Liza Minnelli

Liza May Minnelli (born March 12, 1946 in Los Angeles, California) is an Academy Award-winning American actress and singer. She is the daughter of legendary entertainer Judy Garland and her second husband, acclaimed film director Vincente Minnelli.

Early career

Minnelli's first film appearance was at the age of three in the final scene of the 1949 musical In the Good Old Summertime, starring her mother and Van Johnson.

Minnelli started performing at age 16, in 1963, in an Off-Broadway revival of the musical Best Foot Forward, for which she received good notices. The next year, her mother invited Minnelli to perform with her at the London Palladium. The audience loved her, launching her musical career. She returned to Broadway at 19, and won a 1965 Tony Award for Flora the Red Menace. Minnelli would also receive Tony Awards for The Act in 1978 and a special Tony in 1974. She was nominated in 1984 for The Rink but lost to her costar, Chita Rivera.

Film and television

The film The Sterile Cuckoo (1969), in which Minnelli starred as a love-seeking teenage misfit, garnered the young actress her first Academy Award nomination. In 1972, Minnelli won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as Sally Bowles in the movie version of Cabaret.

Among many coveted awards, Miss Minnelli won an Emmy Award for the 1972 TV special Liza with a Z, a 1990 Grammy Legend Award, and Golden Globe Awards for both Cabaret and the TV movie A Time to Live.

Minnelli, a Triple Crown Winner (having won Oscar, Tony and Emmy), has the distinction of being one of the few Academy Award winners whose parents are both Academy Award nominees.

Minnelli, like her mother, is known for her powerful, belting vocal style, as in her trademark songs "Cabaret" and "Theme from New York, New York". Minnelli's original version of the latter, for the film in which she was a co-star with Robert DeNiro, preceded Frank Sinatra's successful cover version (for his Trilogy album), by two years.

Later career

After her performance as leading lady to Dudley Moore in 1981's Arthur, Minnelli made fewer, and fewer successful, film appearances.

She returned to Broadway in 1997, taking over the title role in the musical Victor/Victoria, replacing Julie Andrews. In his review, New York Times critic Ben Brantley commented, "her every stage appearance is perceived as a victory of show-business stamina over psychic frailty... She asks for love so nakedly and earnestly, it seems downright vicious not to respond."

In 2002, Miss Minnelli married David Gest in a spectacularly lavish ceremony in St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City, but the union ended when she filed for divorce the following year.

In 2004 and 2005 she appeared as a recurring character on the critically acclaimed TV sitcom Arrested Development as Lucille Austero, the lover of sexually and socially awkward Buster Bluth and also the lover of Buster's brother GOB Bluth.

On January 1, 2006, she sang "New York, New York" at the second inauguration of New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. Other famous performances were at the 1978 Studio 54 party honoring New York City's revival, at which a guest was Mayor Ed Koch; the reopening of the Statue of Liberty on July 4, 1986; and at a 2001 New York Mets baseball game that was the metro area's first major sporting event after the September 11 attacks.

At the age of 60, for the "Macy's 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular" televised live, and nationally on NBC on July 4, 2006, gave a remarkable performance of "New York, New York", that was evocative of the singer at her peak.

Marriages and personal life

Minnelli has been married (and divorced) four times; her husbands have been:

Peter Allen (real name Peter Allen Woolnough) (March 3, 1967 – 1972). Australian-born Allen, who died of complications from AIDS in 1992, was Judy Garland's protegé in the mid-1960s.
Jack Haley Jr., (September 15, 1974 – 1979), a producer and director. His father, Jack Haley, was Garland's co-star in The Wizard of Oz.
Mark Gero (December 4, 1979 – 1992), a sculptor and stage manager.
David Gest (March 16, 2002 – July 25, 2003), a concert promoter. They announced their divorce in 2003.

In addition to bringing her widespread critical acclaim, Minnelli's work in Cabaret also did much to cement her popular image, from the black helmet of hair and extravagant eyelashes that have remained her visual trademark to the perception among many that she shares Sally Bowles's combination of fragility and toughness, her hunger for affection, and her heedless detachment from the ordinary. Her well-publicized struggles with substance abuse have made it inevitable that there be comparisons to her mother's stormy career. The reappearance, first at film festivals in 2005 and subsequently on DVD, of Liza with a Z, combined with her resurgent concert schedule, has served as a reminder that, as she enters her sixties, Minnelli remains both a link to the traditions of show-business past and a vibrant performer in her own right.

