Star and Artist: The Career Achievement of Liza Minnelli
E-Book, Englisch, 286 Seiten
ISBN: 978-3-7543-9346-8
Verlag: BoD - Books on Demand
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Martin Wimmer was born 1991 in Weißenfels/Saxony-Anhalt, and studied art history, creative writing, culture and media education and theater studies in Merseburg, Mainz and Berlin. Always highly interested in the history of American film and theater as well as in the interwoven star system, he wrote Clockwork Liza during his studies in Mainz just for fun and self-published its original German edition by Books on Demand in 2018. This long overdue English-language edition was made possible by the active support of three wonderful people named Adrienne, Debo and Matt. They critically proofread the translation, suggested refinements and rephrased some of the weaker sentences. Blessings and kisses to them! Follow Martin on Twitter: @reckwitzig, and tweet something nice about legendary #LizaMinnelli!
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Introduction
Los Angeles. It is the night of the second of March 2014. Comedienne Ellen DeGeneres will host the Academy Awards for the second time. Brad Pitt, Meryl Streep, Matthew McConaughey, Cate Blanchett, Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts – the crème de la crème of Hollywood have gathered. Everyone is nominated for something, Streep for the eighteenth time. This provides lot of material that DeGeneres is constantly taking advantage that evening. Streep's record for most nominations, Jennifer Lawrence's stumble from last year, and Bruce Dern's family background serve as her targets during the opening presentation. Nobody is safe from her roasts. Ellen DeGeneres is witty, cynical, self-deprecating, engaging; a spirited woman whose blows don't land below the belt, but can be wonderfully spiteful. But like every comedienne at some point, she too is capable of taking a joke too far and might make someone in the crowd hold their breath. She introduces a few nominated actors and other personalities from the audience. [...] is here tonight. And I have to say, one of the most amazing Liza Minnelli impersonators I have ever seen in my entire life ... Really, seriously ... Good job, Sir. I mean, this is really...1 Sitting in the audience: Liza Minnelli herself. How she took the mockery is not clearly decipherable. Eyebrows raised, a flick of the tongue, a stern look in the direction of the hostess. Next to her half-sister Lorna Luft, who laughs heartily, who perhaps wants to encourage Liza to laugh along, which she does very quickly. Minnelli sits in the third row in the aisle, just behind Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts. As if this gibe was not enough, something else happens in the course of the evening. Ellen DeGeneres walks comfortably through the corridor and stops at Minnelli's seat. They chat briefly, then take a picture of themselves with DeGeneres' cell phone as if they were old friends. De-Generes continues walking past Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong'o to Meryl Streep. Together with Streep, she wants to set another record, the one for most retweeted photo, in addition to Streep's eighteen Oscar nominations. She is referring to the short message service Twitter, which many celebrities use for self-promotion. So, she wants a photo to spread as virally as possible. In the end they take a group picture. Streep holds the cell phone and DeGeneres calls Julia Roberts, Channing Tatum, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Brad Pitt and Lupita Nyong'o to position themselves in the picture; unsolicited, Kevin Spacey, Angelina Jolie, Lupita Nyong'o's brother Peter and Jared Leto also join in. Almost all of them are actors who were among the leading film stars in 2014. What we don't see at this moment is Liza Minnelli also trying to get into the picture. Channing Tatum covers her with the full extent of his tall body. She still reaches for Julia Roberts' arm wrapped around Tatum to draw attention to herself, but in vain. A single photo with Liza Minnelli will do. But she is not allowed to be in the big Oscar "selfie."2 Minnelli's attempt was also recorded photographically. Eventually all three pictures landed on the web and spread virally on Twitter: Minnelli and DeGeneres, the large group picture, the group from behind with helpless Minnelli. The group photo achieved the actual record.3 It made history as the "most retweeted selfie" and inspired the German Stern columnist Meike Winnemuth to write a commentary in which she criticized Hollywood's mania for youth and beauty, which still lost none of its degrading charm decades after the disintegration of the studio machinery. This is how Hollywood still ticks: Once you have been someone, you no longer belong – you are banished into memory. In 2014 Minnelli's own Oscar win happened forty-one years ago, her last leading role in a feature film twenty-three years ago. For aging actresses, there are two options in Hollywood. Either you continue to work ceaselessly until old age and show your furrowed face on the screen almost to the point of death. This is how Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn did it. Or you seal yourself off completely from the outside world and turn into a phantom when you decide that your film career is over. That's how Greta Garbo preferred it. Doris Day imitated her a bit; one