Ron Howard: ‘She taught me card tricks aged seven’
I first met Liza in 1963 when I was playing Eddie in a movie called The Courtship of Eddie’s Father. I was seven years old and I got this choice role, which was directed by the great Vincent Minnelli. There were no other kids on this movie, so I had a welfare worker who was also the studio teacher, and I was alone in my little second-grade classroom. But one day, Vincent introduced me to his daughter, who he said was just going to hang around.
She was 14. Hanging out with this seven-year-old kid must have been painful for her, but she was effervescent and fun. I remember feeling so cool that this teenage girl was showing me card tricks. She taught me how to shuffle. She taught me how to play solitaire. When she became a star, which wasn’t that many years later, I recognised her and thought, “OK, that’s Liza Minnelli.”
We never really bumped into each other again until she did Arrested Development in 2003. [Creator] Mitch Hurwitz had a great idea for this character, Lucille 2, and Liza was the only person we pursued. He knew that I’d known her, but I said, “Well, I don’t know if she even remembers me.” But her agent said she did, so I called her to try to recruit her. We laughed about our connection and she was delighted that I remembered. And I was thrilled that she did too.
‘I just marvelled at her comic energy’ … Minnelli and Ed Begley Jr in Arrested Development. Photograph: Everett Collection Inc/Alamy
I was always laughing on the show and always having to collect myself. I just marvelled at how great Liza’s comedy energy was at that point in her life. But she’s always been bold. She has never played it safe her entire life. She’s always been a fearless performer and an artist. Ron Howard is an actor and director and was the narrator and executive producer of Arrested Development
Bruce Roberts: ‘She spilled red wine all over my white carpet’
Liza and I were neighbours in LA, and she drove down one day with her manager Barry Krost. Barry said to me, “This is my new client,” and she looks out the window and goes, “Hi, baby!” I had some songs and said, “Why don’t you come over and record them?” She said: “Well, I’ll think about it.” A day later she calls up: “Hello, baby, it’s me. I want to sing.” I had just gotten all new white carpeting downstairs in the studio. She walks in, and the first thing she does is she spills a glass of red wine all over everything. So it started like that.
I had to be in Liza mode, so I quickly got into it, and she sang 25 songs just sat on my sofa. [The resulting album, Confessions, came out in 2010.] It was all very casual. The performances were great; just pure Liza Minnelli.
‘Everybody in the business would come’ … Martin Scorsese, Minnelli and Robert De Niro during the making of New York, New York. Photograph: Alamy
She had a very social life. She would have dinners, parties, and everybody in the business would come. She’d have a big grand piano, Billy [Stritch, Minnelli’s musical director] would play, and everybody would sing. From Quentin Tarantino to, oh God, every star. Anybody who was in town knew that their Friday would light up. It was just the best time I had in LA. Those are my golden years.
Bruce Roberts is a singer and songwriter
Emma Rice: ‘She’s an absolute glamour bomb’
In my three meetings with Liza, she has been the opposite of starry. She’s always been so generous. She’s so small and charismatic. It’s like this absolute glamour bomb. But with an amazing humility as well.
She stayed in my house once when I lived in Cornwall. I wasn’t there. I’d done it up nicely but it was a pre-fab bungalow, not a glamorous house. She went to the local pub and didn’t let on who she was, but had lovely conversations with the locals. She really absorbed herself in Cornish life.
Every time I’ve met Liza, she has been so flattering about my work. And it feels so awkward because you want to go, “You’re Liza Minnelli, you were in Cabaret”. I’ve always wanted to be on my knees bowing down to her. So really, it’s been two ladies being very kind to each other.
Liza came to see Brief Encounter when it was in New York, and my ill-fated Umbrellas of Cherbourg. It was beloved by a few people. Liza Minnelli was one of them, and it turns out you do need more than that to have a hit. But in terms of the story of my life, it was plenty. She came and joined the cast backstage, including Cynthia Erivo. She was so magic. And, you know, a woman like Liza does not have to do that.
Emma Rice is a theatre director and former artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe
Neil Tennant: ‘I took her to an acid house club with Matt Goss from Bros’
The thing about Liza is, yes, we all liked David Bowie in the early 70s, but there were other things that were really important: films like A Clockwork Orange, Death in Venice, and Cabaret. The way Sally Bowles looked and dressed was, to use that ghastly word, iconic. It goes into punk; Siouxsie Sioux is sort of a version of Liza in Cabaret.
‘She has a core of Liza-ness’: Minnelli and Neil Tennant in 1989. Photograph: Georges De Keerle/Getty Images
Liza is a big star, and the Pet Shop Boys have always been intrigued by big stars. She was embarking on a tour with Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr in 1988, and we met her in the Mayfair Hotel in London. Chris [Lowe] and I came out of the lift and we were tittering because it seemed so ridiculous. We rang on the doorbell of Liza’s suite, she answered, and the three of us all laughed. It was really funny. We had tea and discussed the idea of making a record [released as Results in 1989]. I don’t think Liza knew much about the Pet Shop Boys. The great thing about her is she’ll plunge wholeheartedly into something and take direction, and at the same time has a core of Liza-ness about her.
