Page 7 - CelebReadies - Kids, Wait Till You Hear This! Part 1

Episode Date: August 27, 2026

This week on Page 7 it's time to join MJ and Jackie as they KICK KICK KICK OFF their 2-part book club of "Kids, Wait Till You Hear This!" by none other than MS. LIZA MINNELLI! Want even more Page 7? Support us on Patreon! Patreon.com/Page7Podcast Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Page 7 ad-free.Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It's celebrities. Celebrities. Oh, my God. My name is Jackie Zabrowski. Welcome to page seven. My name is MJ and kids. Wait till you hear this. Today.

We are talking Liza Minnelli. Now, before you switch the channel to something else, I don't you dare? Come on over to the YouTube because you want to see my high kicks, don't you? Jackie's doing. a lot of Sally O'Malley. She likes to kick, stretch, and kick. No, I'm doing Bulls. I'm Bulls. I'm Boles. I'm Boles from Cabaret. And I'm also Sally Bowles from Cabaret. Thank you for noticing.

Thank you. Thank you for everyone for noticing that we definitely dressed up early in the morning. And to give you our each own versions of Liza, I do love that M.J. You're really pushing the greasy, pointy hair version of Liza. But I'm going to say it. That's a huge portion of Liza. Her hair is like, I feel like we should have a whole conversation about the cultural impact of her hair. Of her hair, because we are here talking about this is going to be the first part of Liza Minnelli's memoir. Kids, wait, you hear this? Will you hear this?

And again, if you are not riveted by this, just in and of itself, may I, let me throw out just a couple of names. that are going to appear in this book. Peter Sellers. Whoa. Fawsey. Mental health problems. Bob Fossy. Whoa.

Obviously, Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra. Whoa. A bunch of gay songwriters from the 70s that you have a guy songwriter you've ever heard of is in this book. She married them all. And that we are listening to her and we are embodying her. Yes. And we are looking up whether or not the book is augmented by AI. And it seems to be that the answer is no.

and that the reason that the way she's reading it doesn't make any sense is not because it's a robot, but because she's Liza Minnelli. It's the Valium, babes. Lots of, I think, her brain has been through a lot. And you know what? Her heart and soul has been through a lot, too, and we're going to talk about it. Oh, we are. So let's get into it.

Yes, because life is a cabaret, oh, chum. And we're going to try, at least I'm specifically going to try to not just sing my way through the episode. But I do need you to know that I am going to be strapped into my YouTube seat. Okay, I'm not going to be getting up. But my legs might be doing some of the dancing for me. Don't you want to come and check it out? YouTube.com slash page seven pod.

Hard to talk about Liza without wanting to sing and dance. And so before we get into the book, Jackie and I thought we should each share what our relationship with Liza Minnelli is going into this book. Now, I think we can all find common ground in Lucille Ostero, Lucille 2 from Arrested Development, which we haven't even talked about. MJ, I am going to throw at this out there that maybe my fit is given a little bit more Lucille 2 than Liza with a Z. but that is not what she is both all right she contains a spectrum okay i can't be 21 years old wearing this outfit okay i can't be half my age wearing this outfit i do want everyone to know that is watching at home i do have shorts on underneath this so you're not just looking at my little red little doggy lips down there right that's that's good to know um you know i think that to even parse the

difference between a 19-year-old Liza and a Lucille, too. It's, she's just so obviously. Are you going to bring up the Valium and the gay husband? There's a couple of both in there. But here's the thing. By age 19, she is already broken in many ways because her mother is Judy Garland. And that's really the biggest thing that I knew going into this book. And yes, I've learned a lot about Liza, but ultimately, the subtitle of the book could be,

my mother was Judy Garland. and boy, did that fuck me up. Except, MJ, you say that, but there's no way that Liza Minnelli, although she loves her mother, and her mother definitely didn't kill herself. There's no way, Mama ever would have taken all those pills. There's no way all 13 times that she tried to kill herself

that I even remember. There's no way that she did. But it is crazy. what we really get is the sense I know we're not even getting into this yet because you're right. What we do know is that Judy Garland was her mother and we're talking about the gush

top part of this episode, right? My mother was a huge, still is, huge Judy Garland fan. I know she's not alone in this. I know that there's like, if you're reading the book, you definitely know everybody was a huge Judy Garland fan.

Everybody was a huge Judy Garland fan. Everybody was. a huge Judy Garland fan and both Judy Garland and Vincent Minnelli come from vaudeville. I was first introduced to Judy Garland in a film called for me and my gal, which is about vaudeville performers. And so that's kind of fun because Judy Garland comes from vaudeville. She sang with her sisters. Her name is like... Sorry, MJ. I think I think you wanted to say, Mama was born in a trunk and Papa was born in a tent. Because that is really how you describe.

where Mama and Papa came from because I need everyone to know she only refers to them as Mama and Papa in the entire book and she does say out the gate, Mama was born in a trunk. Papa was born in a tent. And these are very important

distinctions, okay? Very important distinctions. It's fascinating to me. I think all of that old vaudeville stuff is really interesting. It is. Also, like, it's also really interesting. This book is interesting for so many reasons, but one is to look back and see how studios and films used to be made differently because basically Judy Garland

was just like the in-house star at MGM, and they were just pumping out films, and they were filming them on soundstages. So Liza Manelli, and Vincent Manelli is like a director-producer guy who's also just pumping out MGM films. He and Judy Garland met on a set

of a film. She, of course, was a child star from Wizard Oz and everything, and she was, as she's pumping him out, they're pumping them in terms. You know, they're trying to keep her going. They're keeping her up. They're keeping her down. They're keeping her no matter what. She is moving.

She is singing. And they're like, keep her on the set. Yeah. And so we really get, from Liza's point of view, the first five years of her life is that, like, chapter one, the theme is golden child in an industry town. She's like, my mama's famous, my daddy's famous, and everyone around me is famous. But in like a sweet way, she's just like everyone, all the parents, woke up and went to the MGM studios every morning,

and then we all came home to the block where, like, we live next to Humphrey Bogart and we would just, like, have parties and play piano at night. It sounds fucking awesome. It sounded amazing, MJ, because this is, you're right, she's among all of these stars. She doesn't know, but it is sad. You know, this is around the time that she's talking about

her longest friend ever was Mia Farrow. You know, they're all growing up together in this kind of idealic way. or so they thought, but it is so sad that she's like, my golden years of my childhood, they lasted until she was five. That's when the golden years ended, was when she was five years old, because it's like everything that she talked about

was like how wonderful and how almost wholesome it was. But it wasn't until, man, but she had all that time to relax until she became the right place. old age of five when she kicked mama in the head. We'll get into the accidental kicking mama in the head. But even before we get to that, which is like this moment where she's five and she just like accidentally gets too excited and sees this other side of mama for the first time,

even before that, there's darkness under the golden, right? Because she talks about her three best friends as a kid, Candice Bergen, who of course is the child of Edgar Bergen, who is the puppeteer operator of Charlie McCarthy. And if you were at the 2019 Bell House live show of page seven, we did get into the fact that Edgar Bergen had a closer relationship with his ventriloquist dummy than he did with his daughter. And he raised Candice Bergen, who went on to be Murphy Brown, you know, no small chicken. She was basically siblings with Charlie McCarty. She became Murphy Brown, no small chicken.

