Jacko's love life, X-rated Lady Gaga and a ghastly husband Liza Minnelli's so glad she escaped
By RICHARD BARBER
Last updated at 10:14 AM on 27th September 2011
Unstoppable: Liza Minnelli has survived four marriages, two hip replacements, one new knee, and a near-fatal bout of encephalitis
Liza Minnelli cuts a tiny figure curled into an oversized chair in her riverside hotel suite. The fathomless black eyes are the only sign of animation in a face the colour of parchment.
She’s wearing silver, high-heeled pixie boots, black velvet trousers and a black hoodie with white skull-and-cross-bones appliquéd up each sleeve, the last thing, apparently, in current New York chic.
If she will forgive the observation, she looks like death warmed up. She smiles that crooked smile. ‘Listen honey, I’m not jet-lagged,’ she says, pulling on an ever-present Marlboro Lite. ‘I’m jet-thumped. I don’t know whether I’m coming or going.’
Ten days ago, she left New York with her lifelong friend Rock (son of Yul) Brynner for Vladivostok where he was tracing his lineage. ‘We’ve known each other since we were five. He’s the first boy I ever kissed.’
She then flew to London (via Korea) to perform at the White Rose Ball this Sunday in aid of the Holocaust Centre in Nottingham. ‘The more we educate young people about the terrible things that happened,’ says Liza, ‘the less likely they could ever happen again.’
At 65, the woman is unstoppable. Four marriages, two hip replacements, one new knee, a near-fatal bout of viral encephalitis, Liza has survived them all. ‘I’ve been down,’ she says, at one point, ‘but I’ve never been out.’
Unlike her mother Judy Garland, who died in London in 1969, awash with booze and pills, aged 47 — and about whom she is ‘bored, bored, bored’ of talking.
But while we’re — briefly — on the subject, she does let slip a sweet, rather revealing tale about Judy.
As a child, she’d wait in the wings at Garland’s concerts, a trembling cup of tea in her hand to deliver to her mother when the final curtain fell.
‘One day, I said to her: “Mama, why are you always so sad when you sing Over The Rainbow?” She looked at me. “It’s what they want,” she said. “Now let’s go get a hamburger.” Forget anything you’ve read. That’s how I remember her. That’s my reality.’
Even so, she slightly gives the game away later in our conversation when she announces: ‘Reality is something you have to rise above.’ What can she mean? A plume of smoke. ‘Well, if you don’t like a chapter in your life, then re-write it. It’s your life. Whatever gets you through.
‘Ha! If you can stand back and laugh at something, you’re in control of the situation. You can face down your demons.’
Liza Minnelli is showbiz royalty, famous even before she was born. Fred Astaire once said that, if Hollywood breeding could be compared to the British royals, Liza ‘would be our Crown Princess’. Noel Coward was the first visitor to her mother’s bedside after Liza was born. Ira Gershwin was her godfather.
And she knows absolutely everyone. When she married music producer David Gest in London in 2002 (more of him in a moment), she was attended by Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor and — bizarrely — Martine McCutcheon. Sadly, the first two are now dead. ‘But there’s not a day,’ she says, ‘when I don’t think of Michael.’
She refuses to be drawn on the upcoming trial for involuntary manslaughter of Jackson’s doctor, Conrad Murray. But she’s happy to recollect the Michael she knew.
‘He was a supremely gifted human being but he didn’t survive, in my opinion, because he’d never been taught the rules of the game,’ says Liza. ‘He and his brothers and sisters were forced to rehearse round the clock while other kids were playing basketball.
‘Michael’s life was precisely the one dictated by his father. The family’s religion [the parents are Jehovah’s Witnesses] means the children weren’t even meant to be in show business. But, when they started making money for their father, that was it. Michael was used and abused almost from the time he was born.
‘Eventually, he distanced himself from his family, created this wonderful place — Neverland — for kids and supported different families. Then, one day, the father in one of those families called up Michael and said, “Unless you give me $30,000, I’m going to tell everyone you made a pass at my son.” And that’s when Michael called me.
'Michael Jackson was a supremely gifted human being, but he didn't survive because he'd never been taught the rules of the game'
‘When he’d finished his story, I remember pausing and then saying: “Michael, maybe you should tell your lawyer about this.” He said: “But it’s insane.” So I repeated my advice. “It’s blackmail, though,” he said. “It is,” I replied, “and that’s why you need to involve your lawyer.” But he wouldn’t.
‘What everyone forgets is that, when kids stayed at Neverland, their parents came, too. And they were treated grandly. But then other people jumped on the bandwagon.’
She sighs. ‘I remember he was going with this girl and he was so in love with her. He came to show me the ring he’d bought for her. I asked him what he was going to say and he didn’t know. So I said: “Let’s rehearse,” and that’s what we did.
‘But the girl turned him down. She said she wasn’t ready to commit right now. She told him to ask again in six months. And it all but killed him. He was heartbroken. I knew all his girlfriends including Lisa Marie who became his wife.’