Matt Goss was trying to write Bros’s second album in the studio upstairs while we were recording Results. So Liza started getting dressed up because every morning she had to come in through this crowd of Brosettes, who increasingly became intrigued by her. We ended up – me, Chris, Matt Goss and Liza – going to an acid house night at Heaven called The Land of Oz. Matt was probably the most famous of us at that time – he was certainly the only one with a bodyguard.
I’m always a bit wary of the “gay icon” business – I think it’s a straight idea. We weren’t trying to do something camp. But there is a definition of camp that revolves around the idea of doing something with complete sincerity, and Liza has an incredible sincerity. For example, the song If There Was Love, which is a bit acid house-y, has a really moving moment. We were recording strings with Anne Dudley, and during the course of the sessions my best friend died of Aids. I was asked to read a piece by Shakespeare at the funeral, so I had the sonnets with me in the studio, and we were going through them with Liza to choose one for me to read. Then we thought, “Why doesn’t Liza read a Shakespeare sonnet on If There Was Love?” She read Sonnet 94 in one take and it’s so beautiful.
Liza did Top of the Pops when Losing My Mind was the highest charting entry of the week, and I went along with her. She wants to be loved by the audience but I said, “No, you’ve got to look cool, don’t smile.” So she invented an electro-pop Liza. The BBC redecorated the dressing room in pink for her – I said to her, “God, they’d never do this for us.”
Neil Tennant is the singer with Pet Shop Boys
Audra McDonald: ‘She said “Audra, baby!” and it melted me’
I first saw Liza in Arthur. So before I got to know her as the incredible live performer that she is, I knew her as Dudley Moore’s girlfriend. I was absolutely smitten with her – I knew every line of that film. Then, when I was in college, I was constantly listening to Live at the London Palladium by Judy and Liza.
Later, I just fell in love with all that Liza is. She has the incredible talent – she’s a wonderful singer, a wonderful dancer, an incredible actress, and the energy that she brings on stage is unlike anything you’ve ever experienced – but the vulnerability and joy that she brings to everything she does is so moving.
‘I knew every line’ … Minnelli with Dudley Moore in Arthur (1981). Photograph: Warner Bros./Allstar
My friend was at an event that both Lorna [Luft, Liza’s half-sister] and Liza were at, and he told them, “You know, my friend Audra is a huge fan of you guys and your mother.” Liza signed his business card for me, and Lorna signed an autographed picture of her in Guys and Dolls. When my friend sent them to me, he wrote, “These are just two things that I thought you might enjoy from people who have seen the inside of Judy Garland’s womb.”
Later, Liza and I did an event at Carnegie Hall together. She said, “Audra, baby!” and it just melted me. I’ve had the fortune of meeting many very famous people, and with some of them you see the persona, and with others you see the humanity. Liza’s “persona” is exactly who she is: a wonderful, frenetic, beautiful ball of humanity and light. If I were to buy her an 80th birthday present I think I would buy her 100 more years.
Audra McDonald is a singer and actor
Minnelli performs with her mother on The Judy Garland Show in 1963. Photograph: CBS Photo Archive/Getty ImagesMichael Feinstein: ‘She used to worry that she’d die at 47’
Having been her friend for 40 years, it is incredible to watch Liza continually evolve and grow in so many beautiful ways. It’s a personal triumph for her to reach 80, for she once had a fear that she would not live past 47 – the age her mother Judy Garland was at her passing. She finds it hard to believe she has reached this age and approaches it with characteristic humour: “Get me to the face doctor quick!”
But she looks amazing, and Liza will always be eternally youthful, even ageless in the way she approaches life. She’s as wise as a zen master. Even if life hasn’t always been a cabaret, she consistently focuses on joy and vitality. So thanks for the life lessons, Liza. I’m so glad you were born.
Michael Feinstein is a musician and archivist of the Great American Songbook
‘She’s as wise as a zen master’ … Minnelli and Michael Feinstein and Minnelli at a party of Cher’s. Photograph: WWD/Penske Media/Getty ImagesGene Simmons: ‘She’s regal, grand and fabulous’
I first met her at the fashion designer Halston’s house, which was a gathering place for celebrated folks. I will never forget how in the middle of his room, with the likes of Rudolf Nureyev, Cher and others there, Liza walked up and started singing a lovely tune. That single act made me feel comfortable. Up until then, I felt out of place.
I got to know Liza a bit more, and she eventually asked me to manage her music career. Soon thereafter I picked up the phone and called Walter Yetnikoff, the head of Columbia and Epic records. He asked us to come to his office and was immediately taken by Liza.
I’ve had the privilege of being close with men and women who have scaled the heights and achieved greatness, but Liza has always been in a class by herself. She’s regal, grand and fabulous. Do yourself a favour: gather a group of your friends, put on Cabaret and get ready to have your mind blown by an icon unequalled.
Gene Simmons is the bassist and singer with Kiss, and was Minnelli’s manager in the late 80s
Robert DeNiro: ‘Happy birthday, long time no see’
Robert De Niro wishes Liza Minnelli happy birthday – video
Robert De Niro co-starred with Minnelli in New York, New York
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