By Lucie M. Winborne, ReMIND Magazine
Launching a career in the entertainment world in the shadow of a legendary parent is not for the faint of heart, but like her mother, singer-actress Judy Garland, Liza Minnelli has given it her all ever since her debut on the world stage in 1949. Named for a song by her godfather, Ira Gershwin, Liza was only 3 when she appeared in the musical comedy In the Good Old Summertime, starring her mother and Van Johnson, but didn’t begin performing professionally until her teens. A high-school dropout, she traveled to New York City in pursuit of a stage career and landed a role in the musical Best Foot Forward, for which she earned high praise. She also performed with Judy on the latter’s short-lived TV series and at the Palladium in London, later commenting, “It was like Mama suddenly realized I was good.”
At 19, Minnelli became one of the youngest performers ever to win a Tony Award, for Best Actress in a Musical, and a few years later she received her first Academy Award nomination for her work in The Sterile Cuckoo. But during the production of her next film, she suffered the devastating loss of her mother when Garland died of an accidental drug overdose.
Minnelli’s greatest film role remains that of nightclub singer Sally Bowles in Cabaret, for which she won an Academy Award. Her star continued to ascend with the TV special Liza With a Z, which won an Emmy, but her next three films were box office failures. Returning to Broadway in 1977, she won her second Tony Award for her work in The Act, then charmed audiences as Dudley Moore’s waitress girlfriend in the romantic comedy Arthur.
Offscreen, Minnelli’s life mirrored her mother’s in struggles with drugs, alcohol and failed marriages, but after a stint at the Betty Ford Center she was back on the road and acting again. The films were forgettable, but a world tour called The Ultimate Event with Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. drew consistent sellout crowds and prompted one fan to opine that Liza “added class to the show.”
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Photo Caption #2:
Liza with her mother, Judy Garland