When you think Murphy Brown, you think big fuck clock. And I tell you, you can't keep her down. Her brother was a ventriloquist dummy, Jackie. Do you remember the photographs? They posed for family photos with her and the dummy. And Liza said, Dad may have been closer to the dummy than candy. And I think we know that's true. We do know that to be true.

Friend number two is Mia Farrow. Friend number three's mother was killed by her boyfriend, which is Lana Turner. So, yes, many tragedies. But again, these tragedies, she just sprinkles in like little extra details background noise

that she just puts into places also forgive me MJ I feel like we didn't let you gush properly because I was talking about how my mom loves Judy Garland so much my mom also was really obsessed with it's like why we were obsessed with wicked why we were obsessed with Wizard of Oz

and all of that because of the because my mom my grandfather worked for Pan Am. He was the vice president of Pan Am. And he also became the vice president of Pepsi, which was around the time that Joan Crawford became the president of Pepsi. And he was working in Pepsi and he knew a lot of the stars. So my mom got to meet Judy Garland at one of those shows that she talks about,

that Liza Minnelli talks about in the book, because essentially Judy Garland had ruined. She was living, they were living so lavishly and not able to make the money to keep it up. So she had to be on the road. So we're talking like she went from Child Start, but then in her like 30s and 40s, she was forced to be bedraggled out on the road

because MGM lets them go. And so she's in these like pill and drug, Like it's like drug and and booze fueled shows. And my mom met Judy Garland backstage of one of those shows when my mom was in high school. Wow. And it's part of the reason why my mom never got into drugs or never, my mom's never been drunk or anything like that was because of how Judy Garland could barely stand and how she could barely speak. And she was so like my mom's. specifically remembers being, like, so upset by seeing her idol like this that it made her

never want to go down that road. Wow. It made me think of, like, all of this, these conversations, which is why I immediately told my mom to listen to the Liza Minnelli audiobook, because as, you know, my mom also was a child from addicts and also, you know, a lot of that generation was a lot of, you know, a lot of screwed up things that a lot of people didn't talk about, you know what I mean? And so I was like, read this because Liza talks so much about being the child of an addict of someone with a substance abuse disorder and watching her mother go through that. And she even talks about that eventually

when she takes her first pill of Valium at her mother. mother's funeral. At her mother's funeral. Yeah. And she talks about substance use. She says, even in the prologue, she's like, nobody had ever heard of substance use disorder. We didn't have this phrase. And we didn't have, and we also didn't know that it was genetic and that this was something that my mom likely inherited from her parent, her mom who also struggled and that I inherited it from my mom. And she's like, now one of the things she begins the book by saying is like lamenting that now we are able to view like these problems with some. compassion and some empathy and less of a purely moral judgment more of like seeing this is like this is also a medical issue but she says back then it was just a moral failing of Judy Garland and yet they used it to sell tickets which is crazy to think of the PR back then

that literally Judy Garland was like this is good it sells tickets they know that I'm desperate they know that I need them They want to be needed. Also, I think it's sad. I mean, there's so many sad things about Judy Garland's life, but one of the sad things is how her life is reduced to her addiction, too, because she, all this stuff that Liza kind of gets into, she was an activist. She was like this lifelong proud Democrat. She wants to, like, speak about the assassination of JFK on television. Did she sang after the assassination of JFK and everyone was like, don't bring it up?

Don't bring it up. And then she does. It's like these are huge moments in history. Totally. That she was such an interesting and compelling, important cultural figure for so many reasons. But she ultimately, her life was in many ways defined by her substance use.

And yeah, for me, the gushes that I have real heads know that I spent years being so hyper-focused on Gene Kelly that I don't even know how to explain it. I was in third. great. I'm reading his biography. I'm watching every film he's ever been in. Well, you have also explained, too, that this has been a part of your gender exploration journey as

well, right? That that's part of what, like, kind of drew you to Gene Kelly and tap dancing and, like, the dandyman overall. Yes, I kind of didn't know that you could be trans. And so as I was, as a kid, I thought, well, I'll just time travel to a different era in history and, and imagine being somebody completely different. And so that was why I fell in love with like the tap dancing leading man because I was like, well, I can't pretend to be like a boy in 1996. So I'll pretend to be a boy in 1952 because even though that's weirder, somehow it's less of sense. But it's not. It's weird. Not in that same capacity at all. But I remember specifically the only thing I ever really knew about Liza and what I loved about Liza

was that she dated as many gay men as I dated and I loved that and I was just like I like calls to like that was one of the and I'm like she's a huge you know monumentous figure of theater as well as

man she just was ripping through those gay men gay men love her and she loves gay men and she gets into a lot name. She talks about it a lot. And so, yeah, her, in chapter one, she's laying this roadmap for like, she calls Ira Gershwin, Uncle Ira.

She calls Frank Sinatra, Uncle Frank, you know, it's like, this is crazy. Humphrey Bogart. Next door neighbor. And so she knows that she loves to sing. She knows she loves to dance. And, and yeah, right, she trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. It's all movie stars. My favorite anecdote from Chapter 1 is she,

trick-or-treats at Gene Kelly's door, and he, I don't even remember what she's dressed up as, but he pretends to be so scared, he opens the door and he sees her and he, like, does like a huge pratfall backwards onto the floor because he's so, and she's just, so it's like this magical movie star child life. Until she was five years old. And then the magic stopped. And then the whole, like, her whole relationship with this, like, I have two loving parents. I live in this community of. stars is literally shattered this one night where she is just an excited kid.

She's wearing cowboy boots because she was into, I don't even remember what it was, howdy duty or some cowboy show that's on TV. She's jumping up and down with her boots on and she accidentally, she keeps saying that she kicks mom in the face. She kicked mama in the head, MJ. I think it was just that her boot went flying and kicked her and hit her. It was an accident. It was just an accident, but this was...

They happened when you're five, you know? It was the first time her mother completely that she, in her memory, because also you think, too, MJ, I'm sure Judy Garland had snapped at her before. This was just the first time she remembered it. Yes. And it was such a, where I think that unfortunately, many of us have been in a situation like this when you're dealing with someone with, you know, either substance abuse issues or mental health issues

that she knew that the way she was screamed at was not befitting the crime that had occurred. Like she knew at the age of five that the way she was being treated was not appropriate. And because this is like also after, I wrote down specifically when she was four. So like the year before, she was talking about singing love for sale by Cole Porter in a dress that she was put out in front of everybody because all of the celebrities were having a celebrity, you know, let's, I'm going to guess a key party, right?

