Emmy. Grammy. Oscar. Tony. Liza Minnelli's EGOT status shouldn't come as a surprise, considering
her mother was the legendary Judy Garland. But what was their relationship really like?
While some parents wish their children could stay young forever, this wasn't the case with
Judy Garland and her oldest daughter, Liza Minnelli. In 1984, Minnelli spoke with The
New York Times about her relationship with her mother, recalling how she was always treated like
a grown-up — no baby talk, ever. She also remembered her mother giving this advice:
This meant that Minnelli had — at a very young age — been exposed to many of the hardships
of adulthood: By the time she was three, she had heard stories of the difficulties
of the real world, and by six, she could get whatever she needed from hotel room service.
As she grew up, she found herself shouldering more and more,
including the fallout of Garland's addictions and suicide attempts
and the divorce of Garland from Liza's father, Vincente Minnelli, when she was
just 5 years old. This also meant that she had a mother who was more like a best friend.
Minnelli knew she wanted to make her own way, leaving home at 16, bound for New York City,
determined to make it on her own. Recalling this moment in an interview with The New York Times,
Minelli said that her mother was smart enough to stay out of her career.
Judy Garland was the daughter of vaudeville performers who pushed
her onto the stage not long after her second birthday. Her mother, Ethel Gumm,
was the first to give Garland — at just 10 years old — the pills that would ultimately
lead to her addiction and untimely death from an accidental overdose at 47. Garland described her
mother as an unrelenting stage mom, who pushed her family to move to California from Minnesota.
But California didn't mellow her, as Garland recalled in an interview with Barbara Walters:
In a 1967 television interview, Garland was asked about her mother and what influence
she had on the way she related to her own children. Garland replied:
Judy Garland has said that the only time she really, truly felt like herself was when she
was singing — and that's in spite of a mother who gave her little-to-no choice in the matter.
"But I had to sing. I somehow feel most alive when I’m singing."
Of course, Garland's relationship with her own daughter's singing career was different from
what she had experienced. Minnelli told "CBS Sunday Morning" that while her personality was
more similar to her father, it was Garland who calmed her nerves, and helped her understand
the stage. Recalling her early performances with her mom, Minnelli told The New York Post:
Minelli added that her insecurities probably stemmed from a lack of belief in herself:
Whenever Judy Garland talked about her daughters,
it was always clear how proud she was. And when she was asked what kind of advice she
might have for Minnelli, the up-and-coming performer, she gave a surprising response:
A 1984 New York Times article quoted Garland saying that although she would often reflect
on all the things she wanted to tell her daughter — particularly once she started falling in love
with show business — she decided that she would ultimately give her something else:
unconditional support. And while Minnelli recalled that there were moments when she
saw jealousy in her mother's eyes, it was the support, encouragement,
and guidance she remembered more. Garland's singular piece of advice remained constant:
Unfortunately, Minnelli's struggles with alcohol and drug use would ultimately echo
those of her mother, with repeated trips to rehab facilities. Minnelli sought help for addictions
that started after she was prescribed Valium to help her cope with her mother's death in 1969.
Liza Minnelli has described her relationship with her mother as being a set of extremes — which
is kind of understandable, given what Garland struggled with growing up. While Garland was,
indeed, America's sweetheart, she also had to deal with cruel treatment from powerful men,
from studio bosses to directors. For example, Louis B Mayer's nickname
for her was "little hunchback," while director Charles Walters called her "the ugly duckling."
Minnelli, in an interview with Vogue, reflected how this treatment had impacted her mother and
their life, saying it wasn't necessarily a rags-to-riches story, but more like a
rags-to-riches-rides-a-rollercoaster story. For example, they spent a lot
of time living in high-end hotels, but sometimes had to flee in the middle of
the night to avoid paying the bill. Minnelli recalled in the interview,
Minnelli compared Garland's mood swings to a rollercoaster:
extreme and unpredictable. Still, through it all, mother and daughter remained close.
By the time Liza Minnelli appeared on stage alongside her mother in 1964
at the London Palladium, she'd already been in the public eye her whole life,
summing up the experience with fame for Variety with the iconic statement:
The massive theater was something entirely different, though, and Liza
has since revealed that she hadn't wanted to do it. She'd turned her mother down, in fact,
only learning later that Garland had already announced that her daughter would be there.
