Actors - Liza Minnelli

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	Actors - Liza Minnelli

Liza May Minnelli (born March 12, 1946 in Los Angeles, California) is an American actress and singer. She is the daughter of legendary entertainer Judy Garland and her second husband, acclaimed film director Vincente Minnelli (who was of Italian and French descent).

Early career

Minnelli's first film appearance was at the age of three in the final scene of the 1949 musical In the Good Old Summertime
, starring her mother and Van Johnson. Audiences adored her as the "chunky little ball of energy".

Minnelli started performing at age 16, in 1963, in an Off-Broadway revival of the musical Best Foot Forward, for which she received good notices. The next year, her mother invited Minnelli to perform with her at the London Palladium. The audience loved her, launching her musical career. She returned to Broadway at 19, and won a 1965 Tony Award for Flora the Red Menace. Minnelli would also receive Tony Awards for The Act in 1978 and a special Tony in 1974. She was nominated in 1984 for The Rink
but lost to her costar, Chita Rivera.

Film and television

The film The Sterile Cuckoo
(1969), in which Minnelli starred as a love-seeking teenage misfit, garnered the young actress her first Academy Award nomination. In 1972, Minnelli won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as Sally Bowles in the movie version of Cabaret
, along with Joel Grey who won an Oscar reprising his role from the original the Broadway musical (that of the creepy Emcee).

Minnelli has the distinction of being the only Academy Award winner whose parents are both Academy Award winners. She has also won an Emmy Award for the 1972 TV special Liza with a Z. Minnelli received a 1990 Grammy Legend Award. She received Golden Globe Awards for Cabaret
and for the TV movie A Time to Live.

Minnelli, like her mother, is known for her powerful vocal style, as in her trademark songs "Cabaret" and "Theme from New York, New York". Minnelli's original version of the latter, for the film in which she was a co-star with Robert DeNiro, preceded Frank Sinatra's successful cover version (for his Trilogy album), by two years.

Later career

Following her 2002 wedding to David Gest, Minnelli and Gest signed with the American cable network VH1 to star in their own reality series, but production of the series was cancelled at the last minute.

In the mid-2000s she appeared as a recurring guest star on the critically acclaimed TV sitcom Arrested Development as the lover of sexually and socially awkward Buster Bluth.

On January 1, 2006, she sang "New York, New York" at the second inauguration of New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. Other famous performances were at the 1978 Studio 54 party honoring New York City's revival, at which a guest was Mayor Ed Koch; the reopening of the Statue of Liberty on July 4, 1986; and at a 2001 New York Mets baseball game that was the metro area's first major sporting event after the September 11 attacks.

Fans

Due to the fact that she is the daughter of Judy Garland, she has also been an icon of the gay community.

Marriages

Like her mother, Minnelli has had several marriages. She also has been linked romantically to director Martin Scorsese, actor Peter Sellers, pianist Billy Stritch, dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, and actor Desi Arnaz Jr. Her husbands have been:

Peter Allen (real name Peter Allen Woolnough) (March 3, 1967 – 1972). Australian-born Allen, who died of complications from AIDS in 1992, was Judy Garland's protegé in the mid-1960s.
Jack Haley Jr., (September 15, 1974 – 1979), a producer and director. His father, Jack Haley
, was Garland's co-star in The Wizard of Oz.
Mark Gero (December 4, 1979 – 1992), a sculptor and stage manager.
David Gest (March 16, 2002 – July 25, 2003), a concert promoter. The couple announced to the press in late 2002 that they would be adopting a three-year-old girl, to be named Serena Gest. They announced their divorce in 2003. Minnelli ignored the myriad rumors swirling around Gest regarding his sexual orientation. Minnelli also was not put off by Gest's long-standing hobby of acquiring Judy Garland collectibles.

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