Because it just seemed like a lot of them were all banging each other, right? They're all doing drugs, they're all banging each other. The type of party you see in old movies when there's like, someone's like, oh, play a few tunes on the piano. And they bring out the child. Yes, exactly. They bring out the child to sing. to sing and I feel like she brings, like Liza brings up this memory

because it seems like the last time she sang where her mother wasn't competing against her. Was at the age of four. And because I feel like that was the only moment she described singing in front of her mother and enjoying it. That was it. It's, it is so,

She talks right out the gate. She's like, I know that everybody has this idea of my mother, and people must also have an idea of what it's like for me to have had my mother as a mother. And she says, Mama love me passionately. And to this day, I love her just as much. To this day, I love her just as much. Just as much. I can close my eyes and hear her laugh.

But then she also uses a phrase, we had moments of great love and stinging critique. And that does go on. critique, where Judy Garland is Liza Minnelli's biggest cheerleader. At the same time, she is her biggest competitor and critic. And so from five, when Liza sees, oh, Mama's real, mama is really unpredictable, and this is really, really unstable. Now, mind you, she doesn't even really get into this, but I went back and looked at Judy Garland's biography. and even from ages zero to five. So Liza's born in 1946 and 1951, she's five.

In that period, Judy Garland is hospitalized at least twice, one of which is obviously for postpartum depression, which Liza does talk about and says, we didn't have the words for that. But she attempts suicide shortly after giving birth to Liza. And so even, like you said, even in that time in Liza's early childhood, it's tumultuous, but that's the time that her mom and dad are together. And that's really, I think, what is what gives Liza this cocoon of safety

because shortly after, in her middle childhood, is when Liza, I mean, when Judy and Vincent separate and that's when all hell breaks loose. Well, that's the thing is that she immediately, like Judy Garland immediately starts dating Papa Sid. And Liza finds out that her mother marries Papa Sid. on television. Like, so at a young age, this is when the first, this was the first of the huge monumental things

that have happened to Liza Minnelli that she has found out about on television. She is found out, like, there are multiple times that she found out that her, and or thought her mother had taken her own life via television times when she had OD'd and stuff like that that like she hears about via the television. So this is the beginning.

So she finds out that she marries Papa Sid. And Papa Sid is the father of Liza's two other siblings. The other two siblings. Yeah, they're together for a while. They have two more kids. But also, this is around the time too, when she found out the first time that her, I mean, according to Liza the first time, quote unquote, her mom tried to take her own life.

Um, she tried to slice her own neck. Yeah. Like this is the thing, guys. The way in which, like Judy wasn't just swallowing pit, like that's, she needed a lot of help. She tried to slice her own neck. She, she, and she's also. in this kind of like unpredictable combination of pills that nobody understands because she's like prescribed to much of sleeping pills and she's doing like barbiturists but also she's an alcoholic and yeah she

marries this guy Sid and nobody likes Sid and and she's like Liza calls Sid Papa and Liza's like I don't want to call Sid Papa and because she loves her Papa I mean oh does she love her Papa she doesn't want to call him Papa Sid and because it's the 50 he's not exactly parenting her. You know, the extremely unwell mother is still left to do most of the parenting. But you know, who else is parenting her fucking Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra? Gene Kelly invites 13-year-old Lazzaminelli on TV to sing for me and my gal with him, which is the movie that he did with her mom.

So they have this sweet little special because he's trying to build her up and, like, give her these opportunities. Frank Sinatra. Never compare yourself to Mama. You never compare yourself to Mama. M.J. Frank Sinatra is offering, she gets to be a little bit of an older teenager, but still, like, very young, like 17. No, I think she's old enough, MJ. At 13, that sounds to be old enough to play my love interest on the television, I would say. Frank Sinatra is offering to bankroll her to basically move to New York and start a new life. Also, this quote about her relationship, about Judy Garland's relationship with Frank, Mama's Great Love. During the time my parents were married, I eventually figured. out there was much more between Frank and Mama than friendship, much more.

One of the greatest loves, if not the greatest love of her life. And, you know, what alternate timeline would we be in? I don't think it would have ended better. I don't think it would have ended better. I think it would have been real bad, MJ. Probably worse. And I did write down because at one point right before this, Liza was talking about how funny Mama was and how nobody knew how she was just.

the funniest woman and she had the craziest one-liners. And there was a mean boy at school that was being mean Deliza and Judy told her to say, you tell him, my mother can get thin any time she wants to. But your mother couldn't get talent if she took 20 years of private lessons from Lawrence Livia. And then she said, they're extremely specific. And I don't think it did. I don't think that's, that's, I don't hear that comeback and go like, whoa, I better never be mean to Liza ever again.

You couldn't get talent if she took 20 years of private lessons from Lawrence Liffier. It's a verbose comeback. I do like to imagine that all the 10 year olds in 1954 though, we're like, ooh, whoa, oh, 20 years of lessons. Yeah. It's I don't know. It's not up for the task

of parenting Liza. I just imagine MJ Liza trying to be like, look at how funny she is, boys, look at how funny she is. And she's just like,

I love those. Like I just and that's a horrible. That's a horrible say. Well, I just remember, The Liza love of the movie.

And my and I'm a movie. That is what One of the defining aspects of this book is that Liza Manelli is fiercely defensive of Judy Garland She does not want to say anything bad about her

She is not, she would never make these jokes Ever, ever, ever, never. Completely devoted to her Well also being pretty clear-headed About about what a difficult parent she was And I actually think that that's a very difficult balance to strike She's like, I am devoted to my mother. I will always love her.

I miss her desperately. Of course. And also, she had a lot of really serious problems that really messed me up in a huge way. So sad, though, that in the beginning of the book, as she's talking about Judy Garland, that she just says sadly, oh, I wish I could have saved her. And that is so sad. Because at 13, she says, I became my mother's caretaker. Right, right, right. So while all this stuff with Gene Kelly is happening,

she is being given an opportunity at the age of 13 to go on the road with Gene Kelly. But she's also her mother's caretaker. And she knows that if she's not around, because she's the oldest daughter, and also think of like for my oldest, you know, daughter specifically out there of the weight she had on her that she didn't,

she was like, I can't just go be a star. And I think that this is part of the processes of what truly screwed her up was that she felt like because her mother was struggling at this time, not only with the substances, but also with her career, that she simultaneously thought, oh, I can become a star alongside Mama. and then mama can become stars. Yeah. But Judy never would have really wanted that. She'll use her as a stepping stone.

But Liza would never say that she was used as a stepping stone. Oh my God. The moment where like you said, Judy brings Liza and the two younger kids on the road as she's doing road shows to make money. And there's a moment in Vegas, I think, that she's doing like a pretty big show. she's just like to, Judy's just like not feeling well, you know,

and she's like, doesn't want to sing. And she just, this is when Liza is, I think, 15 and like a young teenager. And she just goes, ladies and gentlemen,

Liza Minnelly, and she just steps off the stage and leaves Liza up there to sing. But not even like, guys, everybody, look at my daughter.

It's more just like, I'm tapping out and tap in. Just bring her, just have her fucking sing it. I don't know, to have her sing it. Because as you say, not only is her is Liza's teenagerhood coinciding with the decline of Judy in terms of her mental health and her substance use, it's also the decline of her career. She's getting as she gets divorced from Vincent, she's dropped by MGM.

