Showbiz queen hits milestone
IT’S Liza’s 75th birthday on the 12th. I love her.
I remember her devouring cookies — while dieting — in my kitchen. I remember her singing loudly on my terrace a night before one of her big-time openings . . . And staying in the Hamptons with her dentist Dr. Marc Lazare. We go back a thousand years together. Like calling me from Turin, Italy, while opening a festival . . . Telling me she’s hopping on a Duracell bike to generate pedal power — whatever that means.
Once she was too nervous to meet Edie Falco ... I remember Lady Gaga idolized her. . . Dressed by Halston always, she still has the shmattas . . . Grew up at the Plaza ... Some prince entertained her in Austria . . . Dieting while inhaling a giant sundae at BLT Prime . . . Jane Krakowski wanted her autograph in a restaurant . . . She said she used to babysit Ron Howard ...We talked about her driver/ bodyguard M’Hammed Soumayah’s lousy lawsuit. Christina Aguilera bought a home that belonged to Jack Haley Jr., one of her multiple husbands . . . Fell someplace in Italy that I can’t spell and hurt her leg . . . I was a bridesmaid when she married and — minutes after he removed his eye makeup — divorced useless David Gest . . . Joan Rivers’ exact quote: “She needs a real man like Rosie O’Donnell ”...In’02, the audience stood up for her entire rendition of “New York, New York.”
Until she moved to LA, we were in each other’s homes. I brought flowers to her, she schlepped her twodogstome...Shedid rehab... Barry Manilow bought every record she ever made . . . Sang at Carnegie Hall . . . One New Year’s Eve at Disney World, she fell asleep on Carol Channing’s lap . . . Dinner with the Clintons at their home . . . Kay Thompson lived with her . . . Her shoes from “Liza With a Z” she donated to the Lighthouse benefit. For Sinatra’s birthday, she jumped out of a cake ... For a husband, she bought a pickup truck . . . For a Kennedy Center appearance, she said, “I felt like a duck up there” ... While Mia Farrow awaited her at a restaurant, she was home embroidering . . . Her quote: “I haven’t laid off since kindergarten” . . . and: “When time for my funeral, it better be just as big as Joan Rivers.’ ”