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Home , Jack Haley, Liza Minnelli

04.06.11

The world’s : most ‘I will never controversial marry again’ fashion By Tim Teeman magazine When an By Lisa Armstrong autistic child becomes an adult The parents’ story

He smoked dope with his father He crashed his son’s gap year He’s planning to go into space Will RichardBranson ever grow up? By Ginny Dougary Liza Minnelli at home in her NewYork apartment

wouldyou ever marry again? ‘are you nuts? puleeeeze. no... my nerves’ Four husbands,three miscarriages, twohip replacementsand numerousaddictions… There’s onlyone Liza Minnelli

INTERVIEW Tim Teeman poRTRaIT George Holz LIZA MINNELLI

n the late Eighties, when Liza Minnelli’s recorded her “shovelling it in” before making “I don’t think you get married unless it’s fun on, this isn’t working. I want to feel better.’” Results album with the Pet Shop out with while still and you enjoy being with somebody,” she says How did she beat it? “Friends and AA Boys was released, my friend Dave married to second husband Jr. She tightly. “But I had also” − and she enunciates [Alcoholics Anonymous]. I’ve been going a and I would greet each other, arms has been married four times, finally and most this pointedly – “just come through brain long, longtime, everysingle day. It’s useful and outstretched and dramatically slurring scarringly to music producer David Gest, who encephalitis when I married HIM, so, ha ha interesting. Someone will raise their hand and our words, “He-llo, it’s Liizzza.” Like famously kissed her with vacuum-cleaner ha, THAT is all there is to say about THAT.” say something horrendous has happened, the her mother, , she snugly intensity at their wedding in 2002, attended by Has Minnelli missed not having children? next person will say, ‘My cat is shedding all fitted the old-school definition of a “gay a surreal barnyard of the glamorous and now “Sure, I mean, losing three babies, come over my furniture.’ We’re a bunch of friends, I icon”: distinctive voice, much married, a dead (, ). The on, and one so late in the pregnancy...” She all over the world. It’s like going to lunch survivor of the twin demons of drugs marriage would break down with accusations pauses. “I had to give birth to that child. every day. It’s not some cult and it works.” and booze, a rollercoaster life lived with drama of abuse on both sides; they were divorced in It was horrendous.” Where did Minnelli’s demons come from? and joie de vivre, gay former husband, Judy 2007. At one point, Gest attempted to sue her She recounts how, afterwards, alone in the “Stuff happens to every kid, but not on the Garland for her mother... and a great hairstyle for$10 million, claimingshe beat him. Minnelli labour ward at night, she was starting to get so front page,” she says forcefully. “That was for drag queens to copy. Now, 22 years later, denied the allegations. Her representative says depressedfromthe effect of the chemicals, and very difficult, especially when they made in her Upper East Side apartment on a I will “lose her” if I mention his name. she heard a woman down the hall screaming. things up. Suddenly you read you’re drunk muggy day in , here is the star That turns out not to be so. When I ask So shetookherself off, carryingthe IV bag she someplace and you’re in a completely different emerging from her bedroom heading for me, Minnelli would she marry again, she exclaims, was attached to, to find her and held her hand, city.” She softens. “You learn how to live arms outstretched in simple black shirt and “No. Are you NUTS? Puleeeeze, my nerves, then went into the delivery room and helped your life. The minute my front door closes trousers, going straight for a kiss. “Hello, no. NO. Been there, done that; there’s no her deliver her baby. “It was such a moment of I call my friends, go to shows, cook.” She darlingghh,” she says with delicious, breathy reason on earth for me to get married again. hope,” she says. “‘Hope’ is a wonderful word: goes to dance classes with her friend Marisa ‘Peoplehavenoidea what I’ve gone through. Thosewho likedrama see drama; if someonevalues courage, they’llsee courage’