rarely heard of her and knew what she looked like, but she absolutely didn't want to hear about a return as a public figure. Minnelli, who in the meantime has retired or at least entered "part-time retirement", breaks a taboo of the American film industry. She takes the middle road and haunts the media. This also means a social network, namely Facebook, where she irregularly publishes pictures of the past on her official site or makes a statement about current events. She often refers to the day of birth or death or any other important event of a colleague, friend or acquaintance. Then she shows up at the concert of a musician friend of hers, where she is asked to come on stage to sing one of her well-known songs. Some newspapers jump on it and suddenly Liza Minnelli is mentioned for a few days until she is forgotten again. Here a small television appearance, there a small award ceremony, there a dinner with prominent colleagues. Then, silence of the grave. She has become a ghost, which occasionally becomes flesh if it wants to. But she has never just been a film actress. Liza Minnelli, still very much alive, though no longer a worldwide superstar, represented something that no longer exists today: Classic American all-round entertainment. As a singer she was so versatile and experimental on stage and in the recording studio that she was able to go on a concert tour with Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. and at the same time record an electronic pop album with the Pet Shop Boys. She sang pieces by musical author Stephen Sondheim as well as Queens rock anthem We Are the Champions when the occasion called for it. She has earned her own status in theater, film, television and music. Many of her projects are not worth mentioning because they have not brought out the essence of the artist. Some, however, are of high artistic quality, which has been partly celebrated, partly misunderstood. Liza Minnelli has been one of the last representatives of an idea of entertainment based on diversity and active contact with the audience: An entertainer had to be able to sing, tap dance, play and joke, all in reference to the tradition of American vaudeville in the 19th and early 20th century. The species of these multimedia entertainers, who turned to jazz and musicals and appeared on theater stages, film, television and radio in equal measure, is almost extinct. It has assimilated and with the death of Frank Sinatra in 1998, it has lost perhaps the last great showman of its kind. Born March 12, 1946, in Los Angeles, Minnelli actually belongs to a generation that is hardly connected with this old-school entertainment. We find points of comparison in Barbra Streisand and Bette Midler, but these two ladies do not fit easily into this category. Most of the singers and actors born in the 1940s grew up with rock 'n roll, discovered and experienced Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, but simultaneously listened to swing and pop singers like Perry Como and Frank Sinatra, who were commercially extremely successful until the mid-1960s. The British Invasion, Motown, the generation of singer-songwriters, Woodstock – all these movements have long since ceased to stand for the traditional entertainment industry. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton shamelessly celebrated an extramarital relationship before staging themselves as a hate and love dream (or nightmare) couple. Anne Bancroft seduced Dustin Hoffman on screen. Explicit sex conquered the cinema. From time to time Minnelli dared to collaborate and try things out because there were hardly any other possibilities for her. She seemed like a product of the past that had strayed into the present and now made the best of it. Because she didn't consistently move with the times, her nevertheless remarkable achievements were often not appreciated. At the same time, she is partly to blame for this, because she has far too often kept to herself and her origins. How does Liza Minnelli's life's work explain itself? It is impossible for a single author to make a complete, detailed analysis in accordance with all the rules of cultural and media studies. A multi-volume work would be necessary; it would be difficult for the reader. It is important to approach the artist historiographically and to try to understand her work through a scientific approach to a detailed analysis of literature and sources. What are the characteristics of her various projects in film, on television, the theater and concert stage and in the recording studio? What is special about Liza Minnelli? Who is the artist, who is the star Liza Minnelli? Like many other prominent actors and singers, Minnelli has a certain star-concept on which her career is based. In order to sell herself as a unique brand, she took a very specific path. But which path was that and to what extent did it work? The Liza Minnelli of the 2010s is not the Liza Minnelli of the 1970s. There are worlds between these two decades that may not be clear to us at first glance. There are many printed works about Minnelli: Biographies like Michael Freedland's Liza with a 'Z'. A biography of Liza Minnelli (1988) or Wendy Leigh's Liza. Born a Star (1993) are extensively devoted to Minnelli's private life, her childhood, youth, marriages, affairs and health problems. Facts about her artistic work are only fragmentary, sometimes false – in terms of dates, production...