Liza later told The New York Times that this was the moment everything changed, because onstage,
she saw a flash of jealousy in her mother's eyes. Minnelli described it as "the lioness
that owned the stage and suddenly found somebody invading her territory." But after this brief
moment of terror on stage, Minnelli realized her mother's jealousy had actually been a huge
compliment. Minnelli would later go on to say that Judy quickly became her biggest supporter.
"Freeze!"
"How am I doing mama?"
"Oh fine, Liza, keep going!"
The first time Liza Minnelli checked into rehab for alcohol addiction,
she was 30 years old. Unfortunately, this would be the first of a number of trips. But Minnelli
has always been candid about her addictions, telling The Guardian newspaper in 2008:
Insight into her relationship with both her mother and her addictions came in a 1973 interview with
Rolling Stone. It wasn't Minnelli but her then-husband Peter Allen who explained that,
when she was a child, Garland's doctor had pulled her aside for the sort of conversation that no
one should expect a child to have. Minnelli was told that Garland was taking Nembutal,
a barbiturate used to treat short-term insomnia. She, however, had been taking so much for so long
that an overdose was likely to kill her. So, Minnelli was tasked with keeping her
alive. It became her job to empty the capsules and replace the barbiturate with sugar as a placebo.
Judy Garland famously went from being the darling of "The Wizard of Oz" to
tabloid headline fodder, and when the Los Angeles Times ran news of her 1969 death,
they included this heartbreaking quote from her:
But Liza Minnelli saw a different side of Garland, a happy side. And Minnelli reminisced
with Variety about how thrilled Garland had been to see her embrace performing.
She described how she would sing and dance for her mother, and make her laugh, saying,
Even as a child, Minnelli remembered wanting nothing more than to see Garland happy,
and to hear her laugh, telling Variety:
"What a great laughter. She laughs, boy, at red ties, they say."
"I laughed at this!"
Judy Garland was just 47 years old when she died in 1969. According to her obituary in
the Los Angeles Times, she suffered from a host of illnesses, including hepatitis and
kidney problems. Liza Minnelli was just 23 years old when her mother died. Left without a mentor,
it was up to her to find her own way in the world — and to find someone to give her direction.
This person came in the form of French singer Charles Aznavour,
who she met a few years after Garland's death. Minnelli says Aznavour's knack for telling a
story through song made her realize that was what she wanted to do. And in doing so,
she began distancing herself from Garland, telling Variety,
Lyricist Fred Ebb, who worked with Minnelli for years, told The New York Times in 1984 that he
had always tried to get her to sing some of her mother's hits, and she had refused — until 1982,
when she decided that if people wanted to connect with Judy through her, she was fine with it.
their mother's 100th birthday with an interview on "Entertainment Tonight." The bond between the
sisters gave a brilliant insight into their relationship with their mother.
They spoke about knowing how special their mother was from the moment they were born. How,
even living among Hollywood's biggest and brightest stars, they knew Garland was
one-of-a-kind. And Garland had always made it clear that she wanted the two of them to have
a bond that couldn't be broken by Hollywood — and, as it turns out, they do. As Luft explained:
But it hasn't always been easy. Luft said in an interview with Yahoo Life that she
and Minnelli sometimes had moments of being not-so-close. Though in the end,
she chalked this up to nothing more than sibling rivalry, concluding:
In a 2008 interview with The Guardian, Liza Minnelli insisted how she had a
perfectly normal childhood, in spite of all the divorces, marriages, remarriages,
step- and half-siblings, and the 14 different schools she went to. Minnelli went on to say
that she wasn't really interested in talking too much about her childhood — at least,
not about her mother. The reporter observed that Minnelli tended to have a rose-colored
view of her childhood, an idea reinforced in a New York Times interview in which
Minnelli described holding on to good memories while forgetting about bad ones.
"How do you like working on my show?"
"I've never worked so hard in my life! But I like it alot!"
"I know darling. You’re my favorite guest star."
So, while this mother-daughter relationship was certainly complicated,
it was also clearly loving. And something Minnelli has often said must also be noted:
if she ever had a daughter, she planned on naming her Judy.