{"id":527181,"date":"2026-03-10T16:47:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T16:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/527181\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T16:47:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T16:47:07","slug":"sex-with-scorsese-beef-with-sondheim-and-inventing-the-moonwalk-the-wildest-moments-in-liza-minnellis-memoir-liza-minnelli","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/527181\/","title":{"rendered":"Sex with Scorsese, beef with Sondheim \u2026 and inventing the moonwalk? The wildest moments in Liza Minnelli\u2019s memoir | Liza Minnelli"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tuesday marks the publication of Kids, Wait Til You Hear This!, the enormously entertaining memoir by Liza Minnelli<\/a>, and that title \u2013 gossipy, confiding and with no small measure of Broadway panache \u2013 sets the tone from the off.<\/p>\n

As well as coming across as kind and politically aware, Minnelli is quite heroically unburdened by tact, and as she sketches her life from gilded Hollywood to scrappy New York and on through addiction, ill health and multiple marriages, everyone \u2013 most of all herself \u2013 is assessed with bracing honesty.<\/p>\n

A jawdropping story about Lady Gaga patronising her at the Oscars has already been aired in a published extract, and it would be unfair on Minnelli to give away all of the other juicy moments in publication week, but there are so many such moments in the book that we couldn\u2019t hope to summarise them all anyway. Without including choice anecdotes involving Princess Diana, Goldie Hawn, Charles Aznavour, Pet Shop Boys, Frank Sinatra, Halston, the pope and many more, here are just a handful of others.<\/p>\n

Her love affair with Martin Scorsese was like a lasagnaScorsese (left) with Liza Minnelli and Robert De Niro while shooting New York, New York in 1977. Photograph: Album\/Alamy<\/p>\n

While working on 1977\u2019s New York, New York, Minnelli cheated on her second husband with the film\u2019s married director, Martin Scorsese<\/a> (also finding time to cop off with Mikhail Baryshnikov on the side). \u201cOur love affair had more layers than a lasagna,\u201d she writes of Scorsese. \u201cWe were both Italian. Passionate. Intense. Committed to our craft. We both had volcanic tempers \u2026 He was a diabolically handsome man who shared my love for film.\u201d Their cocaine-dusted romance continued after the film wrapped, and she picked him to direct her in the Broadway musical The Act, but ultimately \u201cwe needed a theatre director. Marty had to go, but unfortunately the only person who could fire him was yours truly \u2026 So I did what had to be done. It damn near killed me and broke my heart.\u201d Their affair stumbled on, but not for long. \u201cYears later, I saw Marty at the Oscars ceremony in 2014 and walked up to say hello. Unfortunately, he turned away from me. Very sad.\u201d (The Guardian contacted Scorsese for comment via his press representatives, but did not receive a response.)<\/p>\n

Peter Sellers dressed up like a Nazi<\/p>\n

Peter Sellers came to watch a 1973 London performance by Minnelli. He went backstage, they drank champagne, and \u201cour romance began that night in my dressing room,\u201d she writes. \u201cIt was beautiful and unlike anything I\u2019d ever experienced. Peter introduced me to a whole new world of passion and intensity between two people \u2026 Logic and caution flew out the window.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sellers and Minnelli in May 1973. Photograph: Express\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Not only was Sellers married and 20 years older than Minnelli, she was already engaged to someone else, not to mention still in a marriage to her first husband Peter Allen, though that had taken a knock after she found Allen in bed with another man. Sellers didn\u2019t exactly provide equilibrium. After the extremely 1970s act of Minnelli consulting not one but two psychics for their views on the romance (\u201cI got a second opinion\u201d), Sellers finds out and is \u201cinfuriated \u2013 because I hadn\u2019t contacted his personal psychic\u201d.<\/p>\n

