Life’s been a real cabaret for 70-year-old Liza Minnelli
SHE’S the daughter of Hollywood royalty and grew up surrounded by stars, but from the moment she was born — 70 years ago today — Liza Minnelli has basked in the footlights.
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ON March 12, 1946, silver screen superstar Judy Garland gave birth to a baby girl in a Hollywood hospital, breathing life into the sequel to her own compelling, roller coaster life story.
Liza Minnelli, the baby born that day, would never be content to shelter in her mother’s long shadow. And her life would be just as extraordinary as her mother’s.
Showbusiness was deeply embedded in her genetic makeup, and Minnelli went on to create a legend of her own. As she herself quipped to the New York Post on the eve of her 70th birthday today: “I like to think of celebrating my birthday as celebrating my Minnellium”.
From the moment she was born, Liza Minnelli has basked in the footlights. Even her name reflected the Hollywood royalty that surrounded her. She was named Liza for a song written by her godfather Ira Gershwin, famous lyricist brother of composer George Gershwin.
Entertainers Frank Sinatra and Noel Coward were Garland’s first visitors after Minnelli was born, and the young Liza grew up in privileged Beverly Hills where she played with the children of other screen legends. Humphrey Bogart lived on one side of the Minnelli/Garland home, and Lana Turner on the other.
“That seemed perfectly normal to me,” Minnelli would say.
Judy Garland’s close friendship with US President John F. Kennedy led to one unforgettable summer spent at the Kennedy family compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. It didn’t get much more gold-plated than that.
There would be tough times when Liza Minnelli slept on park benches and escaped out the back door of hotels to avoid paying the tariff.
But when she was still a young child, the most dazzling stars of American stage and screen were just friends of mum and dad.
Both of Liza’s parents were big news in Hollywood. Garland would eventually star in more than 34 films including The Wizard Of Oz, A Star Is Born, Easter Parade and Girl Crazy. Vincente Minnelli was the brilliant director of films including Lucille Ball’s hilarious The Long, Long Trailer, the Vincent van Gogh biopic Lust For Life, and the screen musical Gigi.
Garland and Vincente Minnelli met on the set of Meet Me In St Louis, which Minnelli directed in 1944.
Garland is famous for her five marriages, and the one with Vincente Minnelli — her second — would end after six years. Liza Minnelli would remain close to both parents. Immensely hurt by media comments about her mother’s famous addictions, Minnelli became protective.
“Who else is going to protect her?” she once said.
Minnelli attended numerous schools but “ran away”, to seek fame and fortune in New York City when she was only 16 years old. In spite of some rocky times when she actually slept rough, success came readily.
In 1963 Minnelli achieved her first recognition for her role in the off-Broadway play Best Foot Forward, for which she won a Theatre World Award. By the time she was 19, Minnelli had won a Tony award for her first musical Flora The Red Menace. And at 26, she scored the big one — an Oscar for arguably her most famous role, as nightclub singer Sally Bowles in the 1972 hit musical movie Cabaret. For the same role, she also won a Golden Globe.
Minnelli’s other film credits include That’s Entertainment!, Lucky Lady, Martin Scorsese’s New York, New York and Arthur, in which she played opposite Dudley Moore and Sir John Gielgud.
Apart from her appearances on stage and screen, Minnelli has recorded prolifically.
Minnelli was gutted when she learned of Garland’s death from an accidental overdose in London at the age of 47. Just three months earlier, Garland had married her fifth husband, the musician and entrepreneur Mickey Deans.
Minnelli was also much-married — first to Australian entertainer Peter Allen from 1967 to 1972. In 1974 she married Jack Haley Jr, son of Jack Haley who played the Tin Man in The Wizard Of Oz. In 1979 she married the sculptor Mark Gero, then producer and television personality David Gest in 2002. That last marriage was over by 2003 and she has not married again.
Like Garland, Minnelli’s life has been plagued by addictions. However, Minnelli remains defiantly forward-looking.
As she said in 2011, “If you’ve got one foot in yesterday and another in tomorrow, you’re p...ing all over today.”
Originally published as Life’s been a real cabaret for 70-year-old Liza Minnelli
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