HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Liza Minnelli - "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas"

Confessions REVIEW

December 23rd, 2010


Liza Minnelli - (Decca Records/Universal)

Confessions

Richard Burnett

American pop icon Liza Minnelli's rollercoaster career enjoys another high with this scaled-down jazzy album of intimate, piano-driven ballads, including her warm takes on standards from the American songbook, such as Peggy Lee's He's a Tramp and Irving Berlin's I Got Lost in His Arms. Working with her long-time accompanist, pianist Billy Stritch, this elegant and sophisticated old-school vocal album shows that while Minnelli - now 64 - isn't the singer she used to be, she's still an original.

LIZA interview CNN ~ LIZA MINNELLI: CONNECTOR OF THE DAY!

Entertainer Liza Minnelli,Stanley Tucci and Actor Patricia Clarkson attend Cairo Time Event

Actor Patricia Clarkson, Entertainer Liza Minnelli and Producer Christine Vachon attend Cairo Time Event at Soho Grand Hotel on December 15, 2010 in New York City.

Actor Stanley Tucci, Entertainer Liza Minnelli and Designer Kenneth Cole attend Cairo Time Event at Soho Grand Hotel on December 15, 2010 in New York City.

Little LIZA fab Ava as Sally Bowles with Patrick at concert!

Liza on Privite Screenings shared from the "Online Liza Community"!

Liza Minnelli Private Screenings TCM from Liza Community on Vimeo.

Liza Minelli's 'Private' look back at career ~ PRIVATE SCREENINGS. SATURDAY NIGHT AT 10, TCM

Daily News David Hinckley

Saturday, December 11th 2010


LIZA MINNELLI: PRIVATE SCREENINGS. SATURDAY NIGHT AT 10, TCM


Robert Osborne's charming "Private Screenings" session with his longtime pal Liza Minnelli doesn't tell us anything new, through no fault of either participant.

Watching this TCM special is more like sitting by a fireplace near a couch where two old friends are reminiscing.

You know they've told the stories before, but even if we've heard most of them, their enthusiasm makes the encore presentation almost as entertaining for us as it is for them.

Much of the conversation focuses on Minnelli's childhood, drawing out her memories of her mother, Judy Garland, and her father, director Vincente Minnelli.

As it happens, she remembers childhood fondly. Like all kids, she assumed the childhood she had was the norm for all.

After school or on vacations, she would visit the set where her father was directing his current film, exploring the prop and costume rooms and generally, like all cute kids, getting the run of the joint.

"MGM was my playground," she says. "I knew the whole operation."

She also met all the stars and she says nothing here that tarnishes their memories.

Fred Astaire was "amazing," she says, even though she does recall that her father had to talk him into doing his now-famous duet with Gene Kelly (from "The Ziegfeld Follies").

While her mother may have a larger popular reputation than her father, "Private Screenings" spends more time on Vincente, walking through some of his finest works and flashing clips from films like "Cabin in the Sky."

Minnelli does admit that the first time she saw her mother's early signature film, "The Wizard of Oz," she didn't like it.

"It frightened me," she says. She also didn't think of the young woman on the screen, Dorothy, as her mother. It wasn't the woman who sat down with her and her father for dinner every night.

In retrospect, she says, those dinners were surprisingly normal.

"They'd talk about everything except movies," she says. "They'd been working on a movie set all day. That was enough."

Minnelli and Osborne feel so comfortable together that at times Minnelli sometimes seems to talk in the kind of personal shorthand developed in such a friendship.

Some of her responses seem simplified, as if she has to say only a little because she knows Osborne understands the rest. Ironically, if she were talking with someone she didn't know, she might be inclined to further explanation.


That's not a big problem, and it doesn't interfere with the glimpses she offers into her own life, like how she wanted to be a dancer, not an actor.

The main reason that little of this seems startling is that Minnelli's whole life has been lived in the spotlight.

"Private Screenings" doesn't feel all that private, either. But it's a pleasant place to eavesdrop for an hour.



dhinckley@nydailynews.com

Liza Minnelli Opens Up About Her Legendary Parents and Her Amazing Longevity

TV Guide Dec 10, 2010 03:55 PM ET

by Ileane Rudolph
Oscar, Emmy, Tony and Grammy Legend Award winner Liza Minnelli finally joins Robert Osborne's illustrious guest list on Saturday's episode of Private Screenings (10/9c, TCM). I watched her film the chat in the New York's West Village back in June, looking remarkably limber just a few months after knee replacement surgery. She was about to head out on tour to support her album Confessions, released this past September. Earlier this week, fresh from a San Francisco concert, the diva talked to me about her new album and her conversation with Osborne about growing up with legendary parents Judy Garland and director Vincente Minnelli and some of their equally famous friends. (AMC is also airing 10 of her parents' films — including An American in Paris and Gigi — plus Liza's Cabaret on Saturday and Tuesday.)


