“Children, wait until you hear this! My Memoir”
What Liza Minnelli told Michael Feinstein
Grand Central, circa 2026
$36/421 pages
It’s 20 feet in front of me and I can’t see anything.
Even the closest faces are in the shadows and there is light, but not enough to reliably understand what the people there are thinking. Still, you can listen Their gasps, their laughter, and their applause. On stage, that’s life. Read now “Kids, wait until you hear this! My memoir.” Read what Liza Minnelli said to Michael Feinstein and about it on Beyond the Spotlight.
Liza Minnelli was famous from the moment she was born.
It was inevitable. Her mother was Judy Garland. Her father was director Vincente Minnelli. Her godfather is a Hollywood celebrity, her neighbors are famous, and her playmates will someday be famous.
But her life was not all starlight and happiness.
She made her stage debut as a toddler. She became “mother’s caretaker” at the age of 13.
At age 16, she was developing her own career when her mother tried to stop her. But, she says, “In her own way, Mom was wonderful to me. Try to understand. She was mine.” mothernot a movie star…. I knew her and always will know her as someone who loved me. ”
Life was great for 19-year-old Minnelli, working, happy and in love with the man who would become her first husband, until one day she came home to find him in bed with another man. Before her divorce, she lost her beloved mother and was simultaneously “engaged” to two other men, neither of whom ever went to the altar with her.
She married her second husband, the son of her mother’s former co-star, in 1974, but romance and addiction led to a second divorce.
Her third husband was a stage manager.
She doesn’t have very good things to say about her fourth and final husband.
Overall, she says, “You have to do your best at comedy and make people laugh, even when your heart is breaking.”
Are you expecting candor, brashness, or attitude here? good, Because that’s what’s in “Children, wait till you hear this!” I’m strong on honesty and won’t back down. The editing is great and it moves along quickly. It’s an eye-opener and a pleasant surprise for his first and only memoir (so far).
Even better, the author Liza Minnelli (along with her best friend Michael Feinstein) has been quite candid and a good gossip from the get-go. In fact, some Hollywood insiders are irritated by the content of the book and the secrets it reveals. Minnelli and Feinstein seem to have fun telling her story, inviting the reader in with ease.
Not everything is cabaret. Minnelli talks about her addiction and recovery, her marriage and why she married two gay men, and the losses she has endured, including miscarriage, death, and broken relationships. As a story several steps above most celebrity memoirs, it balances the bad with the good. “Kids, wait until you hear this!” It’s actually really fun to read and a really upbeat topic.
Blade may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made through this post.
Source: Washington Blade: LGBTQ News, Politics, LGBTQ Rights, Gay News – www.washingtonblade.com