excitement. Big smooch. Dave, we had it Can’t have kids. It’s just a legal thing. I just like you just have to find it. I have 21 godchildren.” Berenson under the tutelage of Luigi Facciuto. spot-on – on the surface, at least. to have fabulous lovers.” (How many she has She laughs with gusto. “I love kids.” Minnelli’s apartment is in a large but not Minnelli sits down at the living-room table, is “maaaa business”, she says, switching to Minnelli’sviral encephalitis of 2000 wasthe grand block on a quiet, unritzy street. Joan lights a fag (the first of many, her only visible Southern belle.) “Do I have to be in love? No. most life-threatening illness she has faced. It Rivers, who lives nearby, presides over a mini- vice). Make-up’s a bit cakey but not OTT. The Some people do, or they don’t feel complete. wasfearedshe would not walk again, Isay.“Or Versailles of well-upholstered gilt. Another 65-year-old singer and actress is recovering Ihavethe giftofnot feelingthat wayany more. talk again,” she roars. “And look at me, I can’t near neighbour,the fashion designer Valentino, from a knee operation, but still working I’m happy.” Does she wish she’d been single stop! I don’t remember being frightened for has Meissen porcelain and pictures by Warhol trouperishly: late last year she released more when she was younger? “No, I wouldn’t long. After they told me I might not be able to and Damien Hirst on the walls. But Minnelli’s Confessions, an album of spiky love songs change anything. I can’t, so why bother?” walk or talk, I thought, ‘No, this isn’t right.’ place, while big (and with hidden doors linking streaked with that bittersweet knowingness Her longest marriage was to third husband “I knew it was possible to retrain another to unseen rooms), is spartan, more show- of hers, and has forthcoming concerts in Mark Gero, a sculptor, from 1979 to 1992. part of the brain to open it up. I counted the homey than cosy: you’d expect more London, Manchester and Glasgow where she “A wonderful man, we built this apartment stripes on the wall and said the alphabet over flourishes and extravagance, and their lack is will sing songs from it, alongside better-known together, we’re still great friends. I was friends and over. One day I said, ‘I’d like to try to telling. Her life may be known for drama, but standards, including . Today, in her with Peter [Allen, her first husband, who later walk,’ and my doctor nearly fell over. Ha ha Minnelli does not revel in it, or fetishize it. greeting, her movements and speech, she came out] and waswith him twodaysbefore he ha ha. But it came, one step at a time.” She Her living room furniture is shrouded in white seems a little (not a lot) scattered, shaky. died[of Aids in 1992]. Jack [Haley Jr,her second won’t countenance thoughts of mortality: sheets, to protect it from her two dogs.

GES: GETTY Is she OK, tired (as I’m told she is after a husband, between 1974 and 1979] and I were “Let’s talk about me, not me dying.” There is a vintage record player, a gift from PA fashion shoot the preceding day), drunk, on wonderful friends.” Which leaves the phantom She adopts the same forge-ahead attitude her half-brother Joey (the son of Garland and something, unwell? Or is this just service-as- of Gest.Isay that Irecall seeingher and David to her addictions. “People have no idea what producer ), and arts medals in glass S. THESE

TO normal, wide-eyed Liza-with-a-Z? on an old Meets... show years ago. I have gone through. If they’ve read anything, cases awarded to her and her father, the film Never far from one’s mind are Minnelli’s “David who?” Minnelli retorts. Gest, I reply. those who like drama see drama; if someone directorVincenteMinnelli. Proppedagainstthe many physical traumas – double pneumonia, Was the relationship fun at the beginning? values courage, they’ll see courage.” Can she wall of the main corridor are large prints of her viral encephalitis, two hip replacements, three describe her addiction to alcohol, for example? when she was so pixily luminescent as Sally miscarriages and, most recently, the knee “Let’s say you’re going out and it’s a stressful BowlesinCabaret (for which shewon an Oscar operation, the recovery from which has been From left, Liza Minnelli Mark Gero, 1986; situation. You have a drink to calm you down. in 1972); of her mother and father (“They’re slow and painful – and her demons. She has with her four husbands: and David Gest, 2002; It works for a little while, then you cross a so in love”); of Minnelli on a film boom with been addicted to Valium, sleeping pills, alcohol , 1967; starring as physical-chemical line and it doesn’t work any her father, rumoured to be gay, who directed and cocaine: in his diaries Jack HaleyJr, 1977; in Cabaret, 1972 more. You feel worse. Then you think, ‘Hang such greats as Meet Me in St Louis and Gigi; PREVIOUS SPREAD: CONTOUR PHO

