COVER | washingtonblade.com
By GREG MARZULLO
(Photos by Ken Regan)
Oct. 26, 2007
Of all the gay icons working in show business today, none is more legendary than actress, singer and dancer Liza Minnelli.
Her pedigree (daughter of Judy Garland) and love life (one-time wife of gay entertainer Peter Allen) aside, Minnelli’s talent and personality have carried her far with gay audiences, as has her work in helping to raise millions of dollars for the American Foundation for AIDS Research.
Local fans of the ultimate gay icon have a rare chance to see her perform live this week. Minnelli will be performing a one-night concert Saturday at Baltimore’s Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. The show is a charity event for the Chimes school, an educational institution for children with disabilities, and the concert consists of both standards and newer material, some of which is dedicated to Minnelli’s godmother, Kay Thompson.
“She came back to town on the very day my mom died,” Minnelli told the Blade in an exclusive interview. “She really picked up the ball. She really did what I think a godmother should do. She was a huge influence on my life.”
Thompson was herself a legend, working as an arranger and composer for MGM Studios’ musical division during the 1940s when she was only in her 20s. She also performed a cabaret show that toured the country, and she wrote the popular “Eloise” children’s books, about a precocious and endearing little girl who lives at the Plaza Hotel in New York. Thompson died in 1998, and at the time, was living with Minnelli on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
Minnelli is currently working on a full-fledged show about Thompson with the working title of “The Godmother and the Goddaughter: Liza Minnelli Salutes Kay Thompson.”
“It’s the first time I talk about my life, my family, Kay,” Minnelli says. “I never mentioned anybody on stage because I always wanted to make it myself.”
AND MAKE IT SHE DID. Minnelli went to Broadway, proving herself there first, rather than taking on Hollywood, her mother’s stomping grounds. At 19, she became the youngest winner of the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for 1965’s “Flora, the Red Menace.”
The show, written by Broadway writing duo John Kander and Fred Ebb, was part of a long collaboration between Minnelli and the celebrated pair, the team behind “The Act” (another Best Actress Tony win in 1978), “The Rink” (Tony nomination for Minnelli in 1984) and, of course, “Cabaret.”
Surprisingly, Minnelli wasn’t part of the original Broadway cast of the stage show, but her performance in Bob Fosse’s 1972 film version landed her the Oscar for Best Actress.
Minnelli credits Ebb with inventing her, and fondly remembers her interactions with him during a rehearsal for one the film’s most successful numbers, “Maybe This Time.”
“I was singing ‘Maybe This Time,’ … and I’m singing my buns off — I always rehearse like I perform — ‘Maybe this time I’ll win.’ Fred yelled, ‘Fat chance!’”
Ebb continued to razz her throughout the rehearsal, blurting out his own reactions to the lyrics he had written (“Maybe this time, for the first time, love won’t hurry away” caused Ebb to shout “Never! You kidding?!”), and Minnelli still laughs at the memory.
Audiences might wonder how these numbers, so essential to the actress’ reputation and repertoire, hold up after all these years. It would be easy to understand her getting tired of singing the same songs for more than three decades, but Minnelli says she still finds inspiration from her own standards.
“If you’re an actress, you’ve got to figure it out. It’s my job to make it look like I’ve never sung it before, and this is the first time and this is the only time.”
She seems less focused on the legend built up around her than on putting on a good show, not caring so much what the audience thinks of her when they walk into a performance but what they think about her when they walk out.
“It’s my job to entertain them and just be myself, not be some highfalutin whoever I am. I’ve never been highfalutin my whole life.”
Of course, it’s hard to be high-and-mighty when the tabloids report on your every misstep — including addiction struggles and a protracted legal battle with former husband David Gest. She says the pop culture climate has changed dramatically in recent years.
“You don’t know how to handle anything today, because you have to go jail to get some press or fall down drunk,” she says with a laugh.
Her personal tribulations combined with that voice (now fully recovered from the demanding role of Victor/Victoria in the show of the same name) have drawn gay men to her in droves, but she has other suspicions about the reason for her popularity with gay audiences.
“I think because there’s an enormous sensitivity and an appreciation of working through things. I sing songs about working through things … ‘The World Goes ‘Round’ and ‘Maybe This Time.’ When I work on stage, what I’m thinking is ‘I know exactly how you feel.’ Every person in that audience — I’ve been there.”
© 2007 The Washington Blade | A Window Media Publication