And so her career is absolutely tanking right at a time that Liza can feel fully responsible is rising. Is rising. And it is so like especially because Judy is just like, it's just loss after loss after loss for her. at this point. Yeah. And even Liza Minnelli says at this point around this time, and this is in her mid-teendom, she said acting was her safe haven

because singing in front of her mother was too stressful. She dreaded her criticism. She was being so harsh on her. And yet, like you said, MJ, leaving her on stage at the age of 15. So meanwhile, like leaving you to your, your own devices, but not explaining to you that, like, you are strong enough and, like, giving you the confidence and the support to be able to lean on yourself, that she essentially

was giving her, unbeknownst to her, the need to lean on drugs and men and other people because she was never taught how to rely on herself. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, Judy, wants to use Liza to whatever extent it will benefit her, but she is totally terrified of the fact that Liza is young and talented. And yeah, Liza kind of identifies as a singer first and foremost. She has her mom's, she has a very similar voice to her mom. Her mom is also a singer and a dancer. Liza is learning to dance, learning to sing, but is completely held in this cage by her mom. Even her access to singing lessons is determined by whether her mom will let her get singing lessons. And so, like, she desperately wants to just get out of there. Not only is she taking

care of her mom, she's also responsible for the two little kids, but she just wants to go to get out of Hollywood. Because also she feels like Hollywood betrayed her mom. Her mom was like the MGM in-house star for decades. And then she just gets dropped because a star is born tanked because she kept getting flopped. Well, it actually got. Now, MJ, have you seen, we were talking about this. I've never seen that a star is born. I've never seen the Judy Garland version. I haven't seen it either. And we were saying we should do a triplet.

But even the 1954, a star is born is a rebake. So we have to do a quadrant. Quattret. But so it was actually, people thought it was a good movie, but it lost money. But that was kind of supposed to be her big comeback. And the problem was Judy Garland was too messed up to go to the set. So she just kept like trying to be like, I'm Judy Garland. and everybody still was like,

My hands are made in a sand. That's apparently what Bill Hader said. I forgot that he, oh God, who was it? The one from Skeleton Twins, what's her name? Kristen Wig. That when he first was introduced to Kristen Wig, someone said, oh, she does a great Judy Garland, and Kristen Wig walks up to Bill Hader,

and she just went, my hands, I'm made out of sand. And I think about that every time I think about Judy Garland. My hands, I made out of sand. And it's like, and it's crazy too because this is, I mean, certainly we have contemporary examples of this. But Judy is like remains extremely household name famous, but just while she's completely publicly declining. And she has no money. And she has no money. And everywhere they go, like when she's on tour, they had made such a name out of getting into a hotel and then trying to like leave the hotel without paying.

and that people would stop inviting Judy, like Judy Garland couldn't stay at any hotels anymore because they knew that she would bump out without paying the bill. And that's what she was known for. Like, isn't that so crazy? A huge, like a Hollywood darling, and that's what she ended up being known for in the end, was her bills and not paying the bill of her hotels?

To the extent to that Liza claims to have gone back and tried to repay some. of those hotel bills because they skipped out on so many bills. And because she doesn't want anyone to think bad about Mama, like she would go back and fix it. Now this is around- Mola's mess. Classic child of an addict behavior is to go back and clean up your parents' mess. And it's devastating to see.

Now, this is around the time period that so Judy Garland is floundering, right? Liza Minnelli, her star is starting to rise. forgive me if I'm going too fast, MJ, but I wanted to kind of get us into Best Foot Forward. Because now... Yeah, give us into New York City. We're going to New York City, babies.

You have to say it's like Matt Berry, too. I feel like she's like, I had to get out of Hollywood and go to New York City. Yes, baby, get your heels up. Everybody, get your heels up. We're going ourselves to New York City. Hey!

Because we're not just going to be a West Coast baby overall, all right? because the West Coast is for the screen and I'm ready to be a star the stage, baby. Get me to the Broadway, baby. Also, it makes sense in so many ways that she wants to do the stage because one, she wants to do it different.

Her mother was a film star, even though she started as a stage star, but also she spent her formative years going on the road with her mom doing stage shows. So in a way, that is what is comfortable for her, but also it's a way for her to distinguish herself from her mom. So again, bankrolled by Frank Sinatra, although I think she gave the money back.

But Frank Sinatra's like, buddy, you got to get away from your mom. You got to get away from her. You got to get away from her. Which, thank you. Somebody was looking at it. But she actually, she said that. There were multiple, like, angels that Liza Minnelli had among her time of like, she has openly said, like, thank God for this person or else I probably wouldn't be here

right now. Like she was given like other people the way in which that like I feel like maybe this is too personal but thinking about having a mother that had a a mother that was very mentally unwell and no one could help like no one could look in and help that I'm so happy that Liza Minnelli did have some people that were like hey kid you really got it like you're very talented you got to get out of here and it was people who like people who like. And it was people who loved Judy, which is also sad. Like, Frank Sinatra loved Judy. Ira Gershwin loved Judy. Right. But they knew that she couldn't do this. She knew that Liza needed help.

Right. Right. And it is actually, it's beautiful to think of the community. And you think of like the theater community. Think of like, you know, Hollywood. That back then it was way, because the community was so much smaller, they were able to take care of each other. but they also were able to hide a bunch of stuff

because of how insular everything was. So while it helped in many ways, it also was a curse, you know? Yeah, but she starts off strong. She gets to Broadway and she's auditioning. She gets best foot forward. But the problem is, this is the time period when Judy Garland starts the Judy Garland show.

This is when she created. her own production company because she is given the opportunity. Everybody says the Judy Garland show is going to be it. This is what's going to bring you back. Everybody's going to be on the show. Everyone's coming to do it.

We're like, Liza's going to do it. We're all going to do it. And Liza's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm going to do it? I'm on Broadway. I just got booked in a show. And in fact, before Judy Garland, Garland comes in swinging with you have to come help me do by show as Liza has opening night for

Best Foot Forward she saves four seats for Mama Sid and her siblings oh does she save the seats for Mama oh does she save the seats for Mama in the front of MJ? Does Mama show up for the show MJ? She does not she does not show up for the show. She saved four seats for Mama in the front of the show she didn't show up at the show because she thought it was a different night. She thought it was a different night. Sorry, darling, I thought it was the next night.

She's super nonchalant. She doesn't even really apologize. Her opening night on Broadway, mother? Mama can't do it. And this is like, and this is the ways that like, yeah, Mama starts. Liza is now old enough to see like the ways that Mama is actually like really, really making it about herself.

There's a scene later where after one of Liza's other opening nights that Mama did come to, there's then the cast party, and Mama comes into the cast party. Oh, Mama comes into the cast party. Goes right to the piano and is like, shall I sing? Shall I? And it's like, which is better, MJ? Is it better if Mama doesn't show up, or is it better if Mama takes over the cast party? Literally, as she was describing this scene of Mama completely taking over the cast party,

she's like, well, at least she didn't make a scene in the theater. Like, that was how low the standards were. think was at least she didn't destroy my performance because she could have. Because that is something that Judy Garland would have done. Would have done. And so right. And you will see she does do later on. When we talk about the London Palatia.

