Liza Minnelli Still Won’t See Mom’s Biopic

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Image via YouTube | Liza Minnelli New York, New York 1991

In A New Candid Interview, Minnelli Dishes On Rehabilitation, Always Being Famous, And All Things Judy Garland


If you’re a living being reading this – you know who Judy Garland is. Not only was Garland an iconic Hollywood figure, but she was an extraordinary actress and mind-blowing singer. Oh yeah, and we can’t forget she was Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz. While the gay community has always been attached to Garland, she was recently showcased to a wider audience as the latest celebrity to be embodied in a biopic about her life, Judy. Judy has been getting buzz for not only being the best tearjerker nominated for endless Academy Awards, but for Renee Zellweger’s out of this world performance as the late idol. The film is heavy – you can’t get through it without crying and empathizing with the starlet. Garland was pushed to her limit from day one and ridiculed for simply being herself. A brief cameo by Garland’s daughter and equally-viewed Hollywood and gay icon, Liza Minnelli, is featured in the film. Minnelli just popped back into the spotlight with a recent interview where she’s revealing her thoughts on the biopic and so much more.


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According to Variety, you won’t catch Minnelli ever watching Rupert Goold’s Judy. The EGOT champion previously mentioned she wouldn’t approve or sanction the film “in any way” and now simply states she hopes Zellweger had a good time making it. She won’t go any further – although the film was not malicious in anyway, one can imagine seeing your mother’s ups and downs would lead to a whirlwind of emotions. Instead, she discusses sobriety. She’s most recently been to rehab in 2015 and is now four years strong and sober, besides chain smoking cigarettes. Like her mother, she’s a self-proclaimed nervous wreck before going on stage. She discusses Garland often in her interview. Minnelli tells:


“I was so happy whenever [my mom] was happy. She was funny, very funny, clear, incredibly intelligent, but more than you could even imagine, and in the moment. I’d tickle her when she was really angry or upset about something. I’d take her by the hips and put her on the bed or on the couch. This is when I’m like 5. We had such fun because she was so funny. She was funny, and she loved her kids so much. She was protective and very strict. She wanted you to do the right thing, like any mother. It’s that simple. Mama got angry [when people would ask questions about her]. She was [the] one who got angry at people for asking me questions about her. She would teach me all the routines she’d learned as a child. We would do them together. I call on her a lot [in my current life]. She’ll say, ‘Ignore it. It’s one opinion. Who cares? Just keep going.’”


Minnelli, who began acting at fourteen-months-old in her father, Vincente Minnelli’s film The Pirate states she knew in the ‘80s she had a problem with addiction. She tells that she’d heard many people go to the Betty Ford Center and with a snap her father took her there. At one point, she believed she wouldn’t survive. You can read Minnelli’s full interview here.


What would this article be without a little taste of the legendary Minnelli’s vocals? She truly did follow in her mother’s footsteps – it’s almost uncanny how they are shadows of one another in every aspect. Check out her annihilating and entertaining a crowd as she sings New York, New York in the ‘90s.


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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ7gFiZbTDo


Writer’s Note: This is the opinion of one Instinct Magazine contributor and does not reflect the views of Instinct Magazine itself or fellow contributors.

H/T: Variety

H/T: Facebook

2 thoughts on “Liza Minnelli Still Won’t See Mom’s Biopic”

  1. Alas, there’s one fact wrong. Liza Minnelli did not make her film debut in The Pirate, but played the daughter of Judy Garland and Van Johnson in the last scene from In the Good Old Summertime. Liza herself mentions this during her sequence in That’s Entertainment (1974).

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