TV Guide Magazine: After watching the interview, I want to watch all of the films TCM is airing this week. Which of your parents' movies is your favorite?

Minnelli: I like Meet Me in St. Louis because it's the reason I'm here!

TV Guide Magazine: Did your parents meet on that film?

Minnelli: Yes, they did.

TV Guide Magazine: Why has it taken so long for you to go on Osborne's Private Screenings?

Minnelli: I don't know! We've been friends for a long time. But I'm always working. When he said, "Why don't we do this?" I said, "Sure." I think it's because he liked the Confessions album so much. You know, Rock Brynner, Yul Brynner's son, wrote the liner notes. I grew up with him and he's a professor now. It's having wonderful success and I'm so glad. I recorded it before I had my knee replacement surgery and right after. I sang the whole thing in my bedroom. [Laughs]

TV Guide Magazine: Why did you call it Confessions?

Minnelli: That's what it is. The song "Confessions" is a great song. I heard it first when I was 13. Listen to the lyrics. [She sings the song.] The last line is, "I always go to bed at 10 — and then go home at 4." [Laughs] So that introduces what this album's about. Which is all the loves one's had in one's life. It's my first real jazz album



TV Guide Magazine: You talk about your parents' movies on Private Screenings. What do you want viewers to know about Vincente Minnelli?

Minnelli: All you have to do is look at his films to know that he changed history in film — certainly changed the spectrum of color. He was just a wonderful director and a great father.

TV Guide Magazine: What's important to say about your mom Judy Garland?

Minnelli: How funny she was. How she never took herself seriously.

TV Guide Magazine: And Liza Minnelli?

Minnelli: That's up to you! But I like to work. I like figuring things out, studying and creating. The joy of performing is what I'm hooked on.

TV Guide Magazine: You practically grew up at the MGM studios in the late '40s and '50s.What was the most fun?

Minnelli: I always loved to hang out in the dance rehearsal hall because dance was my first love. I loved to watch Cyd Charisse and of course Gene Kelly. I learned how to count watching them. That's why I can learn dance steps so fast now. I wanted to dance so much! That was my playground, MGM. But I never thought of going into movies. My goal was to be on Broadway.

TV Guide Magazine: You certainly did that. Plus you won an Oscar for Cabaret.

Minnelli: That's what so exciting I'm so lucky to have this career and have those great songs written for me. God, when you think about them. And all the awards. I'm just so blessed.

TV Guide Magazine: Speaking of the stage, you've done musical tributes to your dad and godmother Kay Thompson [Funny Face]. How about your mom?

Minnelli: I'm sure I will do that one day, but right now I'm doing so many other things. [Laughs]

TV Guide Magazine: Like your appearance on The Apprentice finale.

Minnelli: Yes, I sang "New York, New York" and "The World Goes Round." I'm open to everything. One minute I'm recording with My Chemical Romance and the next I'm doing a show somewhere in the Balkans!

TV Guide Magazine: So you're nowhere near retirement?

Minnelli: No!

Liza Minnelli: Liza Minnelli - Confessions (VIDEO)

From One Legend to Another: Liza Minnelli Lights Up Donald Trump’s The Apprentice (VIDEO LINK)

http://www.broadway.com/buzz/154567/from-one-legend-to-another-liza-minnelli-lights-up-donald-trumps-the-apprentice/

Michael York on LIZA & making "Cabaret"

LIZA brings little girl on stage at at Davies Symphony Hall on Sunday

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fc%2Fa%2F2010%2F12%2F09%2FDDCQ1GLOPK.DTL
Leah Garchik


During Liza Minnelli's performance at Davies Symphony Hall on Sunday, she noticed a little girl sitting in the front row with her two daddies, Frank Silletti and Sonny Vukic. Six-year-old Ava Vukic was dressed as Minnelli in "Cabaret," in a costume that Silletti made. At the end of the show, Minnelli brought the little girl onstage, sat her in her lap, and sang "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" to her. It was a thrill, notes Silletti, who says the three of them visited Minnelli backstage afterward.


Wasn't Ava overwhelmed by being onstage? Silletti did notice that although Ava smiled back when Liza smiled at her, she looked a little nervous. She explained later: " 'Liza said that she just had knee surgery and I was afraid of hurting her knee.' "

P.S.: The night before, Minnelli, her former stepmother, Denise Hale, and Hale's pal designer, Ken Fulk, had dinner at Gary Danko. And after the performance, Minnelli had dinner at Morton's the Steakhouse. Spies said she was in a party of 12 and "even took the time to visit with other diners who approached her."

