LIZA WITH PF By Peter Filichia
There aren’t all that many documentaries that bring back actual memories, but Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story was one that did for me.
I first encountered Ms. Minnelli when I sat in my first-row orchestra seat (my favorite place in a theater) during the Boston tryout of FLORA THE RED MENACE.
I could take you within a quarter-inch where Minnelli was standing on the Colonial Theatre stage when she sang “A Quiet Thing,” for the experience was that memorable. It was Kander and Ebb’s first beautiful song of the many they’d eventually write, and Minnelli certainly did it justice of the highest order.
I couldn’t wait to hear it again, and on the day when the original cast album was released – the day that I bought it, of course – I was grateful that “A Quiet Thing” was the first song on the second side.
You see, in those so-called long-playing record days, picking up a needle and putting it on the fat space that began the side of a record was easier than finding the skinny spaces that were placed between the other songs.
The album also revealed a song that hadn’t yet been written when I saw the tryout: “Sing Happy,” And what a dynamic eleven o’clock number it was! It included the lyric “impossible dream” some months before another musical would make famous the phrase. I had to be careful in placing and replacing the needle in the small space before this cut, but the extra time and effort were well worth it.
When the 1964-65 Tony nominations were announced, I saw that, thanks to Boston tryouts, I’d witnessed all four nominees in the category of Best Actress in a Musical. In addition to Minnelli, nominations went to Nancy Dussault in BAJOUR (what?! No Chita?!), Inga Swenson in BAKER STREET and Elizabeth Allen in DO I HEAR A WALTZ? All were excellent, yes, but Minnelli had the hardest role and made the most of it. I rejoiced when she won her Tony.
That summer saw the release of the recording Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli, “Live” at the London Palladium. I became intoxicated with Minnelli’s rendition of a song new to me: “How Can You Believe Me When I Said I Loved You When You Know I’ve Been a Liar All My Life?”
Who wrote this wonderful song? I checked the record’s label and saw “Lerner-Lane.” Wow! This must be from the upcoming musical that Alan Jay Lerner was writing with Burton Lane: ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER.
That fall, at that same Colonial Theatre, I saw CLEAR DAY. I was devastated that this Lerner-Lane song that I had loved for months had already been dropped from the score… although I was at a loss to figure out where in the show it could have possibly been placed.
Of course, getting so many magnificent Lerner-Lane songs in CLEAR DAY lessened the sting.
Yes, yes, I now know that this song with the unwieldy title came from the 1951 film Royal Wedding. But seeing movies from decades past wasn’t easy in those days, when television offered four channels at best and Late-Late Show programmers had you at their mercy.
In late 1969, I met Minnelli when she came to Boston to promote her film THE STERILE CUCKOO. She did a press conference with writers from student newspapers; as her press agent would later say to me, “She’s done so many interviews with the old guard that she really wanted to talk to people her own age.”
Although I rarely reviewed films (and, needless to say, concentrated on theater), I was somehow invited. The true student film critics were there in legion, and all questioned Minnelli about working with director Alan Pakula; one even asked if Minnelli liked Kurosawa, which made her laugh before admitting that she’d yet to see one of his works.
Then I had to ask, “How long before the opening of FLORA were you given ‘Sing Happy’? It wasn’t yet in when I saw FLORA here.” And her eyes lit up before telling me that it truly was a last-minute addition, but the song by Kander and Ebb – both of whom, we didn’t yet know, would be cornerstones of her career – was so galvanizing that she didn’t need much time or convincing to learn it.
Afterward, when I was gathering my things, there was a tap on my shoulder. I turned around, and there was Liza Minnelli, who said, “Nice to see a young man who knows something about Broadway” which she accompanied with a squeeze of my hand.
That Minnelli liked to make everyone feel important was part of the documentary. I saw that in another way, too, when she and I were in the audience for the ill-fated musical version of PAPER MOON in Philadelphia and, later, JACQUES BREL in New York. What an enthusiastic theatergoer she is, applauding wildly after every number and performer. Believe me, I’ve seen plenty of Tony winners sit with their arms crossed after great production numbers, but that’s not Liza Minnelli.
When Brooke Shields went into the GREASE revival, a new recording was made. What a shame that one wasn’t minted when Minnelli subbed for Gwen Verdon in the original CHICAGO. Can’t you hear her reach the word “love” in “He loves me so, that funny honey of mine”?
In the documentary, John Kander said that she had learned the part in a week. If memory serves, she did it in less time than that; I recall that she started rehearsals on Tuesday and began performances on Friday. I saw her second performance, which still reigns as the greatest one I’ve ever seen an actress give in a musical.
In 2009, before he was set to teach a class at Yale, Lonny Price learned that the money had suddenly come through for the film version of “Master Harold”… and The Boys that he was signed to direct. So, he asked me to take over, adding, “Start by showing videos of performances you’ve admired and ones that you think the students should see.”
I decided to include Minnelli’s appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show when she was promoting FLORA THE RED MENACE. When I announced her name to the class, several students snorted “Liza Minnelli!” in derision. They had their own generation of heroes, and – partly because she was born long before they were – she therefore didn’t deserve their attention.
I said nothing but simply showed Minnelli singing “All I Need is One Good Break,” in which she showed Flora’s staunch belief in herself, followed by “Sing Happy.” Once the songs concluded, I said to the students, “She was 19 – younger than you are now. Do you think today you could carry a Broadway show in which you played the title character and had to appear in more than a half-dozen songs?”
There was an embarrassed silence from all, each of whom had been thoroughly humbled.
Even better, one young man who had joined in mocking Minnelli came up to me after class and said, “I’ll never think of her in a negative way ever again.”
I hope he still does. I hope they all do.
Peter Filichia can be heard most weeks of the year on www.broadwayradio.com. His calendar – A SHOW TUNE FOR TODAY: 366 Songs to Brighten Your Year – is now available on Amazon.
