On this day: Liza Minnelli is 70 today
Here are a few facts, a few memories and a few highs and lows of her illustrious career.
Besides winning an Academy Award, she also won two Golden Globe Awards, one Emmy Award, two Tony Awards, a Grammy Legend Award and a Special Tony, as well as many other industry and critics awards. In 2000, Minnelli was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.
She is best known for her portrayal of Sally Bowles in the 1972 musical film Cabaret which won her an Academy Award for Best Actress. The film won eight awards in total, including a Best Supporting Actor award for Joel Grey (father of Dirty Dancing star, Jennifer Grey) and Best Director for Bob Fosse.
Liza Minnelli was born on 12 March 1946, in Los Angeles, California. Her mother was superstar Judy Garland and her father was film director Vincente Minnelli.
After Cabaret, Minnelli’s hot streak continued with the television special, Liza with a Z, which was produced by Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse. The show won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Single Program – Variety and Popular Music in 1973.
In 1977 she starred with Robert De Niro in the musical drama New York, New York directed by Martin Scorsese.
Minnelli performed with her mother during Garland’s stint at the Palladium in London in 1964 and wowed audiences and her mother with her vocal prowess. According to The New York Times, Minnelli said: “It was like Mama suddenly realized I was good.”
She had a difficult relationship with her mother over the years as she tried to care for Garland who suffered from an addiction to pills and from depression.
Playing an offbeat misfit named Pookie, she received her first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for her work in the 1969 film The Sterile Cuckoo. During the production of her next film, Otto Preminger’s Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon in 1969, Minnelli’s mother died from an accidental drug overdose.
Struggling with drugs and alcohol, like her child star mother, Minnelli became one of the first prominent people to openly talk about her problem.
By the mid-1980s, she was ready to tackle her problems with drugs and alcohol. She went to the Betty Ford Clinic for rehabilitation. After getting sober, Minnelli toured extensively and acted in several forgettable films.
More recently, in 2010, she amazed us with her performance in Sex and the City 2.