Oh my God, when we talk about the London Plathium. But we do need to talk about the fact that, all right. So Judy Garland, this is important. She created her own production company to make the Judy Garland show, just like the Desilu a company, production company, which Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, because they were also obviously

friends of Judy Garland. Oh yeah, that was another contemporary partnership where Lucy, Lucille Ball ends up being this really important mother figure for Liza throughout her life too. In fact, Lucille was the one that had said originally that Judy was even

funnier than she was, which I think is you know. Generous. Generous. I think it's I think it's generous. But she is putting everything that she has into this show. And she needs this show to hit. And not only does she, but it's like, okay, you need all this. You need the show to hit, Judy.

You should really be focused on this. But what is she focused on instead? Instead, she's inviting at the time, Liza Minnelli is dating this dancer named Tracy Everett, right? She was, Judy Garland was so upset because while this is all happening, she wants Liza to be on the show. She wants her to be on the show. And Liza's like, Mama, I'm on Broadway. I can't.

I can't do the show. Best Foot Forward is doing so, so well. I cannot leave it to go do your show. So what does she do? She hires her boyfriend, Tracy Everett, who is a dancer, to come and do the show instead, to make, make her for like to force her back as a way of to also

just to dangle him in front of her to be like but I own you I own everything else you do he's a dancer I'm Judy Garland I'll just invite your dancer boy your like rising star aspirationally famous dancer boyfriend to be on my show the Judy Garland show and of course he'll say yes

and he did and this is the first time she basically tries to sabotage Liza's career to get her back to her because Eliza does end up coming back working for the show a little bit and then she gets booked for a regional show and she's like, Mama, great job. I gotta go. Mama, I gotta go.

She's like, you got the show off on its feet. This is going to be great. Best wishes to you. Now I'm going to go do this regional show on the East Coast that I was booked for. And Judy is like, oh, no, you're not. And Judy calls the directors of this regional show. It's like a Cape Cod community theater,

not a community theater, but you know, like a regional for theater across the country and she's like Liza can't do it. Liza can't do it. She's gonna say she can but you have to fire her because she can't do it. Mama, stop calling my directors, Mama. Let me just be on stage.

Mama, let me kick. Mama, let me kick. And to Liza's credit, she's like, I'm doing it. And so she does branch off. This whole section with the Judy Garland show, was it giving you flashbacks to the Joan Rivers show even though I know timeline? Yes.

Yes, yes, yes. We're in a different era. Like Liza even says, it's straight out of gypsy. She said her needs were more important than my feelings. That is something that was always demonstrated to her. Her needs were way more important

than Liza's feelings or needs or wants or anything. Judy came first. And it's crazy how, I just hope Liza has, has processed this. Like I hope she has worked on this and I don't know if she has because I don't know if she would have her mother up on the same pedestal

if she really was processing or maybe she was able to completely separate the fact that like Judy Garland as a facet like as an icon it was separate than Mama. And but at the same time everything she's talking about, mama's the one that is doing this. and it's not Judy that's doing it.

She's pretty clear right about it. You know, the reason that the Judy Garland show ends up reminding me of the Joan Rivers show, even though we're in different eras, is because similarly, Judy Garland is like my entire career is writing on this. And it's similarly, it's like, she'd have to go back out on the road.

And no one would take her anymore. But she has all these great connections in Hollywood. She's very creative and very talented. And so all these great people are like, yeah, I'll do your show. And she ends up creating like a real, fun, interesting, fun variety show for television. I looked up Liza and Tracy because Liza and Tracy Everett did this like

steamy dance to the pajama gang game and I watched that, not the pajama gang, but I watched that because at, you know, Liza was talking about how steamy and how, you know, and I wanted to see, was it actually steamy? It was. Well, that's good, although I think that she was still well under 18 at this point. Yeah, yeah, no, I need everyone to understand everything we're talking about right now. She is still a minor. She is not even 18 years old yet. And she's doing all of this, dealing with all of this.

Crazy. She is so young. But Judy, you know, unfortunately, Judy is just in a situation where everything she touches is kind of a And so she's being blackmailed by the producer of the television show. He's, they're kind of, there's kind of sleeping together, but also he's blackmailing her. He ends up like having a huge crash out in his own way. But yada, yada, yada, the Judy Garland show does not survive. I mean, honestly, have you guys heard of it?

No. Yeah. Apparently the first season is fire, though. Like, apparently it's fantastic. It's got to be, you know? It's got to be. And yeah, it is like, it's a fun idea. And one of the, so it was, it was pioneering.

It was interesting. It was controversial. And one of the moments is that it was during, I must have been, 1964 when JFK was killed. And so Judy Garland is like, I want to sing, battle him of the republic. And like, speak of the republic. Which I can't be like, I don't understand that choice. But okay. But she, and the all the network executives are like, totally.

It's just a song that I associate with the Civil War So I don't understand why she wanted to sing it for JFK's assassination But maybe Because that's what Judy decided, MJ If there is something I'm missing there Please let me know because I've spent a lot of time thinking Why battle him of the Republic? Especially because of the recall at her funeral

Right, right, yes They bring it back They like true show those people Do a callback One more time. the executives are like, don't do it. We don't want to talk about JFK's assassination on TV because it's too depressing. And Judy Garland's like, too fucking bad.

It's a huge. I'm Judy Garland. And so by rights, it sounds like it was a, how Liza describes it, that it was a great project. And once again, she loves her mother. She loves her mother's creativity and her vision. But the show doesn't survive. But the kind of end result of all of this is that Mama and Judy end up doing this big, co-headlining show at the London Palladium,

babes. Oh, we got to make it to the stage at the London Palladium. She is 18 years old. Now, this is also right after she had found out, quote unquote, found out that her mother was, had been passed, that her mother was found dead via publicity. But then also they found out, no, no, no, no.

actually it was just it was just another OD it's fine everything's fine I heard she's like okay great so I got to get to the balladium it is crazy that at that point she's 18 years old that another hearing of like her where she was like oh god mama's got oh okay no she's just ODID all right I'll get to the london balladium someone get me to the London balladium you know that's right she thinks her mother has died before she's about to do a show with her mother and then she's a surprise she's okay and and this is they go they go to do it this is the first shared billing show that they have. This is at the London Palladium.

This is huge. She, Judy Garland, because the show goes under, Judy is at her bottom. She goes to Liza and says, I'll only do my comeback with you, which is not fair. It's not okay to do because obviously, Liza, babe, she's coming to you

because she has nothing and she needs you to pull her out of the trash dumpster that she has found herself in because also since she had made the production company all of her money was really gone.

So she was at the bottom, bottom, bottom of her barrel which is of course, unfortunately probably why we had just heard about another instance of her hurting herself, I would assume. And so she knew she was at the bottom of the barrel.

And she, Liza ends up telling the press that she was doing it because she had no choice. It's kind of like, I got to do this. Mama wants me to perform and I'm going to perform with Mama. Because mind you, outside of the Judy Garland show, not only is Liza getting booked on Broadway, but she's also getting booked by like Jack Parr. Agents in New York are wanting to represent her. Everywhere right now. She's hot.