LIZA ~ The Apprentice Season 10 finale tomorrow at 10 pm!

Written by TVG

Wednesday, 08 December 2010 09:58

The Apprentice


Choosing The Apprentice

Thursday at 10/9c on NBC

The Apprentice is finally down to choosing The Apprentice. Donald Trump will utter the words he only says once per season, "You're Hired." The only question that remains is, who will he hired, Brandy or Clint?
In the conclusion of the Season 10 finale, the final two candidates continue to work on their crowning challenges. One oversees a VIP golf tournament and the other organizes a Liza Minnelli concert.


During the last episode we were left with Clint seemingly in deep trouble because of spelling errors of the Liza Minnelli name on promotional materials. Mahsa had caught the errors but was coming up short on the money to get them fixed. Clint was also headed for problems with the buffet dinner and didn't seem to appreciate Steuart's input.


Brandy seemed to be having an easier time of it except for golf teams, specifically Donald Trump's team. Trump had requested that Lisa play on his team leaving Brandy one person short on her team and then to make things worse trump ends up only having 3 people on his team because Brandy couldn't find him a forth. Trump isn't happy because it is almost impossible for a three-some to win against teams of 4 and 5. The other issue on Brandy's team was the prizes. Brandy felt gift certificates were better than giving someone a set of five hundread dollar golf clubs because they probably owned clubs worth thousands. Lisa had gone out and bought the $500 dollar golf clubs.

Eventually it all comes down to the board room where Trump questions each team on how they feel they did and asks for opinions on who they thought should be the winner. Clint takes some big heat for his country boy style and always using the word "Y'all"


Tune in Thursday night at 10/9c on NBC to see who is finally choose to be The Apprentice.

BWW Review: Liza Lights Up San Francisco

http://sanfrancisco.broadwayworld.com/article/BWW_Review_Liza_Lights_Up_San_Francisco_20101207
Tuesday, December 7, 2010; Posted: 08:12 AM - by Samantha Toy

broadway WORLD.COM
Liza Minnelli admits she was not the most well-spoken person in her younger days. "The songs [I sang] said what I couldn't say," she said during her concert, "An Evening with Liza Minnelli," on December 5 at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco.


Backed by a sextet that included her long-time piano accompanist Billy Stritch, Minnelli treated San Francisco to an early Christmas present with an action-packed 90 minute show featuring American standards and tracks from her recently released album "Confessions."

Although Minnelli shared memories of her musical life, the songs ultimately told the stories. With classics including "My Own Best Friend" from Chicago, "Our Love is Here to Stay," and "He's a Tramp," the lineup ran the gamut of her famed career, and lauded her legendary family and friends like Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra, and John Kander and Frank Ebb. The audience leapt to its feet multiple times during and after show-stopping renditions of "Cabaret" and "New York, New York."

"Confessions" developed while Minnelli was recuperating from a knee replacement surgery, and Stritch suggested creating an album that captured the intimate feel of singing at home with loved ones. It includes "I Hadn't Anyone Till You," the song Minnelli thought of when she met Stritch, who also lent his voice to the concert with his swingin' solo "No Moon At All."

Keeping with the intimacy of the evening, Minnelli closed the show by inviting a little girl from the audience onstage. Sitting on Minnelli's lap, the girl, who was dressed in a Cabaret-inspired flapper outfit, had the best seat in the house while one of America's most legendary performers sang "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas," the song her mother Judy Garland sang in Meet Me in St. Louis, which her father Vincente Minnelli directed. With a classic near to her heart and appropriate to the season, Liza Minnelli did what she does best - wished San Francisco happy holidays, letting the song speak for itself.

San Francisco Review: Liza Minnelli, what true celebrity is all about

http://www.starkinsider.com/2010/12/san-francisco-review-liza-minnelli-davies-symphony-hall-news-1207201055.html
Liza Minnelli in Concert


Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco

Dec. 5, 2010 On the Web: http://www.sfsymphony.org/

by Cy Ashley Webb

 
Celebrity is a funny thing. I’m not talking about Britney or Angelina what’s her name, but those figures that command our attention decade after decade: Sinatra, Streisand, Taylor, Barishnikov, Newman,… those folks who for one reason or another have come to represent come kind of cultural high water mark. In return for a few hours entertainment, an incomparable sense of style, we demand an enormous amount from these figures.


