Liza Minnelli makes some 'Confessions'

Liza recently spoke to the The Greenville News to promote the upcoming concert and "Confessions."


Star says show reflects intimacy of childhood memories
Don’t call it a comeback.


Liza Minnelli said her seeming resurgence into the American consciousness of late – a new album, a new fashion line on HSN, a song and dance cameo in “Sex and the City 2,” and even an appearance on Kathy Griffin’s TV show “My Life on the D-List” – is nothing more than a continuance of decades of steady work.

“If you didn’t hear about it, it was because I was working overseas,” she said.

And now the self-described “modern vaudevillian” is back where she’s spent the most time – on the stage. In conjunction with the Sept. 21 release of her “Confessions” album (her first album not based on a stage show in more than a decade), she’s touring the country performing much-beloved Liza classics as well as her new material.

“That was music that I heard under many pianos all over Hollywood as a kid,” she said of the songs on “Confessions.”

“Because I was shy and I didn’t know how to express myself very well, I would sit and listen to Kay Thompson and I would listen to all of these wonderful people entertain each other,” she said. “It was very intimate and very private, and that’s what this album is. It’s just me and (pianist) Billy Stritch.”

A break from her typical “big, loud, noisy songs,” Minnelli said the music on “Confessions” is “sexier.”

“This is like being in my living room. I was nervous about making it because it was so intimate,” she said, speaking by phone from her home in New York City.

That intimacy is something she seeks to share with the audience during her Sept. 8 show at the Peace Center.

“It’s a conversation, I think – a show – between two people,” she said. “If people are kind enough to give me two hours or 90 minutes of their time, then we’re in it together.”
Minnelli, who made her film debut as an infant in her movie star mother’s arms and become a star in her own right as a teenager, has been a dominating, even iconic, presence in film, song and stage for nearly her entire life.
Through it all, what does she like best?

“I love whatever I’m doing at the time because I put my whole heart into it,” said the 64-year-old Minnelli. “Every day is something new. I’m delighted with every day that I can learn something, that I can go out and see something different.”