Liza Minnelli Not Set for 'Celebrity Rehab' 'Now or ever'

TMZ reported earlier today that Liza Minnelli would be headlining the new season of VHI's Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew. BroadwayWorld.com has checked with Liza's reps who told us that "Liza Minnelli is not now nor will ever be on Celebrity Rehab."

The season's future has been shaky due to a a failure on the part of the producers to secure a big enough star to headline it.  TMZ had reported that "the parties have been negotiating but no deal has been struck. Insiders say the figure being negotiated is "in the $500,000 universe."

Instead, Liza will be focusing on the finishing touches and promotion for her newest album, Confessions, which is due out by Decca on September 21, 2010.  Liza can currently be seen on screen in the Sex and the City sequel.

The daughter of actress/singer Judy Garland and film director Vincente Minnelli, Liza Minnelli was destined for stardom, beginning her professional career at age 16 in an off-Broadway revival of the musical Best Foot Forward. In 1965, Minnelli became the youngest woman ever to win a leading actress Tony Award for Flora the Red Menace at the age of 19. Since her early stage performances, Minnelli has continued to appear on Broadway in musicals such as Chicago, Victor/Victoria and The Act. In 1999, she paid tribute to her father in a show called Minnelli on Minnelli. Her most recent stint on Broadway in 2008's Liza's at the Palace... garnered her fourth Tony Award.

Minnelli's concert performances have electrified audiences around the world including London's Palladium, Sydney's Opera House, Paris' Olympia Theatre and New York's Carnegie Hall. In 1991, Minnelli's Radio City Music Hall concert engagement broke box office records playing to sold-out audiences for three weeks. She is noted as having starred in the first concert ever filmed for television in 1972. The resulting album "Liza with a Z" was a Top 20 album and won the Emmy for Outstanding Single Program and the prestigious Peabody Award. It has been released in recent years on DVD and aired on Showtime. This year, she will release a new CD, "Confessions" with her longtime collaborator pianist Billy Stritch.

Minnelli has also lit up the big screen in films such as "Charlie Bubbles," "The Sterile Cuckoo," "New York, New York" opposite Robert DeNiro, "Arthur," "Arthur 2" and, most famously, the 1972 film "Cabaret."

To learn more about Liza Minnelli, visit www.officiallizaminnelli.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo Credit: Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.