drunk while Vincente was stoical. Then the day came that Judy was admitted to a Sanatorium for the first of many 'treatments' to dry her out, wean her off drugs. Little Liza was there, visiting in the hospital, seeing the pain and anguish.
This trauma was, however, greatly relieved by her father taking her to work with him. Imagine, the whole of MGM was her playground. Although never pushed into showbiz it was inevitable that constant exposure to studios and film-making from an early age would seep into her very blood. At 5 years old she demanded of her father that one day he would direct her. 23 years later it really happened in A Matter of Time, the only film they worked on together (apart from a minor carry-on appearance in The Pirate as a babe-in-arms).

Birds fly over the rainbow, why then oh why can't I?
In December 1950 Judy and Vincente finally decided to call it a day and announced their separation prior to divorce. Liza, who was still less than 5 years old, was forced to become her mother's older sister, housekeeper, friend, social worker and divorce counsellor. Her mother was not the type of woman who could cope with life alone so it didn't take long for Liza to acquire a new 'daddy' in the shape of the highly undesirable Sidney Luft. It was due to the efforts of Sid Luft that Judy and Liza ended up in London doing a four week stint. This was to be the beginning of a lifelong love affair with British audiences that has been handed down from mother to daughter. It was also in London that Liza finally earned her wings and realised that she was as talented, if not more so, than her mother.
After spending her teenage years learning her craft in regional theatre, summer stock and drama groups, little Liza was about to knock the world's socks off. Judy Garland, a mere five years for this world, had sort of come to terms with the fact that her daughter was someone to be proud of. Perhaps she finally realised she had the means to pay back Liza for all the years of tempestuous living. Or perhaps it was just that Judy didn't want to do it alone. Whatever the motivation the end result was that mother and daughter finally shared the same stage at The London Palladium on 8th November 1964 and the eternal mother-daughter power struggle that happens in every family was played out before the world. And Liza won, hands down!
Another defining moment happened on that winter evening in London. Liza met her first husband, Peter Allen (born Peter Woolnough in Australia).
Judy Garland had first met Peter when he was one half of the Allen Brothers working the hotel circuit in the Hong Kong Hilton. Ever the fag hag, she immediately liked Peter and even took over managing the duo. She booked them into venue in the UK to coincide with her concerts and then, in true mother style, started matchmaking Liza and Peter. It worked, and on 3rd March 1967 they were married. However, before that Liza fought her way into the show Flora, The Red Menace. The show is now (and was then) largely forgotten but it did get Liza the first of an impressive collection of awards. This time a Tony, her first. Even more important, to Liza at least, was that it brought her into contact for the first time with John Kander and Fred Ebb. It also put Liza in a very strong position to campaign for her dream part, that of Sally Bowles in Cabaret.
Fred Ebb has, over the years, been the sole driving force behind Liza Minnelli's stage persona. He has written songs for her, advised her on staging, been her friend, mentor and collaborator. Liza has said 'I think I am just a figment of Fred Ebb's imagination'. Under his guidance Liza quickly became her own person and not just Judy Garland's daughter.
In between cabaret tours Liza somehow found time to make her screen debut in a lead role. Charlie Bubbles was not a success and swiftly disappeared into the ether. But it left behind it some good reviews of Liza's performance.
By 1968 Judy's behaviour, brought on by chemical abuse, was becoming more and more bizarre and she took to abandoning or ejecting Lorna and Joey, her children by Sid Luft. To avoid their being abandoned newly weds Liza and Peter took the 15 and 12 year olds in to live with them.
1969 was a very good and a very bad year. It was very good because Liza got an Oscar nomination for The Sterile Cuckoo and it was very bad because, as all queens know, that was the year that Judy died and the light went out in the Emerald City forever.
In March 1970 Peter and Liza separated, Peter followed his heart and, on the way to a very successful cabaret career, returned to his gay ways. Liza, on the other hand, had inherited her mother's ex-lover, Kay Thompson, as her closest friend and constant companion, and embarked on a succession of high profile, and often ill-fated, love affairs. By the end of the year Liza was delighted to be told that the part of Sally Bowles in cabaret was hers at the age of just 25. In July 1974 Peter and Liza finally got divorced and in September Liza married Jack Haley Jnr, the son of Dorothy's Tin Man.