Hot, hot. And she's hot. Yeah. It's so sad that she literally says, I went on stage my mama's daughter and ended the show on stage with Judy Garland. I was going to say, let's read this quote. One minute she smiled at me. And the next minute, she was like the lioness that owned the stage and suddenly found someone invading her territory.

The killer instinct of a performer had come out in her. And she has this whole rumination on like, every mother and daughter will one day have a moment where they're competing. and in my head I'm like, I've never competed with my mother. Her mother's never competed with me. And especially loynally, like we're not, we've never competed. And maybe that's like the, like I have like thanks of, like my mom and I are not like very close in age. So I don't know if that's part of it.

But no, we never had any of that. Yeah, that is one thing. Judy was very young when she had Liza. But yeah, like she just. But I also look a lot like my mom too. Like it's one of those things too where I feel like it's like like Judy. like Judy must have, like she's looking at her daughter, who is beautiful, who is talented,

who is starting from the beginning, who is, who is not put under the pressure she was put under when she was a child. And so she sees all of this opportunity from Liza. And that is so sad because that's not why you're supposed to have children is to like make more opportunities for yourself. And she also, I think, yeah, just sees competition. And so it's like basically I would love to watch a video of this performance because

Liza's like you can see the tension between us on the playback. Like we are, they are technically joint headlining like singing together doing a show. But she was like it was low key. We were fiercely like going at each other. It was like the tensest moment they had had. as mother and daughter fighting for the attention. But a great show, obviously, great show, well received. Historic, too.

Everyone talks about the London Palladium show, and it's so crazy that they were just fighting for the spotlight the entire time. And that line just hit me so hard because I did just kept thinking, when is she going to see her as Judy Garland and not Mama? And this was it. It was on stage at the London Palladium is when she's like, oh, that's not Mama. That's Judy Garland.

Yeah. And and and mind you, she is 17. Liza is 17 still, still a minor. And but also this is when she's finally, she's kind of realized, I think, I think the London Palladium moment is when she realizes like, I have to separate myself from Mama. Mama will never let me share this. will never let me share this with her. It will always be a competition. And so I just have to go do my own thing. And so in 1963 is when she also meets Peter Allen, who's kind of a fun

first gay husband. First gay husband. Oh, you're talking about my first gay husband. Peter Allen. They were safe in each other's arms, MJ. They were safe at each other's arms. It is also, this whole story is very safe because I shouldn't say first gay husband. First bisexual husband. been, but they didn't have the word for bisexual back then. It just didn't exist. They didn't, that wasn't a part of the language yet. They love each other. They do have, she says, we had a great, like, sexual chemistry.

We had a lot of sex. They truly loved each other. They loved each other, but did she walk in on Peter banging a man in their marital bed? Yes. And she, this is so, this is so sad for so many reasons, but she's, says that she's like, things are so, one of the reasons that she's bonded with Peter is that Peter also had a really tumultuous childhood. And they have, like, they like said, they're, they're,

she's a baby. She's 17, but they set out to create this like very stable home. And she is confused by the stability because she's never had it. One of the quotes I wrote down from this section is, as a child, I'd wake up every day and brace myself for life with mama. And so she's finding herself waking up and being like, this is such a loving, stable relationship. I've never had this. Meanwhile, Judy Garland has moved to New York, like the barnacle she is on Liza,

with the two younger kids. With the kids. Her relationship with Sid is so violent that the younger kids are running over to Peter and Liza's apartment. To stay at her place, so she's taking care of them all the time. Meanwhile, again, she's 18 years old. So her and Peter are kind of playing house.

Yeah, they're basically raising her, two younger siblings. But also it was beautiful when she walks in on him having sex with another man in their marital bed. She even says he wasn't broken. He was being honest. And how could she blame him for that? Like she never hated him for his bisexuality. She understood that it's just who he was and she loved every part of him. Despite my heartbreak, I instantly understood this was something Peter could not change. I know. She really, this section is, it's like she walks in and he's having sex with another man. She is completely gut punched. And then, yeah, she's really confused because she doesn't understand that you can be by. And interestingly enough, this comes up a few years later

in cabaret. But I will also throw it out there that it is funny that, like, but it has changed that you can also be bisexual and be monogamous. You know, like I do feel like. I do feel like. I do feel Like there is also, it's like you can also choose to be monogamous regardless of like being bisexual. But I do feel that that was just too much. Like it's like no way could you do that. You know what I mean? And he, the way that he explained it, you know, he said, Liza, I love you more than anyone in the world. And I'm gay.

And he just, I think that for him it was like this is a part of myself that I can't. Deny. Even if I'm by, I just can't. I cannot deny it. This is, yeah, this is a part of me. For some people, that is how it is. I'm not, I've just throwing it out there that it is a little funny of like, that is the antiquated thought of like, well, if you're bisexual, there's no way you can

just choose one forever. Right. You know what I mean? There is, you know, we've grown since then. But I also understand not one, like not denying yourself in a time period when you're like, but this is who I am. Yeah, this is a part of me. and so they decide basically to stay married because they do love each other so much.

And he's like, I love you and I like having sex with you. I just also do need to have sex with men. It is just something about me. And I'm sorry. And Liza has a very funny quote where she says, I married Peter and he didn't tell me he was gay. Everyone knew with me. And I found out, well, let me put it this way.

I'll never surprise anyone coming home as long as I live. I call first. I call first. And then she, but then she's, she said she made that joke and then she's like, I also do apologize to the LGBTQIA. It's like she does apologize for making a joke about the situation, but also was like,

Liza, girl, you had to make a joke. It's okay. You can make a joke about calling first. I don't think the punchline of that joke is that he was gay. It's just that she walked in on someone having sex. And she wasn't, her husband. In her marital bed. Yeah, no matter what.

Nicole first. her husband was having sex with someone else in her marital bed in like so many moments before, these moments of like intense trauma that she is really traumatized by this. She's devastated. She totally thought she was going to have this stable life and stable marriage that she didn't have as a child, especially because Peter and her had such a relationship talking about all of the stuff they had gone through as children. And so she said, you know, she's so grateful for their marriage and the time they had together. She said he helped me understand and come to terms with my childhood.

She admired him as an artist. They did have this very beautiful relationship. Beautiful relationship. Yeah. And then she gets a call from Mama who invites her to her a wedding, a wedding to a man named Mickey Deans, which I think is husband number five for Judy. Oh, Mama. Mama's getting married again, huh? And you know what she said to Mama?

She said, I can't make this wedding, but I promise I'll come to the next one. Take it to the next one, Mama. That's good. That's a good one, Liza. But that was the last time they ever spoke. It was the last one. It was the last time they ever spoke of her telling her that she wasn't going to go to her wedding, another wedding. It is crazy.

Judy, what is? She dies at 48. 47. 47. She was only 47. And Liza was only 23. Babies. Both of them.

Babies. And this was during the first. So this is while, like, Liza's star is crazy rising. Like, she's killing it on Broadway. She's killing it on, like, like, the club, like nightclubs, like cabaret, like singing night scenes. She's doing for less. She's also in the sterile cuckoo. The sterile cuckoo.

