Liza Minelli is both Hollywood and Broadway royalty for a multitude of reasons. She is the eldest daughter of the late Judy Garland and she starred in several classic films and plays. She is also a world-renowned dancer, choreographer, and singer. She is considered a Broadway icon thanks to her extensive resume in theater and a film legend thanks to classic performances in Cabaret and Arthur and thanks to her work with musical legends like Bob Fosse and Frank Sinatra.
Liza Minelli’s career has had its fair share of ups and downs. She won multiple awards for playing Sally Bowles in Cabaret, including the Oscar for Best Actress In A Lead Role, but she acted in several flops afterward. Then her career turned around when she landed another iconic film as the love interest in Dudley Moore’s Arthur. Minelli has also survived the effects of drug and alcohol addiction. She slowed down her film career after that, but she continued to sing, occasionally broadcasting a concert or special on television, and she continued her work in the theater. Today, the daughter of Judy Garland is rarely seen on screen anymore.
8 Liza Minelli Got Her Start In Theater
Liza Minelli started her career on stage singing with her mother and then graduated to Broadway when she was 19. She soon won a Tony for her role in Flora The Red Menace. In the mid-1960s, she landed a record deal with Capitol Records and recorded several successful albums. She also worked as a nightclub performer and cabaret dancer, which led to her iconic role in the film adaptation of Bob Fosse’s most famous musical.
7 Liza Minelli’s Breakout Role In Film Was ‘Cabaret’
Liza Minelli starred in the film adaptation of the classic musical Cabaret with Joel Grey in 1972 and the role won her a Golden Globe, A BAFTA Award, and an Oscar. Minelli soon after worked with theater legend Bob Fosse, who she also worked with on Cabaret, to record the television special Liza With A Z: A Concert For Television.
6 Liza Minelli Had A Bad Luck Streak After ‘Cabaret’s Success
The rest of the 1970s were not as kind to Minelli. She starred in multiple high profile flops, including the cult classic New York, New York. Although the film flopped at the box office, it still includes Minelli’s most popular song, which was also titled "New York, New York." Frank Sinatra soon after recorded his famous cover of the song. However, while her film career struggled, she found plenty of work singing and acting on Broadway.
5 ‘Arthur’ Saved Liza Minelli’s Film Career
Liza Minelli’s bad luck streak ended in 1981 when she played the love interest in Dudley Moore’s classic comedy Arthur. She did a few other films during the 1980s, none of them nearly as high profile as Arthur or Cabaret, and for the rest of the decade she focused mostly on her theater and Broadway performances. However, she had cameos as herself in films like Martin Scorcese’s The King of Comedy which starred Jerry Lewis and Robert De Niro, and she had another cameo as herself in The Muppets Take Manhattan.
4 Liza Minelli Had A Serious Drug And Alcohol Problem
Minelli has struggled with alcohol and substance abuse for most of her life. She developed an addiction to Valium after her mother died, due to complications caused by an overdose of prescription diet pills which we now know were just concentrated amphetamines. Unlike her mother, however, Minelli's addiction did not get the best of her. Minelli went to rehab at the Betty Ford Clinic and got clean in 1984.
3 Liza Minelli Had A Supporting Role On ‘Arrested Development’
Liza Minelli did less film and television and returned to music and Broadway for most of the 1990s. She only occasionally did cameos as herself or would do performances on screen for benefit concerts or television specials. In the mid-2000s, she returned to acting on screen when she was cast as Lucille 2 in Arrested Development. In the show she played the rival of the sharp-tongued Lucille Bluth, who was played by the late Jessica Walter.
2 Liza Minelli’s Last Movie Was ‘Sex And The City 2’
Liza Minelli has slowed down ever since her time on the hit comedy. She has appeared at a few concerts and done a few other television shows, and she had a cameo in Sex And The City 2. But for the most part, she has been living very low-key and been focusing on her philanthropy. Minelli supports a number of different causes, most famously LGBTQ+ rights. Fun fact: Liza Minelli is widely considered to be a gay icon for her larger-than-life stage presence, flashy yet luxurious fashion sense, and her characters are some of the most common costumes for drag performers.
1 Liza Minelli’s Age, Net Worth, And Public Appearances Today
Minelli has not done a film since Sex and the City 2 in 2010 and she hasn’t done anything for television since 2013. She does, however, continue to sing on stage, but not nearly as much ever since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. It would seem that Minelli, now 75 years old, has begun to slowly but steadily take her leave from the spotlight.
That being said, Minelli does love the spotlight and might only be able to stay away for so long. Until that day, fans of hers can take solace that she is still worth $50 million.