The flip side of true celebrity, is we forgive these people almost everything. Drug problem? No big deal. Cancelled a show because of health issues? Not an issue. Alcoholism? Goes with the territory. Another blown marriage? Better luck next time. These are the people whose foibles we have almost infinite patience.

Liza Minnelli is on everybody’s short list of true celebs. However, whereas other celebs, like Mick Jagger, are fixed to a particular time and place, Minnelli exists out of time, not wedded a particular decade. Again and again, we listen to her explain that her father was Vincent Minnelli and her mother was Judy Garland – as if that explains everything. Perhaps it does.

Minnelli’s one night appearance at Davies Symphony Hall last night brought out the oddest collection of characters: packs of elderly tourists poured off the buses from God-knows-where to mix freely with the tony gay men who were out in hordes. This huge cross-over appeal is also part of true celebrity.

People were standing and applauding even before Minelli hit the stage. This was clearly a home-town crowd and for tonight at least, Minelli was in her home town. Her first two songs were fractured as she went in one direction and the band in another. Mixing was off and Minelli gasped for breath at the end of lines. It mattered not one iota to this crowd who yelled down “I love you,” and You’re beautiful.”

And then a funny thing started to happen. The cavernous Davies Symphony started to shrink. It happened so slowly and imperceptibly that you might not have noticed it until the end of the show. Every eye was on this infinitely frail woman, hoping that her broken knee wouldn’t give way as she strutted the stage, almost willing her to sit down when her energy lagged. Minnelli fed off the crowd as much as they fed off of her as she responded “This is my favorite sight in the whole world—I wish you could see how you look.”

I won’t pretend that this is the Liza of ten years ago – but then Liza of ten years ago wasn’t the same Liza. However, she delivered a grueling 90-minute set without a break (other than one in which Billy Strtich sang). As Davies became more and more of a small caberet, Minnelli got better and better and better. If her voice can no longer linger on those last notes, she can still belt it out more powerfully than anyone else. She brought the crowd to their feet three times before the show’s end. The “New York, New York” she closed with was every bit as strong as the decades old live recordings. She remains the entertainer’s entertainer.

One vision — maybe an impossibly hopeful one — is that this is what true celebrity is all about. Not the Britney hoopla or all the crap that only cheapens us, but something that transforms performer and audience alike by bringing out our better impulses. This is what Minnelli brought to all of us last night – which made it a very magic evening.

Liza Minnelli in Concert
Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco
4 out of 5 stars

www.sfsymphony.org

LIZA ~ Meet the parents

http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/tv/meet_the_parents_jY9MPuFDxT7WufFapfu8oN
New York Post
Meet the parents


Liza talks (at last) about Mom and Dad

By LOU LUMENICK

Last Updated: 8:31 AM, December 5, 2010

Robert Osborne has known Liza Minnelli since the 1960s, but the Turner Classic Movies host says he never considered asking his longtime friend to sit down with him on “Private Screenings.”


“We don’t have that many of her films in our library and I would have never asked her to appear,” he says. “But we were at a party one night and she said, ‘I’d like to come on with you sometime and talk about growing up at MGM and about my mom and my dad.’ ”

And so Minnelli will be talking not only about her own film career but those of her famous parents, Judy Garland and director Vincente Minnelli.

While she’s talked about her father in the past (“she felt he never got the attention he deserved”) she “never wanted to cash in on her mother.”


Osborne says what comes across in the 50-minute interview — culled from more than two hours he taped — “is the delightful, funny lady I know but not a lot of people know.”

The interview is a nice comeback after Minnelli’s recent bizarre appearance on the Home Shopping Network where she was selling a line of clothing, including a velvet halter jumpsuit and jewelry (“I just started working with clay!”).

Osborne delights in having Minnelli, a remaining symbol of Hollywood royalty, on the show. “She grew up with Lana Turner living on one side and Humphrey Bogart on the other,” he says. “She has a perspective on Hollywood that nobody else has. There are other children of stars, but nobody has has a pair of parents who won Oscars.’ ”

Minnelli, who made her film debut as a two-year-old in her mother’s film “In The Good Old Summertime,” says that “they didn’t put any panties on me. All I remember is Van Johnson’s hand on my bottom. . .it was vaguely uncomfortable.”

She recalls sitting with her father on camera booms at MGM and visiting her mother’s sets. But at home, she says “it wasn’t glamorous. The last thing they wanted to talk about was show business.”

“I love the part when she’s asked about her reaction to seeing her mother as Dorothy in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ for the first time,’” Osborne says. “She says, ‘She was someone who tucked me in at night.’ ”

Her parents didn’t encourage her to go into acting, but she caught the bug after seeing “Bye Bye Birdie” on Broadway.