And that is what she was shooting where she gets her first Oscar nomination. And that is what she was shooting with Albert Finney. and what I do love is that Albert Finney to Liza on her first dramatic because this is her first dramatic movie role. And for those of us that have done theater, you know that theater acting is very different than screen acting. And I'm assuming back then they didn't have the same kind of classes that we would take. Like, you know, stage acting, obviously it's much bigger.

Everything is big. It is Liza to a T. and essentially Albert Finney says to her because she had only done musicals up until then he said, tone it down love, do half of what you're doing and that is literally what all screen acting film acting classes are like it's like all film acting classes are do a lot less you gotta take it all that

why do you think I'm not on a lot of dramatic movie roles you know why? I got a face for theater you know what I mean? Oh me? looking at me right now, who me, a face for theater? Yes, a whole lifestyle for theater. But this was her getting into her. And then her first dramatic role, she gets an Academy Award nomination.

And her mother doesn't get to see the movie or the fact that she was nominated for an Oscar. And when she was asked how she felt about her mother not knowing or seeing her first Oscar movie, she essentially was like, I'm not upset about it because my mother didn't care about my career. Well, she starts the book by being like the night that I won my first Tony, I called my mom and she immediately criticized me. Immediately criticized me. Like immediately.

And so, yeah, I think she was probably like, yeah, I think it sounds like a very complicated thing when Judy died because obviously Liza loved her. But also she was just, again, the book opens with her being like, I won my first Tony. at 19. It was like the best moment of my life. Fred Ebb, who's one of the songwriters who she's working with, squeezes her hands so hard that her nails break off, her fake nails break off. And she's like so excited to call mom, mama.

And Mama is just like, I was like, I don't know who mom is. Hello. And Mama just immediately undercuts. Criticize. Criticize. Criticize, criticize, just everything. Every. Because, but of course, we now know too. And I hope, I'm assuming Liza knows. It's

because it's like she was becoming, everything that Judy wished that she could also be. And she's watching her daughter have her dreams coming true. And she can't stand it. And this is so much of which I know that this is like an overarching, like an overarching generalization, but I feel like of that time period that raised the baby boomers, that they were trying to,

to get them to like be something, do something. And in a way that I feel like, at least with my boomer mother, she learned and wanted us to do the opposite of like, live for you, don't live for me. I want you, because her mother was so like, you're gonna be everything I never could be and all of that kind of rhetoric. And I'm so glad that we, or at least some of us,

I can't speak for all of us, that like it was more, of, at least for me, in a supportive manner of like, go do whatever you want to do. Go be whatever you want to be. Obviously, mama, look at me now. Yeah, yeah, it's, it really is like, the fact that Judy could never be happy for her is, I feel like one of the great wounds that is still unheeled for Liza.

Because she, again, she starts the book that way and it comes up in every chapter, basically. But, yes, around, and it's, you know, When Judy dies, it's like Vincent Manelli doesn't want to come to the funeral because he doesn't want to deal with a paparazzi. So Liza's doing everything. She's 23. It's all on her shoulders because literally it was Peter that got the call from Mickey Deans, her Judy Garland's latest husband, who was a hustler and a club promoter, which. A drug, her was her drug dealer. Drug dealer.

They met because he was her drug dealer. Essentially. And he's the one, like it's Mickey Deans that. tells Peter and thusly Liza about Judy Garland's death. But yeah, he was the one that sold her pills and

she had fled the country with Mickey Deans prior to her death to London to get away from the IRS. Oh, I forgot that's why they were in London. Yeah, because they were running from the IRS and like that is such a sad. And then right after her death,

Mickey Deans makes a book deal about Judy Garland's death to immediately capitalize on her death to put out every detail of her final days like the piece of garbage that he is. And Liza, again, so protective of her mom and she's like, okay, yes, she did overdose on sleeping pills, but it was an accident. It was an accident. She really, she is convinced that. that it was an accident and it is sad. She didn't know her capacity. She didn't know her tolerance.

Like maybe she just accidentally took too much. She was found in the bath. It's just I love that that's what her brain is saying to protect herself. I do hope that she has, I don't think she has. She's in her 80s and she's saying this. So I'm assuming she's not processed this. It is. She fully believes that her mom wanted to live and that all of these were accidents.

And, you know, this is all for a lot of accidents. Someone should have put, I don't know, like oven mitts on her hands or something. Maybe they really should have brought in those child safety locks on those bottles, I guess. But it is worth also pointing out that Judy Garland did try over the years to get better. There's a scene where she goes with Vincent Minnelli to the East River and throws all of her pills in the East River. You know, like, she, she's like, she wanted to stop. I think that it was a time where she did not have the support that she needed to stop, right? Debilitating, like, disease.

Like, she, like, needed a lot of help that she was not getting. Yeah, but this brings us. I'm not saying she chose it like, oh, like in a willy-nilly, I'm saying that she was, she had a debilitating addiction and disease. Yeah. And it is, it is so sad. and like she even says the final, because she takes her first Valium at her, the day of her mother's funeral,

she was like, the last gift from my mother was drug to addiction. Yes, that, God, that is so cinematic. She's like, I was so upset that the doctor, also, what doctor is prescribing? Why are you giving lies of a Nellie Valium? Do not give her any valium. Guys, can we not?

Again, maybe we didn't know that it was biological then because you're the mom just died of substance. No, they definitely didn't know it was biological. I mean, they're right? There's no, right? I'm assuming. Why are you going to give Judy Garland's daughter Valium?

And then from there on out, thus begins Liza's struggle with substance use, both Valium and also booze, because she's got a lot going on. She has made friends with Fred Ebb and John Cander, who turn out to be big boys, big fun singer-songwriter boys. Oh, big boys. So are they.

Big Boys, MJ. 1970s theater world. And so they are working with Bob Vossi and they are coming up with a musical. A musical like no one's ever seen before. A musical that breaks the mold. Oh, does it?

What's so interesting about this is that her dad was like the architect of the classic musical. For me and my gals, the like everything Fred Astaire was ever in. Everything Gene did, like the musical comedy romps, that they just turned out.

He made every single one of them. That was Vincent Minelli. Which is crazy that we've been talking about Judy this much, but Vincent Minnelli also groundbreaking director and like what he brought to the world of musicals and what, like, so this is, I don't know if Liza was like the, I'm not saying she's the first Nepo baby because I feel like that goes to like, I don't know,

like a king tooth in common. But like I feel like she was up there with one of the OG, Nepo babies of like... Big Nepo. And just like a good nepo, she's like, I have to prove myself by being very good. I have to be very good. But also being groundbreaking because her mother and father were both groundbreaking.

And this, all of the work that goes into cabaret is, like it is different than anything anyone has ever seen any filmed musical ever before. Yeah, this is really interesting. And I just, Jackie and I just watched Cabaret. And so she talks about this break basically from the musicals of yesterday year that her dad produced and that her mother starred in. That were like, love and wholesome and big and tap dancing and sunshine and the characters themselves are singing. I'm breaking out into song. In the middle of a conversation, they break out into song.

