She has been addicted to Valium, sleeping pills, alcohol and cocaine: Andy Warhol in his diaries recorded her “shovelling it in” before making out with Mikhail Baryshnikov while still married to second husband Jack Haley Jr. Never far from one’s mind are Minnelli’s many physical traumas – double pneumonia, viral encephalitis, two hip replacements, three miscarriages and, most recently, the knee operation, the recovery from which has been slow and painful – and her demons. Is she OK, tired (as I’m told she is after a fashion shoot the preceding day), drunk, on something, unwell? Or is this just service as normal, wide-eyed Liza-with-a-Z? Today, in her greeting, her movements and speech, she seems a little (not a lot) scattered, shaky. The 65-year-old singer and actress is recovering from a knee operation, but still working trouperishly: late last year she released Confessions, an album of spiky love songs streaked with that bittersweet knowingness of hers, and has forthcoming concerts in London, Manchester and Glasgow where she will sing songs from it, alongside better-known standards, including Cabaret. Minnelli sits down at the living-room table, lights a fag (the first of many, her only visible vice). Dave, we had it spot-on – on the surface, at least. “Hello, darlingghh,” she says with delicious, breathy excitement. Now, 22 years later, in her Upper East Side apartment on a muggy day in New York, here is the star emerging from her bedroom heading for me, arms outstretched in simple black shirt and trousers, going straight for a kiss. In the late Eighties, when Liza Minnelli’s Results album with the Pet Shop Boys was released, my friend Dave and I would greet each other, arms outstretched and dramatically slurring our words, “He-llo, it’s Liizzza.” Like her mother, Judy Garland, she snugly fitted the old-school definition of a “gay icon”: distinctive voice, much married, a survivor of the twin demons of drugs and booze, a rollercoaster life lived with drama and joie de vivre, gay former husband, Judy Garland for her mother… and a great hairstyle for drag queens to copy.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |