Liza Minnelli
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Liza May Minnelli (born March 12, 1946 in Los Angeles, California) is an American actress and singer. She is the daughter of legendary entertainer Judy Garland and her second husband, acclaimed film director Vincente Minnelli (who was of Italian and French descent).
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. Audiences adored her as the "chunky little ball of energy".
Liza started performing at age of 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 her to perform with her at the London Palladium.
The audience loved her, and her musical career was born. She returned to Broadway at 19, and won a 1965 Tony Award for Flora the Red Menace. She also received 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.
Further success and awards
The film The Sterile Cuckoo (1969) garnered her her first Academy Award nomination. In 1972, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as "Sally Bowles" in Cabaret, along with Joel Grey who won an Oscar reprising his role in the movie that he had played in the Broadway musical (that of the creepy "Emcee").
Minnelli has the distinction of being the only Academy Award winner whose parents are both Academy Award winners.
Most recently she has appeared as a recurring guest star on the critically acclaimed TV sitcom Arrested Development as sexually and socially awkward Buster Bluth's lover. She has also won an Emmy Award for the 1972 TV special Liza with a Z.
Minnelli received a 1990 Grammy Legend Award. She received Golden Globe Awards for Cabaret and for the TV movie A Time to Live.
Minnelli, like her mother, is known for her powerful vocal style, as in her trademark songs, "Cabaret" and "Theme from New York, New York." Minnelli's original, 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.
Following her 2002 wedding to David Gest, Minnelli and Gest signed with the American cable network VH1 to star in their own reality series, but production of the series was cancelled at the last minute.
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 (March 12. 2006) Liza Minnelli maintains her status as a living legend in showbusiness and one of the best, - and last, of her kind.
Marriages
Like her mother, Minnelli has had several marriages, and has also been linked romantically to director Martin Scorsese, Peter Sellers, pianist Billy Stritch, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and actor Desi Arnaz Jr. Her husbands have been:
1. 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.
2. Jack Haley, Jr., (September 15, 1974 - 1979), a producer and director. His father, Jack Haley, was Judy Garland's co-star in The Wizard of Oz.
3. Mark Gero (December 4, 1979 - 1992), a sculptor and stage manager.
4. David Gest (March 16, 2002 - July 25, 2003), a concert promoter. The couple announced to the press in late 2002 that they would be adopting a three-year-old girl, to be named Serena Gest. They announced their divorce in 2003. Liza ignored the myriad rumors swirling around Gest regarding his sexual orientation. Liza also was not put off by Gest's long-standing hobby of acquiring Judy Garland collectibles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liza_Minnelli
Cabaret :: Liza Minnelli
What good is sitting alone
In your room?
Come hear the music play.
Life is a Cabaret, old chum,
Come to the Cabaret.
Put down the knitting,
The book and the broom.
Time for a holiday.
Life is a Cabaret, old chum,
Come to the Cabaret.
Come taste the wine,
COme hear the band.
Come blow a horn,
Start celebrating;
Right this way,
Your table's waiting.
No use permitting
Some prophet of doom
To wipe every smile away.
Come hear the music play.
Life is a Cabaret, old chum,
Come to the Cabaret!
I used to have a girlfriend
Known as Elsie,
With whom I shared
Four sordid rooms in Chelsea
She wasn't waht you'd call
A blushing flower...
As a matter of fact
She rented by the hour.
The day she died the neighbors
Came to snicker:
"Well, that's what comes
From too much pills and liquor."
But when I saw her laid out like a Queen,
She was the happiest... corpse...
I'd ever seen.
I think of Elsie to this very day.
I remember how she'd turn to me and say:
"What good is sitting alone
In you room?
Come hear the music play.
Life is a Cabaret, old chum,
Come to the Cabaret.
Put down the knitting,
The book and the broom.
Time for a holiday.
Life is a Cabaret, old chum,
Come to the Cabaret."
And as for me,
I made my mind up, back in Chelsea,
When I go, I'm going like Elsie.
Start by admitting,
From cradle to tomb
Isn't that a long a stay.
Life is a Cabaret, old chum,
Only a Cabarert, old chum
And I love a Cabaret.