“The best piece of advice I got about acting was from my mother,” says Minnelli. “She said, ‘You have to listen to the other actor and try to figure out why they’re saying something.’ ”

Her favorite films of her mother’s, “The Clock” and “The Pirate,” were both directed by her father. After her mother died in 1969, her father remained a supportive presence and was with her the night she won the Best Actress Oscar for “Cabaret.”

He later directed her in his last film, “A Matter of Time” (1976).

“It was interesting, but it was also difficult because he was starting to get a form of dementia,” she recalls duirng the interview. “I did the best I could.”


‘Private Screenings’

Schedule:

Saturday, December 11

8 p.m. Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)

10 p.m. Private Screenings

11 p.m. The Clock (1945)

2:30 a.m. Private Screeings (Encore)

12:45 a.m. The Pirate (1948)

3:30 a.m. An American in Paris (1951)

5:30 a.m. Gigi (1958)
Tuesday, December 14

9 p.m. Cabaret (1972)

11:15 p.m. A Matter of Time (1976)

1 a.m. Stepping Out (1991)

4 a.m. Madame Bovary (1949)

6 a.m. The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)

8 a.m. Home From The Hill (1960)

Don't sit alone - come hear Liza sing ~ Minnelli's debut in Tucson was delayed 38 years

http://azstarnet.com/entertainment/arts-and-theatre/article_0107af77-e948-565b-9f03-d4d16d2dcc40.html
Arizona Daily Star
Cathalena E. Burch Arizona Daily Star Arizona Daily Star

Posted: Friday, December 3, 2010 12:00 am
she had been able to make her Tucson debut back in April 1972 - as was planned - we would have seen Liza Minnelli as she was about to blossom.


She was only a handful of years removed from her 1965 Broadway debut and was making a splash nationally for her singing chops. Her mom, Judy Garland, launched that side of Minnelli's career when she invited the then-teenager to perform with Garland at the London Palladium.

We would have caught Minnelli a little less than a year before she won her Oscar for her portrayal of Sally Bowles in "Cabaret," and a few months before she divorced Hubby No. 1 in July 1972 and married No. 2 that September. (To date, she's had four husbands; all of her marriages ended in divorce.)

Mostly, though, we would have been able to get in on the ground floor of a career that turned out to be pretty remarkable: movies, Broadway, TV, recordings.

Minnelli has endured public scrutiny, health scares, tabloid trashing and the strains of age - she's 64 - in a Hollywood and Broadway that celebrate youth. Yet she has persevered and is held up by critics and fans worldwide as the ultimate entertainer.

Alas, that April Tucson concert was canceled just days before she was to perform here.

Tonight, however, Minnelli finally will make up that lost date from half a lifetime passed. She will perform in a UApresents concert at 8 at Centennial Hall, 1020 E. University Blvd. Tickets are $54 to $84 through www.uapresents. org; all the discounted student, senior and military tickets are sold out.

Information: 621-3341.

Photo Coverage: 2010 World AIDS Day Light For Rights

http://broadwayworld.com/article/Photo_Coverage_2010_World_AIDS_Day_Light_For_Rights_20000101
Wednesday, December 1, 2010; Posted: 09:12 PM - by

broadwayWORLD.COM

NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 01: Singer Liza Minnelli attends the World AIDS Day Light for Rights at Washington Square Park on December 1, 2010 in New York City. (Photo by Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images)

NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 01: (L-R) Kenneth Cole, Carson Kressley, Stockard Channing, Tyson Beckford and NYC Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn attend the World AIDS Day Light for Rights at Washington Square Park on December 1, 2010 in New York City. (Photo by Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images)

NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 01: Liza Minnelli and Kenneth Cole attend the World AIDS Day Light for Rights at Washington Square Park on December 1, 2010 in New York City. (Photo by Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images)

NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 01: mTyson Beckford and Liza Minnelli attend the World AIDS Day Light for Rights at Washington Square Park on December 1, 2010 in New York City. (Photo by Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images)

NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 01: Singer Liza Minnelli attends World AIDS Day Light for Rights at Washington Square Park on December 1, 2010 in New York City. (Photo by Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images)




NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 01: (L-R) Tyson Beckford, Liza Minnelli and Kenneth Cole attend the World AIDS Day Light for Rights at Washington Square Park on December 1, 2010 in New York City. (Photo by Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images)

NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 01: Actress Stockard Channing attends the World AIDS Day Light for Rights at Washington Square Park on December 1, 2010 in New York City. (Photo by Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images)

Liza in Washington Square Park for World Aids Day ((VIDEO)...