This is not that. That is not what Cabaret is also highly recognized. If you have never seen cabaret, throw it on. Especially, man, nowadays, how prescient it is. Like, it really is the idea of when you are so wrapped up in your day-to-day life that when you look up, honestly, it's, I think a lot of us are dealing with this nowadays, you look up and see the destruction of what is going on in your country. and you're like, oh my God, I've been wrapped up in my own brain this entire time. That's essentially what Cabaret is. It's great.

It's also very interesting because Liza says this was kind of like, not only was it one of the first musicals that's like dark and seedy and sexual. And it's Fossy, it's Fossy. It's very bisexual. Again, like her thing of like I loved a man who I thought loved having sex with me, but he loved having sex with men. That dynamic immediately recreated in Cabaret. But also, she says that in addition to like the kind of grittiness of cabaret that was so groundbreaking, she's like it was also taking on these political themes, which I thought was interesting because Sound of Music is from is 1965 and obviously as a film, which was a stage show before, but like I think was a stage show before.

But Sound of music just seven years earlier also about the rise of fascism, also a musical. But it is like the cabaret does it in this very different way because cabaret, none of the characters. are singing in their life. The cabaret, the act of... They sing at the cabaret. The cabaret itself is, as she describes it, the Greek chorus. So as this young, struggling artist,

as Jackie described her, the original manic pixie dream girl. Truly. Liza Minnelly is Sally Bowles. She is the OG manic pixie dream girl. It's crazy. It is so... True words never spoken.

I never understood Liza Mineli as much as I did when you said she's the original manic pixie dream girl and then I put on the first few minutes of cabaret and she's just, she's wacky and she's hot and she's crazy. She's crazy. She's unpredictable.

You don't know what's going to happen. But she's so talented and she's so mysterious and it's just she is everything. I mean, no wonder people were so drawn to her character because they'd never seen that before. Like obviously I had seen, full disclosure, I've seen Cabaret the musical multiple times, but I had never seen the movie.

And this, I can't believe I've gone this far and been a theater person for this long and had never seen this movie because I always, like I said, at the top of this show, I knew Liza, I know Lucille 2, I know like the crazy Liza. I didn't know this like grounded, groundbreaking,

unique character. Like, obviously, it had already been on stage. So she wasn't creating this of her own accord, but also working with Joel Gray who had already won the Tony for being the MC on Broadway

and, like, working with that scene and learning all of the Fossey movements and even down to like everything she learned from Fossey where like a tidbit, like one of her legs is longer than the other leg and Fosse incorporated that into the way that she danced that only she could do and I wouldn't have noticed that until now I was looking for it and even like all of like the like the way in which she did like leg things I could see how Fossi incorporated all of that and Fossi it's all in the choreography it's all in how you hold yourself

and the different like poses and the very dramatic fashions that were, and yet, even though it was such stylistic dancing, it's such a good, dramatic movie. Like, it's also so good. It's so cool. It does. It really does. It's basically like, you know, this young artistic couple is figuring their life out in Germany while the rise of Nazism is happening in the background and is then reflected in the art being performed at the cabaret extremely cool and very much like even though like it's almost like I think it's I think cabaret is is you can't really separate it from from Liza and she says cabaret then because of cabaret we get musicals like Chicago like that are that more you know kind of like dark experimental format we get like the more kind of like like gritty musicals like a Sweeney Todd

You know, like also more political musicals. It was the forefather of those musicals. Hamilton, she says, you know, you can see in like the telling a historical story in a different way, like all of these. And again, I do note, I get like Liza Bray. Like everything Liza says is from Liza's perspective. And so when Liza was like, it's the first musical to like take on the rise of fascism, I'm over here like, sound of music. Of course. It's not, but like in this fashion, though.

Totally. Totally. In this way. And it is a stylistic. It's a complete stylistic break from all of those. And it just happens to be very cool that it's a stylistic break from the musicals that her parents. Made it. It was them who did it.

And she's like, and she is the one that helped break the standard. And that is. Yeah. Honestly, I think that's where we are going to end this episode today of her getting to this point. Because I didn't even. realize that her mom was already gone by the time cabaret happened. Like,

this is the first big thing for her after her mother's passing, which is, I mean, obviously huge, but this is also while her marriage to Peter crumbles. And she gets a divorce in 1974. And it's all crumbling throughout all this cabaret. And she does say there's no such thing as a happy divorce. So she wasn't having a blast during all this cabaret stuff, but she also, so it's like you think about it,

she's dealing with the death of her mother, or she's dealing with like, she's going through a whole, what was I made for? As she moves from stage to screen, while also like supporting butt breaking down everything her parents had built. Like this is huge. This is like, what a transition of life for her.

And she's only what, 23 years old. And just to leave it here with to show you how big cabaret was, it was nominated in the same Oscar year as the Godfather. And she still won Best Actress. She won Best Actress the same year as The Godfather. And she said the only reason why it didn't win Best Movie was because it was up against the Godfather.

The Godfather. So, yeah. which is crazy because cabaret is so good. It is really good. I recommend everybody watch it this week. Yes. Before you join us for our second Helpings episode of celebrities, which will be coming at you tomorrow.

And we hope that you're enjoying these very special episodes of celebrities that we are bringing to you guys because we knew the Liza memoir was going to be huge. And we didn't even. You know, this, we didn't even step on all of the insane amounts of other information that was in the first half of this book. There's so much that happens to this poor woman, I want to say. There's so much. But like, when the book dropped, Jackie and I were both very busy. And I was like, are we going to do this?

Are we going to do this for celebrities? And Jackie was like, we can't, let's let's put it off for now. And I had already bought the book. And I was like, well, I'll never read this book if we're not doing it for celebrities. It's 17 hours. So I'm just not going to read it. And then when we said, okay, this could be a good summer book club. I was like, this is good because I actually do want to read this book.

Yes. I'm not going to read a 17-hour book on my own. And so maybe for you, the listener, you're not going to read a 17-hour book on your own, but you can be moved by the life of Liza. What an incredible person, what an incredible life. And this is only the first quarter of it because she's like, yeah, she's like 20 and she's 80 now. Yeah. And there's a lot more gay men to come.

You guys, don't worry about that. And a lot more affairs to come. And she really treats it easy, breezy. It's like, why not? The amount of times she can be engaged at once is something that I didn't. I only thought J-Lo could do this. But she didn't even rack them up the way. I mean, at one point, I think that she was engaged to three people at one time.

But anyway, we will get to that next. We'll get to it. Next episode. Everybody join us for our second helpings of part two, Liza Minnelli's memoir. I'm so excited. Thank you so much, MJ, for going on this journey with us. This has been enlightening. I hope you guys are enjoying it. And definitely check out Cabaret, check out the London Palladium. Any clips from that if you want to feel, you know, inspired by Liza Minnelli loving her mother almost too much. But let's sing the song, MJ. You ready for the end?

I'm getting my Liza voice on. All right. Just take all my... It's in a book. It's in a book. It's celebrities. Celebrities. Celebrities. Fantastic. This show is made possible by listeners like you. Thanks to our ad sponsors.

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