According to her half-sister Lorna Luft's 1998 book, Me and My Shadows: Living with the Legacy of Judy Garland, Minnelli suffered a devastating miscarriage during her marriage to Jack Haley, Jr., losing a little girl at five months pregnant. She never had a child biologically, and it is widely accepted that Minnelli could not carry a child to term.

Filmography

In the Good Old Summertime (1949)
The Long, Long Trailer (1954) (scenes deleted)
Charlie Bubbles (1967)
The Sterile Cuckoo (1969)
Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon (1970)
Cabaret (1972)
Just One More Time (1974) (short subject)
That's Entertainment! (1974) (narrator)
Journey Back to Oz (1974) (filmed in 1964)
Lucky Lady (1975)
Silent Movie (1976) (Cameo)
A Matter of Time (1976)
New York, New York (1977)
Arthur (1981)
The King of Comedy (1983) (appears in gag cardboard cutout)
The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984) (Cameo)
That's Dancing! (1985) (narrator)
Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night (1987) (voice)
Rent-A-Cop (1987)
On the Rocks (1988)
Stepping Out (1991)
A Century of Cinema (1994) (documentary)
Unzipped (1995) (documentary)
The OH in Ohio (2006)

Upcoming:

Broadway: Beyond the Golden Age (2007) (documentary)

Music

Albums

Best Foot Forward (1963) (Original Cast Recording)
Liza! Liza! (1964) US #115
Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli Live at the London Palladium (1965) US #41
Flora the Red Menace (1965) (Original Cast Recording) US #111
It Amazes Me (1965)
There Is a Time (1966)
The Dangerous Christmas of Red Riding Hood (1966) (soundtrack)
Liza Minnelli (1968)
Come Saturday Morning (1969)
New Feelin' (1970) US #158
Liza Minnelli: Live at the Olympia in Paris (1972, recorded in December 1969)
Cabaret (1972) (soundtrack) US #25 UK #13
Liza with a 'Z' (1972) (soundtrack) US #19 ÙK #9
The Singer (1973) US #38 UK #45
Liza Minnelli: Live at the Winter Garden (1974) US #150
Lucky Lady (1975) (soundtrack)
A Matter of Time (1976) (soundtrack)
New York, New York (1977) (soundtrack) US #50
Tropical Nights (1977)
The Act (1978) (Original Cast Recording)
Live at Carnegie Hall (1981, realised by Minnelli herself in limited editions)
The Rink (1984) (Original Cast Recording)
Liza Minnelli at Carnegie Hall (1987) US #156
Results (1989) US #128 UK #6
Stepping Out (1991) (soundtrack)
Liza: Live from Radio City Music Hall (1992)
Paris (1995) (w/ Charles Aznavour)
The Life: A New Musical (1996) (concept album)
Gently (1996) US #156 UK #58
Minnelli on Minnelli: Live at the Palace (1999)
Liza's Back (2002)
'' The God-Mother and The God-Daughter (coming soon)

Hit Singles

"You Are For Loving" (1963, has reportedly sold 500 000 copies, but never charted)
"(Theme From) New York, New York" (US #104, 1977)
"Losing My Mind" (UK #6, August 1989) (#11 on US Dance chart)
"Don't Drop Bombs" (UK #46, October 1989)
"So Sorry, I Said" (UK #62, November 1989)
"Love Pains" (UK #41, March 1990) (#40 on US dance chart)

Television work

Judy and Liza at the Palladium (1964)
The Dangerous Christmas of Red Riding Hood (1965)
Liza with a 'Z' (1972)
Goldie and Liza Together (1980)
A Time to Live (1985)
Sam Found Out: A Triple Play (1988)
Frank, Liza, and Sammy: The Ultimate Event (1989)
Liza Minnelli: Live from Radio City Music Hall (1993)
Parallel Lives (1994)
The West Side Waltz (1995)
Jackie's Back! (1999) (Cameo)
Arrested Development (2004)