She also jokingly ripped his toupee off which didn\u2019t much help, but there\u2019s no excuse for what Sellers is accused of doing next. \u201cHe would scold me, taunt me, bully me in the voices of many different characters. They weren\u2019t fictitious or part of a script. They appeared to be coming from somewhere deep in him \u2013 and they weren\u2019t pleasant to be around.\u201d<\/p>\n

It gets worse. The pair were friends with Joan Collins, \u201cand she lived in Highgate, a very elegant neighbourhood in London, with a significant number of Jewish residents. One day he called her and said, \u2018I\u2019ve been locked up with Liza because we can\u2019t go anywhere. I\u2019m suffocating! I can\u2019t get out and leave this place. Can I come over?\u2019 Joan, who is still a good friend of mine, said sure, and Peter drove to her house wearing full Nazi regalia! When I heard this, I was infuriated, embarrassed, appalled, and really pissed off. Perhaps he thought it was a joke, but antisemitism is not funny. And I\u2019ve never gotten over it. He was wearing the costume of a character in the film he was making. When he got out of the car, he shouted, \u2018Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!\u2019 He stayed in character. Now, this is great if you\u2019re directing him in a film. He\u2019s a real pro. But who the hell was he to pull this crap in everyday life? What gave him the right to hurt people, to be so awful?\u201d<\/p>\n

She had to manage her own mother\u2019s addiction<\/p>\n

Minnelli\u2019s relationship with Judy Garland<\/a> was deep, loving and complex, with Minnelli aware that, from romance to money management to addiction, she often repeated behaviour set out by her mother. Her marriage to Allen even began to resemble one of her mother\u2019s films: \u201cIt bothered us both as we began to feel \u2013 without speaking of it \u2013 like we were doing our own version of A Star Is Born.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judy Garland with Minnelli in 1965. Photograph: Screen Archives\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Minnelli writes of a devastating incident in childhood where she accidentally kicked Garland in the head, and her mother \u201cscreamed and screamed\u201d at her. \u201cI learned that if Mama got angry, she was the most terrifying person in my life. Today I have only one trigger for trauma. And that\u2019s a horror of screaming voices.\u201d And she had to manage Garland\u2019s own addictions: she and a maid would \u201ctake the bottles of pills from Mama\u2019s bedside, open them up, and put aspirin into them instead. She\u2019d never know the difference. The trick was figuring out when and how often to do this. One of Mama\u2019s doctors told me that if she took more than two sleeping pills a day, she might die. It was life and death, with no time to learn on the job … At 13, I was my mother\u2019s caretaker \u2013 a nurse, doctor, pharmacologist and psychiatrist rolled into one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garland is presented as manipulative, at one point hiring Minnelli\u2019s dancer boyfriend on her TV show so Minnelli has to join them both back in LA; and jealous, hissing \u201cget her off my fucking stage!\u201d at a joint headline gig. But Minnelli is full of love and admiration for her too, finding \u201cincredible energy, flair, and confidence\u201d in her work and saying: \u201cMama loved me passionately, and to this day I love her just as much.\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019re also privy to Garland\u2019s witty put-downs. Someone once called her a has-been, and she replied: \u201cIn order to be a has-been, you have to have been a been.\u201d Minnelli adds: \u201cAnd baby, from the time I was a teenager, I\u2019ve always been a been.\u201d<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t get on with Gene HackmanGene Hackman (left) with Minnelli and Burt Reynolds in Lucky Lady. Photograph: 20th Century Fox\/Allstar<\/p>\n