30 The Times Magazine The Times Magazine 31 LIZA MINNELLI

her as an infant; and, on a shelf, a painting a brilliant album: a collection of intelligent by the singer Tony Bennett of a New York and cynical songs about love, longing, loss street blurry with yellow taxis barrelling past ‘People’s assumptions – “and solutions”, says Minnelli. She made it a theatre bearing Minnelli’s name. with her longtime pianist , when She reveals a picture from a fashion shoot. she was recovering from the knee operation at Nice pins, I say. She says they’re “dancer’s can be annoying. home in bed. “We took a piano in there. It was legs”, sturdy like her father’s. Her mother’s fun. The songs are lovely. You fall in love and were daintier. Being the child of famous go, ‘Ooooh, what’s going on?’ Then it falls Minnelli first wanted to be an ice skater, apart.” Does that encapsulate her love life? but after seeing the Sixties Broadway musical parents wasn’t the “It’s been very interesting and... fabulous,” she Bye Bye Birdie decided to become a dancer. says (“fabulous” is her default word). “They looked like they were having so much Does she like being in love? “I think fun. I wanted to be in the chorus, but with privilege everyone thinks’ everybody does, but what I really like right maybe a line or two. I worked hard: as a now is that I’m not.” She says this abruptly. “I’m really happy with not being in love! When my friends tell me their ‘He said, she said’ stuff, I think, ‘I’m free of that.’” She clasps her hands together. “Yeeessss!” Minnelli is also “fine” with ageing: she says she doesn’t feel old; indeed she feels younger now than at 30. Again, there is this steadfast refusal to look back. With age, she says, has come freedom and a way of achieving what she wants “properly”. “Today is all we’ve got. If you’ve got one foot in yesterday and another in tomorrow, you’re p***ing all over today.” Her health, she insists, is “perfect, I’m so healthy it’s stupid. You have to be an athlete to tour. I have all the energy in the world.” She admits her knee operation was “a hard one to stagehand, in theatre. I did and her singing career flourished on stage and get through. It’s painful. They’re still working everything to learn my craft. TV, in specials such as and Liza on it, but I can walk.” She doesn’t subscribe to “Being the child of famous parents wasn’t Minnelli: at . In 2008/9, Liza’s at characterisations of her as a survivor. “That’s the privilege everyone thinks. I appreciate thePalace... on Broadway wonMinnelli her third too dramatic for me. If my example helps people admiring my work, but their Tony award (to add to the Oscar, an Emmy, others, great. But if I think of myself as a assumptions can be annoying. ‘Well, of course two Golden Globes and a Grammy Legend survivor I have to think about what I’ve been she’s talented: look at who her mother and award: she is one of a very few entertainers through. I can’t accomplish what I want today father were.’ But my success wasn’t pre- who have swept the awards board). if I’m thinking about yesterday.” ordained. What about Jr? So “Luckily, wrote wonderful However, Minnelli embraces the “gay many kids don’t follow their famous parents.” songs for me,” Minnelli says. “Cabaret was icon” mantle: “They have good taste,” she says She refuses to dwell on her mother’s written for me, so were Maybe This Time, stoutly, smiling, but again not camping it up problems: her drug and alcohol addiction and New York, New York, But the World Goes that much for an easy bow. “Look, whatever her death from an overdose of barbiturates, ’Round. I love them all.” makes you happy. I don’t care who my fans aged 47, in 1969. “If I asked for help, she gave Her film career has included Arthur, go to bed with, so long as they come to my it. She appreciated me and respected me for Stepping Out and a demented cover of Single shows.” Should gay marriage be legalised? leaving home and working hard. I was proud Ladies in lastyear’s roundly panned Sexand the “Sure. Why not? It’s not a question of I never leant on her for money or a job. City movie sequel. She “may” do more acting competing with male-female marriage. All “I was really tight with my parents. I was in the future – a few years ago she appeared couples deserve equal benefits and the right protective of them. She was my mother, not in the TV comedy – to have their relationship recognised. You a movie star. You loved The Wizard of Oz, and “but I can’t look back, only forward”. don’t have to understand or condone it, it’s so did I. I didn’t know who that kid, Dorothy, Suddenly she says, “I want to show you really none of your business. It’s about being was. I knew her as the woman who made me something.” We enter a room with a piano and equal under the law.” shepherd’s pie. You didn’t. The woman who director’s chair. “This is where I sing, but look At the door, Minnelli hugs me tight. “Stay drove me to school. You didn’t.” at these,” she says flicking a switch to light a safeand remember this,”she says. “Get through became her mentor. shelf of awards. Shebeckons me to lifther Best the next 15 seconds. Sometimes I can’t even do She first saw him perform when she was 17. Actress Oscar for Cabaret. It’s heavy. “I won that. So I get to 13 and say ‘Good morning’ “I felt I didn’t breathe from the moment he them and deserved them,” she says proudly. and start my day all over again. It works. walked on stage to when he walked off. Every However halting Minnelli seems today, she Remember: 13; I think 10 is for pussiesand 15 song was an acting piece. I thought, ‘That’s is a barnstorming live performer. Confessions is is toolong.”Isn’t 13 unlucky? Shelaughs. “Not what I want to do.’” forme. That’s my lucky number,darling.” n In 1965, aged 19, Minnelli became the youngest actress to win a Tony, for her debut Liza Minnelli with her her debut on Broadway Liza Minnelli’s UK tour runs from June 29

L, GETTY Broadway role in Kander and Ebb’s Flora the parents: ahug from Judy aged 19, and film director to July 6 (tickets from ticketmaster.co.uk and BA Red Menace. She was also a singer, Garland in 1965, following in 1951 ticketline.co.uk). Confessions is out now on Decca KO

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