Stage productions

Best Foot Forward (1963) (Off-Broadway)
The Fantasticks (1964) (Tour)
Carnival (1964) (Tour)
Flora the Red Menace (1965) (Broadway)
Liza (1974) (one woman show, Broadway)
Chicago (1975) (replacement for Gwen Verdon from Aug-Sep. 1975, Broadway)
The Act (1977) (Broadway)
The Owl and the Pussycat (1979) London West End
By Myself (1983) one woman show, Los Angeles and London
The Rink (1984) (Broadway)
Victor/Victoria (1997) (replacement for Julie Andrews) (Broadway)
Minnelli on Minnelli (1999) Broadway
Liza's Back! (2002) Broadway

Trivia

Guests at Liza and David Gest's wedding included: Michael Jackson, Tito Jackson, Natalie Cole, Donald Trump and Melania Knauss, Gina Lollobrigida, Diana Ross, Elizabeth Taylor, Mya, Marisa Berenson, Esther Williams, Rosie O'Donnell, David Hasselhoff, Janet Leigh, Mia Farrow, Petula Clark, Mickey Rooney, Kirk Douglas, Martha Stewart, Phyllis Diller, Carol Channing, Andy Williams, Liz Smith, Robert Goulet, Sally Kirkland, Chita Rivera, Joan Collins, Lauren Bacall, Julie Andrews, Luther Vandross, Monica, Cindy Adams, Anthony Hopkins, Robert Wagner and Jill St. John, Paula Abdul, Donny Osmond, Jane Powell, Dionne Warwick, Elaine Page, Brian May, Lorraine Bracco, Gloria Gaynor, Barbara Walters, Patricia Neal, Shaggy, Amber, Vikki Carr, Marilyn McCoo, Buzz Aldrin, Macaulay Culkin, Martine McCutcheon, Robert Altman, Clive Davis, Liam Neeson, Natasha Richardson, Jane Russell, James Ingram, Patti Austin, Michael McDonald, The Doobie Brothers (performed at reception), Ann Blyth, Michael Feinstein, Little Anthony and the Imperials (performed at reception), Paul Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra (performed at reception), Edwin Starr, Freda Payne, Ben Vereen, Deborah Cox, Ashford and Simpson (performed at reception), B.J. Thomas, Blu Cantrell, Billy Gilman, Stephanie Mills, Topol, Melanie C and many others.
Named after the Gershwin song Liza (All the Clouds'll Roll Away) (a song her mother frequently sang in concert)
Has had 2 hip replacement surgeries and 3 knee surgeries.
When Minnelli received the Grammy Legend Award it made her one of the few artists who have won entertainment's top four awards - the Academy Award, the Tony, the Emmy and the Grammy.
Was briefly managed by KISS frontman Gene Simmons in the late 1980's (whom she allegedly also had an affair with).
On September 30, 1991, Minnelli received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She was honored for her career in the live theatre. Her star is located at 7000 Hollywood Blvd.
One of only three actresses, along with Faye Dunaway and Halle Berry, to win both the Academy Award for Best Actress and the Razzie Award for Worst Actress (Dunaway shared her award with Bo Derek).
Minnelli is a fan of the TV show La Femme Nikita, so much in 1997, before Peta Wilson's first TV interview ever on The Rosie O'Donnell Show, Liza secretly called for Peta's Limo to go to her home so she could meet her and give her advice on what to say. Wilson later confirmed this rumor during the interview.
Her mother was pregnant with her while filming her guest starring role as dancer Marilyn Miller in Till the Clouds Roll By (1946) (Garland's scenes were directed by none other Vincente Minnelli). In order to hide her pregnant stomach she was hidden behind stacks of dishes while singing "Look For The Silver Lining" (However, a small bump on Garland's stomach is visible while she is singing "Who (Stole My Heart Away)?"). She joked with Liza's godmother Kay Thompson, "What a song to sing in my present condition".
For many years, she's worked with drummer and conductor Bill LaVorgna who also worked with her mother for some time. The two are quite close and she refers to him as 'Pappy'.
In the fourth episode of a little-known podcast known as "MacDukherGrady" Ms. Minelli is discussed at great length, as the show's participants anticipate her role as the judge in a Gay Pride Week Puppy (not 'Pappy') Show in New York City.

References

Genealogy
Liza Online (UK fan site)

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