After winning an Oscar for Cabaret, Minnelli made a duff pick for her next film, Lucky Lady, \u201ca bizarre story about a feisty, ambitious flapper, yours truly, and two con men who decide to launch a rum-running business at the height of Prohibition in the 1930s \u2026 The script screamed disaster from page one. So why did I choose it? Well, [director Stanley] Donen was very gifted, Burt Reynolds was sweet and popular, and I respected Gene Hackman\u2019s work.\u201d She and Hackman didn\u2019t get on, though, and the next sentences come with a whiplash warning. \u201cI think it\u2019s fair to say that Gene was downright rude. Still, I felt sad for him when his wife died in 2025 of hantavirus and a combination of Alzheimer\u2019s, heart disease, and starvation took his life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Taylor prepared her for rehabElizabeth Taylor with Minnelli in 1983. Photograph: Sonia Moskowitz\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Minnelli writes very well about addiction\u2019s cycle of reckoning and relapse, as she struggles with alcohol, cocaine, Valium, painkillers and more throughout her life. There\u2019s a universality to her prose, though less relatable is how Elizabeth Taylor<\/a>, who had recently gone through rehab at the Betty Ford Center, called up Minnelli to steel her for her first bout of treatment in 1984. \u201cElizabeth was the one who put the fear of God into me. She gave it to me bluntly over the phone: \u2018This isn\u2019t something your little sister is worried about. She\u2019s doing the right thing. You are in danger. You could die if you don\u2019t take care of this now.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Some years later, Minnelli ducks out from what she rightly suspects is another intervention regarding her substance misuse. \u201cI got a stern tongue-lashing from Elizabeth,\u201d she remembers. \u201cI\u2019ll never forget the urgency in her voice and her words: \u2018Liza, this disease is going to kill you if you don\u2019t do the right thing,\u2019 she said. \u2018You\u2019ve got to go back to rehab. Now. We all love you. Please, no more lies. You\u2019ve done it. I\u2019ve done it. Look in the mirror and see what we all see. You look like hell, and you feel even worse. You\u2019re not able to do this alone. None of us can.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

David Gest gets both barrels<\/p>\n

Minnelli writes numerous tender farewells to departed friends including her two late ex-husbands, and she also writes fondly about her surviving third husband Mark Gero and their marriage that gently drifts apart. But her fourth and final husband David Gest, who died in 2016, gets a very different treatment. \u201cIf I could wave a magic wand, I would have avoided this creep like salmonella. I\u2019d have kicked his bony ass to the ground wearing stilettos \u2013 which is something he later accused me of doing. How absurd. Why on earth would I ruin a perfectly beautiful shoe?\u201d This is all before she\u2019s even named him.<\/p>\n

Minnelli with David Gest in 2002. Photograph: Kevin Winter\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Having started the actual chapter about Gest, \u201cI clearly wasn\u2019t sober when I married this clown \u2026 a slight, pasty-faced jerk with weird hair who wore ridiculous sunglasses day and night,\u201d she continues. \u201cI felt no physical attraction to him. Zero. I wasn\u2019t in love with him. But I convinced myself I could learn to love him, or at least love him through a lens of appreciation.\u201d Despite acknowledging that she was lonely and persuaded by his promises of career resurrection, she seems bewildered at how this relationship ever happened. She accuses Gest of stealing her bowler hat from Cabaret \u2013 \u201cTo this day I don\u2019t know what happened to my hat. What a monster!\u201d \u2013 and attempting to do the same with her Warhols: \u201cWhen Gest tried to sell them while I was out of town, he learned he had access only to copies. Loser!\u201d He allegedly sends people to spy on her, and has the furniture in her apartment taken away and replaced. \u201cIt triggered behaviour in me that I\u2019m still ashamed of. Soon we were fighting physically, like animals, shouting and screaming at each other. I throw a mean punch, baby.\u201d They divorced in 2007.<\/p>\n

She slept rough in Central Park \u2026<\/p>\n

Having moved to New York as a teenager, Minnelli lived in a \u201chotel for women\u201d which she found oppressive. She eventually got thrown out for not paying her bills, \u201cand slept for a few nights on a bench in Central Park. You know, the place you\u2019re not supposed to go after dark? God smiled down on me, because no one attacked me, and I went about my business the next day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026 and passed out on Lexington Avenue<\/p>\n