Liza thinks she knows what killed her friend. ‘In the end, the scorn, the cruelty, the vicious meanness — these are the things that took his life. He was one of the best performers we’ve ever had. He changed everything. But he was only a king when he was on stage.’
On the other hand, Elizabeth Taylor — like Liza — was a survivor. ‘Elizabeth was just a regular girl. The glitter and the glamour and the gutter [as she witheringly dismisses it] were all in the photographs and the way stars like her were presented. The reality was that she was part of an era when movie stars were working actors. She went to the studio. She did her job.’
Taylor’s no-nonsense approach to life is nowhere better illustrated than in this nugget of wisdom she passed on to Liza. ‘I remember calling her one day. I was crying about something awful someone had said about me in the press. There was a pause. “You read that stuff?” she said. She told me she never read a single thing about herself so I stopped, too, there and then, which meant there was never anything lousy going round and round in my brain. I thought that was good advice.’
The colour is returning to her cheeks — but then Liza likes an audience. She takes a sip of her cappuccino, heaped to overflowing with powdered sweetener. ‘I feel centred, content right now,’ she volunteers.
Yet the ghost of David Gest hangs in the air. ‘Now, I wake up each day and it feels like the beginning of the adventure all over again.’
She’s made it a rule that she’s never away from her New York apartment for more than three weeks at a time. Apart from anything else, she’d miss her three schnauzers, Emelina, Oscar and Blaise, that are her heart’s delight.
‘I try to live in the moment and appreciate everything as it happens,’ says Liza. ‘It’s hard to be sad or melancholic when you’re curious about what’s going on around you. Anyway, what’s the alternative? Stagnation?’
And she’s not only talking about her still frequent visits to AA as she continues to live the life of a recovering alcoholic.
She’s certainly curious about the industry that continues to be her lifeblood. ‘I love Lady Gaga. Not long ago, I went to see her show,’ she says. ‘Someone came up to me at the end and asked if I’d come backstage. Lady Gaga wanted to meet me. There she was, her hair normal, no weird costume. Just a simple dressing gown. She looked like a nice kid. She said: “You’re my favourite. You’re my hero.”
There were photographers who wanted a picture of us together so she turned towards them and opened the front of her dressing gown. I immediately closed it. I laughed. She’s into the Madonna thing: shock value. And it works. But the girl has a big talent.’
As for Madonna . . . ‘I think she’s terrific. When I’m chatting to her, she’s just normal, the opposite of grand. We’ll meet in a restaurant with friends. Or hang out at a party. She’s always interesting and interested. She’s smart as hell and keeps her eyes peeled. She misses nothing.’
She adds: ‘Gaga and Madonna have realised the value of shock. But why not? You need to do anything you can in this business to get noticed. And they’ve both done it brilliantly. ‘In a way, I started that with the Sally Bowles look, the cropped black hair, the lashes. It was a look that became important. It went round the world.’
'I try to live in the moment and appreciate everything as it happens'
Liza credits Charles Aznavour as being her biggest professional influence. ‘The first time I saw him perform, I don’t remember breathing for two hours,’ she recalls. ‘Every song was a story. The acting within each song was phenomenal, something I’ve tried to emulate.
‘I never thought I sang that well. I still don’t. My sister, Lorna [Luft], has a better voice than me. But I can act out what I’m singing and maybe that’s what people respond to.’
Liza is firmly back in her groove. ‘Are these good times?’ she asks. ‘Man, these are great times. I no longer trust as easily as I used to, but I’ve become more knowledgeable about picking the people around me.’
Hanging between the lines is the name of he who must not be mentioned (unless you don’t mind being ejected from the hotel suite). ‘I’m certainly not bitter. Bitter is so boring,’ she says
So, broadly speaking, is this why she’d never marry again? ‘Well, look at the history. Come on! But it wasn’t the fault of those poor guys — minus the last fool. When you do what I do, when you live how I live, it’s difficult to be married.’
The ‘last fool’ has been collaborating recently with Sir Cliff Richard on his soul album and what will be his Soulicious tour. But, if the rumour mill is even halfway true, the two are said to have fallen out spectacularly.
‘He [she means Gest] always did talk up a great show. And he could be very, very funny. But look, I married him when I was recovering from encephalitis. My head was all over the place.’ So she’s unsurprised by the current gossip. ‘I wondered how long it would take. I know Cliff. He’s a friend, the nicest man you’ll ever meet,’ she says.
She skids to a halt, super-vigilant neither to enter into a new war of words with her fourth (‘and final’) husband — their divorce redefined acrimonious — nor to give him the oxygen of publicity. ‘If it’s true,’ she mutters, ‘I feel so happy for Cliff.’ I take her to mean that she’s pleased he’s escaped from Gest.
None of which means that men are off-limits. ‘I’ve decided I want three lovers,’ she says, breezily. ‘The first would be enormously rich, with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana skin. The second would be someone who’s passionate about something — science, painting, anything, I don’t care. Passion is so sexy.
‘And finally, I want someone who comes to see me twice a week. I don’t even have to know his name.’
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