And I'm Rob Weller. Today on Entertainment This Week, a very special television event.
Our own Barbara Hauer will be spending the entire 60 minutes with Liza Minnelli, looking
back at a remarkable career. And talking about her personal life and her plans for the future.
Stay tuned.
Liza Minnelli is only halfway through her life, but she's had to grow up right before
our very eyes, dazzling us with her spirit and talent, bringing to the public her joy
and her pain. Now for the next hour, she'll share herself with us once again. I'm Barbara
Hauer, and this is Liza.
Now listen. It's Liza with a Z, not Lisa with an S, cause Lisa with an S goes snob. It's
Z instead of S, lie instead of lie. Simple as can be. See Liza. I'll do it again. It's
Liza with a Z, not Lisa with an S, cause Lisa with an S goes snob. It's Z instead of S,
lie instead of lie. Simple as can be. See Liza. And that is only half of it. There's
another way they treat me cruelly. How often I remember someone saying, there she goes,
Lisa Minnelli. It's Liza with a Z, not Lisa with an S, cause Lisa with an S goes snob.
It's Z instead of S, lie instead of lie. It's simple as can be. See Liza. Then M-I double
and then E double L-I. You double up the N, that's not new. Then E double the L, end with
an I. That's the way you say it. Minnelli. Liza Minnelli. It's easy. It's easy. See,
it's Liza. No. Liza.
You walk out on the stage, concert, and they're all coming to really watch you do your number.
I know what you take from that audience, and I can guess at what you give to that audience,
but what goes on in Liza's heart and Liza's mind when she looks at it, that vast sea of
faces and says, entertain them.
Well, it's scary. You know, and a lot of times people have asked me where I get my energy.
I think a lot of it is from fear, Barbara. I really do. When you see 40,000 people staring
at you, you've got to do something. You know, you can't just stand there like a lump. And
I guess I'm frightened at first, and it's the kind of nerves that I think a racehorse
has before the race. In other words, I'm fine once I hit my stride. And then it's a matter
of concentration.
What initially prompted you to gravitate towards the legitimate theater when considering your
background you would have thought that Hollywood would be where your destiny might be found?
Well, anybody who's ever grown up in this town knows. I mean, it's like, and I guess
everybody who grows up someplace wants to go someplace else, you know. And when I was
about 12 and a half, my mother took me for a solid week every night to a different Broadway
show. And I saw Bye Bye Birdie, I think someplace within me when I was watching that show and
all of those kids, and they looked like they were having such a good time. And it looked
like a community. It looked like a, I don't know, a group. I wanted to be part of that
group. I didn't want to be out front. I wanted to be part of the group.
A gypsy?
Yeah. I wanted to be in the dressing rooms, you know, and have people to go out to lunch
with and stuff like that.
You left home at 15. Liza, talk about early courage. How'd you do that?
Well, to be on Broadway, you have to go to New York. So I went to New York. And that
was the last time that I took any money from my parents. And I worked.
So you got encouragement, but no physical support.
No.
Liza, how did you do that? You had no money at all?
Well, no, I had my, my stake money, you know, to go there. My dad bought me a ticket and
I went. And I got a job.
Doors opened, but it really didn't put you where you got.
Oh, it, you put it right. You said it right. Walter Slaszak once said to me, being the
son of the daughter of somebody famous can open a lot of doors for you, but there's no
pull between eight and 11, which was the theater time. And it's true. And people don't want
to spend money on a publicity stunt. You have to deliver. You have to come through.
The now legendary girl and Manelli duo in 1965 on London's palladium. Were you on that
stage with mama or were you on that stage with Judy Garland star?
Well, halfway through it changed. It started, I was on the stage with my mother, you know,
and she was darling to me and I was just darling to her. And we were having a wonderful time
together and I knew she was very nervous. It was, you know, the first time that she performed
in quite a while and that was the only reason I was there and everything was just fine.
And suddenly it shifted on me and I thought, I'm on stage with Judy Garland.
And I kept up because I have that kind of spirit. It was, you know, she gave me that
kind of spirit and it was, I'll never be afraid to be on stage with anybody as long as I live
on stage.
Oh God the earth, no planet made even the earth.
of the weather.
The search must wait to
bloom.
And it's
only all the best
of you.
Jimmy! Hey, Grandpa!
Got everything? Yes, sir.
I got my rods, I got my tackle box.
I forgot something.
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How's it cold tonight? Oh, don't
ask. I got you some cough medicine.
But I'm also sniffling, sneezing,
aching. My head is stuffy,
I'm feverish, and I gotta rest.
I was supposed to get a sniffling, sneezing,
coughing, aching, stuffy head fever so you could
rest medicine? That's NyQuil.
Who relieves a cough as well as this,
plus all my other symptoms. NyQuil!
Would you get me some?
Be right back.
NyQuil. The nighttime sniffling, sneezing,
coughing, aching, stuffy head fever so you
can rest medicine.
There's simply no substitute for the
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Well, there were three nevers in comedy.
Never follow a better comedian.
Never give a heckler the last word.
And no matter how bad a joke
bombs, although it's never happened to me personally,
never let him see you sweat.
That's what dry idea is all about.
Less water, more wetness protection.
It keeps you drier than the leading roll-on.
In comedy, being nervous is natural.
Looking nervous is deadly.
Dry idea. Never let them see you sweat.