In July 1975, with a couple of less than successful films under her belt, Liza was asked to step in at the last moment to replace a sick Gwen Verdon in the part of Roxie Hart in the opening run of Chicago. The five weeks of her run sold out in less than 12 hours. Once finished she then embarked on her long awaited film with her father, A Matter of Time, a resounding flop when it opened in October 1976. By this time Liza and Jack's marriage was showing signs of wear and, in the two years of pre-production for New York, New York, Liza is said to have found comfort with director Martin Scorsese, amongst others.
Despite a very successful career as a cabaret/concert artist, Liza was desperate for another film success like Cabaret. But she wasn't about to sit around waiting for it to land in her lap. There were plenty of other projects to occupy her energy filled days with. With New York, New York in the can Liza was free to pursue other things until she was required for promoting the film. Kander and Ebb, hoping to recreate the success of Cabaret, had been hired to rehash a musical originally called In Person, based on the true story of one Michelle Craig, a well known and respected singer. Retitling it Shine It On and finally The Act, the show was dogged with problems. Kander and Ebb insisted that Liza was the perfect actress for the lead; Liza insisted that Martin Scorsese, her current lover, was the perfect director; Liza also insisted that the costume designer, Theadora Van Runkle, be replaced by her old friend Halston. He redesigned all her costumes at a cost of $100,000, which Liza paid for herself! In the tryouts the production was panned. Scorsese was replaced - he was after all a film director, not a stage director, let alone a musical stage director - and musical legend Gower Champion was brought in to sort out the mess. He pared back the storyline and made it into more of a Liza Minnelli concert than a stage musical. It worked a treat and the show was a resounding success in New York and she won a Tony for it.
By 1978 Jack and Liza's marriage was on the skids. Another year; another divorce and another husband on the horizon. Mark Gero started off as a stagehand on The Act, progressed to being her concert tour stage manager/lover and finally, in December 1979, her husband (No. 3). Still in the euphoria of yet another honeymoon Liza embarked on another stinker of a film, Arthur, with Dudley Moore and Sit John Gielgud. Coincidentally her ex-husband (No.1), Peter Allen, wrote the theme song of the film, Arthur's Theme.
For the next 4 years she criss crossed the globe doing concerts before returning to The States in 1983 to start rehearsals for yet another Kander and Ebb smash, The Rink. But all was not well with Ms Minnelli. Rapidly staring middle age in the face she became more and more obsessed with not ending up like her mother. Under enormous emotional strain she became hypochondriacal and finally checked into the Betty Ford Clinic with her sister Lorna Luft to try and sort out her chemical dependency and alcohol abuse. It also gave her a chance to finally confront her feelings over her mother's death. For many years since she has followed a cycle of clean-up, live straight, slip back, check in, clean up. And then her beloved father died.
After another messy funeral when the various children were at odds as to how it should be conducted, Liza once again threw herself into her work with a gruelling concert tour with Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jnr. In 1988 she teamed up with Dudley Moore again to film Arthur II. On the face of it a bad move but, surprisingly, the film was better received than Arthur.
In 1990 Halston, Liza's long-time (platonic) companion died of AIDS; 7 weeks later Sammy Davis Jnr, long time friend and co-performer, died of cancer. That year also saw the death of Liza's marriage to Mark. In 1992 Liza's first husband, Peter Allen, also died of AIDS. Thus began Liza's seemingly interminable round of AIDS Benefits culminating, for many, when she appeared at the Freddy Mercury Memorial Benefit alongside our very own Princess Tinymeat.
However, the worst blow came in 1994 when she was admitted to hospital for hip replacement. But, after a successful operation she was back in in 1997 to have the other one done and, just like the Queen Mum, is happily skipping around like a colt again. Perhaps she will not have the energy to take on another stage role again, or perhaps she will. But her concert-giving career is far from over. As long as she can stand she can sing.
Liza Minnelli will be in concert at Manchester NYNEX on 5th June; Birmingham NEC on 7th June and at The Royal Albert Hall on 10-12 June. Don't even bother phoning the RAH, it sold out ages ago; but there are still a very few tickets left for Birmingham and Manchester. Catch it if you can. I'm going to Birmingham.

First published in Thud
© Paul Towers 9/1997