The sensational Liza Minnelli returns! The singer, actor and showbiz phenomenon returns to Roy Thomson Hall on Tuesday, April 7, 2009 – 26 years after a four-night run during the Hall’s inaugural season. Winner of an Academy Award in 1973 for her iconic role as Sally Bowles in Cabaret, she has also won 3 Tony Awards, 2 Golden Globes, an Emmy, a British Film Academy Award, and a Grammy Legend Award, one of the few artists who have won entertainment’s top six awards. As a recording artist, she has sold millions of records worldwide and three of her albums and one of her videos have been certified Gold by the RIAA. Her very first single, “You Are For Loving,” sold a half million copies in 1963, leading to her signing with Capitol Records. She has also recorded for A&M, Columbia, Epic and Angel.
Liza began her career at the age of three as co-star with her mother, singer-actor
Judy Garland, in the movie In the Good Old Summertime. At age 10, Liza hosted the first-ever TV broadcast of The Wizard of Oz, with a viewing audience of more than 45 million. By the time she was 19 she had landed the lead role in the Broadway show Flora, the Red Menace, and won a Tony for Best Actress in a musical. She then starred in the films Charlie Bubbles (1968), The Sterile Cuckoo (1969), and Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon (1970).
In 1972, Liza’s movie career peaked when she played Sally Bowles in Cabaret. The film won eight Oscars, including Best Actress. The role also earned her a Golden Globe and a British Film Academy Award, and put Liza on the covers of Time and Newsweek in the same week. She also starred in the first concert ever filmed live for television, Liza with a Z, which produced a Top 20 album and won the Emmy for Outstanding Single Program, and will soon be re-released as a DVD.
Liza appeared opposite Robert DeNiro in the 1977 musical New York, New York, directed by
Martin Scorsese; and in 1981 she co-starred with
Dudley Moore in the movie Arthur, and in 1988 the sequel Arthur 2. In 1985 she added a second Golden Globe to her already impressive list of awards with her performance in A Time to Live, a made-for-TV movie; and in 1989 she produced an album with Britain’s Pet Shop Boys called Results, a huge hit in Europe.
In 1997, Liza took over from
Julie Andrews in Broadway’s Victoria/Victoria. Andrews left the show to undergo vocal cord surgery, which was not completely successful. Liza later underwent the identical procedure making a full recovery, and returned to the stage in December 1999 to pay tribute to her father, film director
Vincente Minnelli, in a show called Minnelli on Minnelli at New York’s Palace Theater. In 2000, shortly after the CD of Minnelli on Minnelli was released, Liza was hospitalized for encephalitis. Receiving a grim prognosis, she was told she would never walk, talk, dance or sing again. But Liza’s incredible will, determination and relentless hard work proved them wrong, and by June 2002, she was back on stage at the Beacon Theater in New York. Her triumphant comeback CD entitled Liza’s Back! was released in October 2002.
Liza continues her extraordinary career with ongoing concert tours in the US and Europe. Her new two-CD set Liza’s At The Palace was released in February 2009 by Hybrid Recordings. It features her signature hits and personal favourites including such showstoppers as “Cabaret” and “New York, New York.” For the latest on Liza, visit her website
www.officiallizaminnelli.com.
Photo by Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.