It's not easy to have grown up being
Judy Garland's daughter.
But take it from me, it wasn't easy growing up
not being her daughter.
Tell me about it.
I don't think it's easy growing up being
anybody's daughter.
It's just that the whole world happens to
say to you, if you weren't a famous person's
daughter, what would happen in a small
community?
The community happens to be the world in this case.
She didn't give you any handouts.
Oh no.
Not at all.
I didn't because I didn't need them.
I've always had the feeling
that you loved every single minute
of it, all things, you know, being equal.
And that you wouldn't have missed being
Judy's pal for the world. Is that true?
Yes, it's true. I think a lot of that
though,
in hindsight,
and again, trying to
be level here.
I think I
put some of that on,
even when I didn't like it, I think I said I did.
Because I felt,
you know, people were always trying to
make it a heavy duty
load to carry.
And as long as
I could believe that it wasn't that heavy,
I was alright. So you
start to just fight back a little bit more
as people keep saying, gee, but wasn't
it awful? And you want to say no!
You know, and you end up
saying it like that. You know, no, it wasn't awful!
When you really, in reality,
what you want to say is, yeah, it was a little hard, but it was okay.
Do you ever wish the press
and the public would leave
the Garland myth alone and leave you
alone? Well,
that's her problem.
It's not mine. She
dealt with it fine, you know.
It's not my responsibility anymore.
It's not my problem. Okay,
Liza, you have tamed that little
girl in you. You're making her
understand that's not your problem.
How have you done that?
A lot of hard work.
And a lot of soul searching and a lot of mistakes
and a lot of
lying to myself and
paying the consequences for it.
Jack Parr once said
something that just absolutely dazzled me.
He was talking about your mother's funeral.
And he said, Liza took care of everybody
and made everybody
feel the loss a little easier.
She took care of everybody but herself.
How come, Liza, you couldn't make it
easier for yourself when you were so good
at it? How about everybody else?
I didn't have time.
There just wasn't time, you know.
And things kept getting me angry.
Like I would go up in the elevator
after coming back from the funeral home
or whatever I was, you know, trying to organize.
And the elevator man would say,
Oh, God, isn't it sad?
This is a terrible thing. Oh, my nerves.
And I said, Stop it!
Everybody did my
grieving for me.
Do you know what I mean? Nobody once said
and I'm not really complaining
because I understand. Nobody once said,
Are you OK?
Except for my family and my godmother, Kay
and people who are close to me.
But in general,
people were so upset that there wasn't any room
for me to be upset, you know.
Well, did you feel any guilt, now this is
going to sound like a classic analytical
question, did you feel any guilt that your mother
was dead and you were alive and you had
to justify being the one to stay
on this earth? No. None of that.
No, I didn't go. I missed that one.
Gee, I should think about that.
No, I did miss that.
I got around that because
I know how my mom felt
when I look at my brother and sister
and she used to say this to all of us
that we were
the proof
that she had lived, that
she was a good woman
and that she counted.
And she left all of us with that.
She left you with something
else. She left you with very
cemented ties to your brother
and your sister. Very. What do you
think it was that your mother did
that kept you guys so close together,
Lorna, Joey, you? She kept us with her.
You know, we grew up together.
We weren't farmed out. We didn't have to talk
to other people. We were a unit,
family unit and I know how important that is.
If I could walk you down
your mother's old yellow brick road,
take you to the wizard,
what would be the one wish
for yourself that you'd make?
That you wouldn't ask me another question about my mother.
If you love a kid who loves peanut
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The difference is just peanutty
taste that says you mean
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one for your special one
with that taste for peanutty.
When it comes to these
little ones, I could never be too
choosy. So I tried all the big
brands and found gyps taste more like
fresh roasted peanuts bursting with
that just cracked open peanutty taste.
The peanutty gyps
taste.
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Fresh squeezed. Did it this
morning. And then I even made
my famous spaghetti. I don't
have to do these things, but I do.
Even with laundry.
I don't have to use Biz Bleach,
but...
Biz is the only
major brand that makes me feel I'm doing
all I can. And to me, that's what
making a home is about.
Give it all you can with Biz
Bleach.
Life is a
cabaret
old chum.
Come to
the cabaret.
And as for
me, and as
for me, I made
my mind up
back in Chelsea.
Where I go
I
go
I'm going
like
Elsie.
Start by
admitting
from cradle to
tomb.
It isn't that
long a stay.
Life is a
cabaret
old chum.
Cabaret old chum.
And I love
a cabaret.
An Oscar.
Three Tonys.
One Emmy. Yes.
Wouldn't it be easy to rest on your
laurels? Couldn't you just coast the rest
of your life?
Yeah, but the words, they're
cold, you can't lie down on them, they're terrible.
They don't really mean
anything once you've got them.
Because it's only for one thing that you're getting
something. You don't, you don't
get boggled by it. You just
keep going forward.
Pookie Adams in the sterile
cuckoo and Sally Bowles in cabaret.
They're two of your most wonderful roles.
They're not exactly the
girl next door types.
Were you good in those
parts, Liza, because you were at that time
able to empathize with their
zaniness and their recklessness?
I was with Pookie.
Pookie reminded me of
a girl that I was, that a part
of me was. And that
a lot of other girls that I'd known in
school too were like. I think
that at one point in your life,
if you're, well not
necessarily just if you're one, but I think everybody's
got...