INTRODUCTION

HER STORY

QUOTES

Alan Pakula-- who had directed Liza in The Sterile Cuckoo, her first important film role-- was killed in a freak car accident when a seven-foot steel pipe smashed through the windshield of his station wagon and speared him through the head.

Her half-sister Lorna quit drugs cold turkey at age 30, after a binge left her clinging to a toilet bowl for four days.

Dame Elizabeth Taylor and actress Marisa Berenson were maids of honor and Michael Jackson and his brother Tito gave Liza away when she married David Gest at New York's Marble Collegiate Church in February 2002. Liza walked down the aisle to Unforgettable, sung by Natalie Cole.

Held an internet auction of her clothes so she could give something back to her multitude of fans.

She spends hours every day choosing her outfits, yet they always seem to come out black, with maybe a touch of red.

Sang with her mother, Judy Garland, on two episodes of the television series The Judy Garland Show in November and December 1963, and the performances have turned up on several Garland albums.

Before she was ten, Liza had already saved her mother's life on several occasions when she'd overdosed on Benzedrine, Dexedrine, or a cocktail of both.

Was in the ladies room with her mother when she was about 14 and this drunk lady came in and started saying: "Oh, Judy, whatever happens, never forget the rainbow." And Judy said, exiting grandly, "Madame, how could I forget the rainbow, I've got rainbows up my ass."

Dated Desi Arnaz, Jr. and was romantically involved with Peter Sellers, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Ben Vereen, Bob Fosse and Martin Scorsese.

She is said to have frequented gay sex clubs and held court in Manhattan's infamous Seventies nightclub, Studio 54.

Liza has no children, despite wanting them. Lily, her pet's name, is the name she would have given a daughter.

She first took Valium the day her mother died.

She was named Liza after the George and Ira Gershwin - Gus Kahn song and May after the mother of her film-director father, Vincente Minnelli.

In 1990, she received the Grammy Legend Award, making her one of the few artists who have won entertainment's top four awards - the Oscar, the Tony, The Emmy and the Grammy.

She spent a good deal of her childhood in Hollywood, where her playmates included Mia Farrow, although she also reputedly attended over 20 schools in the USA and Europe.

In 1972 she appeared on the front covers of Newsweek and Time magazines in the same week. 

Her second husband was Jack Haley, Jr..  His father, Jack Haley, had played the Tin Man in Judy Garland's most famous picture, The Wizard Of Oz.

Her current husband, David Gest, collects memorabilia of his new wife's mother, Judy Garland.

The wedding list for her fourth wedding was from top New York shops including Tiffany, the jewellers, and included 12 silver platters at a total of $24,350.

She defended pop singer Michael Jackson after the star was criticized for dangling his baby out of the window of a Berlin hotel.

While on her honeymoon in London with her fourth husband, David Gest, thieves tried to snatch a £10,000 diamond necklace from her through an open window when her car stopped at traffic lights.

Her stepmother Lee Anderson Minnelli has filed a lawsuit claiming that she was kept alone in a dark house while Liza and Gest were on their honeymoon.

She was born in 1946, and the first visitor to the hospital was none other than Frank Sinatra, with whom she would later sing at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

Was given the Crusaid International Hero Award for her work with HIV and Aids patients. The actress was one of the first celebrities to campaign for a cure and has helped raise money for American Aids charities.

In New York, New York, the blonde woman observed by Robert De Niro dancing with the sailor under the subway tracks at night is Minnelli in a wig.

In 1962, she recorded the voice of Dorothy, the part played by her mother in the film The Wizard of Oz, for an animated sequel called Journey Back to Oz that was shelved until 1974, when it resulted in a soundtrack album on RFO Records called The Return to Oz.

Made her screen debut in 1949 at the age of two-and-a-half in In the Good Old Summertime starring her mother and directed by her father.

In the late 70's Andy Warhol painted portraits of Liza based on his Polaroids of her.  She was one of his most favorite people.

In 1964 Liza appeared with her mother at a sold out show at the London Palladium.  This caused one of the few rifts between mother and daughter when Judy became quite jealous of the ovations her daughter received.

Liza wasn't the first to portray real-life character Sally Bowles (Cabaret, 1972). Julie Harris had already played her in I Am A Camera in 1955.

Robert De Niro learned to play the sax for New York, New York (1977), throwing himself into the production with such zeal that after the climatic fight scene with Liza, he ended up in a hospital emergency room-- along with Minnelli and director Martin Scorsese.

She became the youngest-ever actress to win a Tony Award, for Flora, the Red Menace (1965), at age nineteen.

She filled in for Julie Andrews in the Broadway show Victor/Victoria while Andrews took a break in 1997.

She was directed by her father Vincente in A Matter of Time (1976), costarring Ingrid Bergman.