In 2003, Minnelli was recently out of her latest visit to rehab, but had started drinking again. Walking around after an afternoon session in a Manhattan bar, \u201cI couldn\u2019t stay on my feet any longer. I collapsed, falling to the sidewalk, almost comatose. I lay on the ground for God knows how long. And the most horrific thing is that hundreds of people rushing down Lexington Avenue stepped over or around my body. What must they have thought? Did they see another homeless person, drunk and passed out on a busy sidewalk? Or did they take a closer look and see Liza Minnelli, dead to the world? I\u2019ll never know for sure \u2026 I was more ashamed than I\u2019d ever been in my life \u2026 I\u2019m telling you this now because there are millions of people like me who struggle with the same risk of relapse that I\u2019ve faced. Please, do not judge us.\u201d<\/p>\n

She helped to invent Michael Jackson\u2019s moonwalk \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cYou may be surprised to learn that I helped Michael develop his \u2018moonwalk\u2019 dance that became a global sensation.\u201d Yes, Liza, we are. \u201cSeriously. I\u2019m not beating my own drum or trying to claim any credit for his artistic genius. Here\u2019s how it happened: I had been performing in Brazil, and I saw dancers practising the exaggerated slide that became part of the moonwalk. I shared it with Michael, and he loved it. We\u2019d always exchanged dance moves. Earlier, he gave me a trademark shuffle that I\u2019ve incorporated into my performances.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026 and hip-hop<\/p>\n

The mainstream music Minnelli seems most thrilled by is R&B and hip-hop. She repeatedly professes her awe of Beyonc\u00e9 and recalls a cover Minnelli herself did of Mary J Blige\u2019s Family Affair, \u201ca powerful hip-hop banger. I crunked it up, baby!\u201d She even suggests she influenced the latter genre with her Bob Fosse-directed concert film Liza With a Z. \u201cWatch the sizzling choreography of I Gotcha from 1972, and you\u2019ll see hip-hop on the horizon. A preview of things to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

She fell out with Stephen Sondheim<\/p>\n

Minnelli alleges that after she got a single line wrong in a Stephen Sondheim<\/a> song, Sondheim blocked the release of a 1979 live album containing a recording of the error. \u201cRemember, I had paid for this recording out of my own pocket,\u201d Minnelli writes. \u201cI had no record label at the time. It was a onetime event, and it should have been a routine courtesy. One artist to another. Not a big deal. But Sondheim said no.\u201d Later, she recorded Sondheim\u2019s Losing My Mind in a new arrangement by Pet Shop Boys. \u201cHe didn\u2019t particularly like it. He always wanted songs he wrote performed exactly as he wrote them.\u201d But he didn\u2019t have legal recourse to block it, \u201cso Mr Sondheim couldn\u2019t put me through hell this time. Years later, I\u2019m still cashing royalty checks for Losing My Mind. And so is his estate.\u201d<\/p>\n

She did her own stunts on Arrested DevelopmentWith Tony Hale in Arrested Development. Photograph: Everett Collection Inc\/Alamy<\/p>\n

One of Minnelli\u2019s great late-period triumphs is her role in the sitcom Arrested Development<\/a>, playing family frenemy Lucille Austero, who frequently falls down due to vertigo. \u201cI\u2019d worked out with Luigi, my extraordinary dance instructor, to prepare for the show \u2026 Every fall I took on Arrested Development was performed by yours truly. Bottoms up!\u201d<\/p>\n

And at 80, she doesn\u2019t want to stop dating<\/p>\n

After four marriages, Minnelli professes herself to be done with matrimony, but as she turns 80 this week, she is inspirationally up for new romance. \u201cI\u2019m not out of the dating game. Ideally, I\u2019d like to date an older elegant man who speaks beautifully and is filthy rich. Then I\u2019d like to date a 40-year-old guy who is passionate about something. I don\u2019t care what. Then I\u2019d like to date an 18-year-old who I see twice a week and whose name I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tuesday marks the publication of Kids, Wait Til You Hear This!, the enormously entertaining memoir by Liza Minnelli,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":527182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75],"class_list":["post-527181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/527182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}