Young Liza reincarnated
‘ Even I had forgotten how sexy Bob Fosse’s choreography was,’ she says The star of ‘Cabaret’ is in town to present a restored version of ‘Liza with a ‘Z’ ’
If you are over a certain age, you may recall an award- winning hour- long TV special that aired on NBC in 1972. Called Liza With a ‘ Z’, it showcased then 26year- old Liza Minnelli, and it was electrifying.
Liza at the time was a sensational young song-and-dance talent who had recently starred in Cabaret, one of the greatest movie musicals ever made. What made her TV special more special than others was that it reunited her with her equally brilliant Cabaret creative partners — director/chorographer Bob Fosse and songwriters John Kander and Fred Ebb. Now 33 years later, after decades of rotting in the vaults, that show — restored and enhanced — has been miraculously reborn. And this afternoon, Minnelli — now just six months shy of her 60th birthday, somewhat battered by a series of unfortunate adventures — will be at the Elgin Theatre to present it at the Toronto International Film Festival.
“ Even I had forgotten how sexy the Fosse choreography was,” Minnelli remarked with a laugh in a phone interview the other day before flying here from New York.
Fosse ( who died in 1987) insisted on sexy costumes as well, with plunging necklines and the shortest skirts imaginable. And he gave the show a supercharged energy by doing it on film before a live audience at a Broadway theatre rather than taping it in a TV studio. One day before the shoot, NBC’s morality cops busted Fosse and issued an edict demanding new costumes.
“ They said our costumes were way too suggestive,” Minnelli recalls. “ But Bob was adamant, and in the end we talked them into letting us go ahead.” This reincarnation of the young Liza may come as a shock to those who know her only as the character Lucille in the TV series Arrested Development. Back in the early 1970s she was a slight and waifish but hyperactive Raggedy Ann doll wound up on sheer nervous energy — dancing, bouncing and swaying. Holding nothing back, she gave the audience everything she had. And part of what wins you over is that she seems a bit like a kid dressing up in grown-up clothes to strut her stuff.
Fosse was a genius, but he was also a tyrant, and his collaboration with Kander and Ebb, though fruitful, was not always smooth. The show included several Kander/ Ebb numbers from Cabaret, for which Minnelli won an Academy Award a few months after Liza was telecast.
Minnelli was no stranger to TV variety, having been a frequent guest in the early 1960s when her mother did her legendary CBS Judy Garland Show.
Still, she remembers the rehearsals for Liza With a ‘ Z’ as a hair- raising experience.
“ I was incredibly nervous. It was a one- shot experience before a live audience, with no retakes. During rehearsal Bob would look disappointed and say, ‘ I was hoping for something better.’ And I would get agitated and say, ‘ Well, let’s find a way to make it better.’ ” They obviously did, because the show has such non- stop momentum you feel while watching it that you’re not allowed to breathe. It won four Emmy awards and a Peabody award. But it would have been forgotten had it not been for a man named Michael Arick, who specializes in film restoration. Among the films he has restored: East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause
( both starring James Dean), Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train, Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch and the 1954 A Star Is Born, starring Minnelli’s mother. A few years ago, Arick approached Minnelli and said, “ You own Liza With a ‘ Z’, don’t you? Have you ever thought of restoring it?”
Minnelli’s response: A lot of people would want to see this again, not just for Liza but because it was a Fosse moment and a Kander/ Ebb moment.
“ A lot of the film was damaged,” Minnelli says. “ Some of the sound was gone.”
Luckily there was a long- playing record of the show, which Arick was able to use to enhance the sound on the film track. The result: The restored Liza With a ‘ Z’
( which will be shown on the U. S. cable network Showtime) is technically much more dazzling than what people saw on their small TV screens with mono sound in 1972.
Arriving at the Eglin Theatre will provide a nostalgic thrill for Minnelli, because it is where she filmed the 1992 movie Steppin’ Out, co- starring Canadian actor Sheila McCarthy.
“ I love Sheila and I’ve got to see her,” Minnelli says. “ Have you got her phone number?” mknelman@thestar.ca