Furious search for Minnelli 'secret' fails to locate inherent magic of glorious era

BOOK OF THE DAY: A Hundred or More Hidden ThingsBy Mark Griffin Da Capo Press 330pp, £9.99

IN OLD-FASHIONED stereotypical terms, Vincente Minnelli would merit his own float in any gay-pride parade.

He started out as a window-dresser before becoming a costume designer on Broadway in the 1930s. When he gravitated to Hollywood, first as a set designer and then director, co-workers often remarked on his epicene manner, not to mention his habit of mincing around wearing eye-liner and other cosmetics. He created some of MGM’s most sumptuous, dazzling musicals, and he had a big thing about Judy Garland.

But Minnelli and Dorothy were more than just friends – they were husband and wife, and produced a daughter, Liza. Before they married in 1945 he had been unofficially engaged to his secretary for several years, and after he and Garland divorced he married three more times and fathered another daughter. Throughout his life he stoutly maintained that he was totally heterosexual, despite the sniggers and whispers.

It was an extraordinarily large and crowded closet that Minnelli occupied, claims Mark Griffin. If you "read" his films – which include Meet Me in St Louis(1944), An American in Paris(1951), The Bandwagon(1953), Gigi(1958) and On A Clear Day You Can See Forever(1970) – you can easily discern the truth about his sexuality, says the author. Minnelli, who died in 1986, said: "My work, in the final analysis, is the story of my life."

But this comment could also be taken to mean that his creativity and total commitment to film represented everything he wanted to tell the public: his life’s work is the story. The output of many – possibly all – old-time directors could be interpreted in so-called gay terms if a researcher is so motivated, though it must be conceded that Minnelli provides incalculably more supportive material than, say, Raoul Walsh.

Minnelli, born to a theatre family in Chicago in 1903, also said that each of his films consisted of “a hundred or more hidden things.” Griffin contends that the films as a whole are a coded autobiography, and that many of the “hidden things” refer to his secret sexuality. This isn’t particularly persuasive. Perhaps Minnelli simply meant that he was a meticulous craftsman (which he obviously was) who paid tremendous attention to detail, some of it subliminal.

As a mystery, it’s not especially intriguing, anyway. Maybe he spent his life tortured by unfulfilled longings. Maybe he was bisexual. Maybe he was a straight who liked make-up and fancy clothes. I don’t care.

I just know that he makes me happy. This gift of generating happiness is his legacy to us. You slot a Minnelli musical into the machine, the title comes up with a blast of familiar music, you lean back and you smile with anticipation. Timeless magic from one of cinema’s great enchanters.

He could be garish and clunky sometimes, but his best work had a kitschy dreaminess that built fantasy upon fantasy, as Griffin notes in his comments on the Limehouse Blues number in The Ziegfeld Follies(1944): "The sequence is not only a visual stunner but also achieves something distinctly Minnelli: taking the viewer inside an unreality (Astaire's dream) within a 'reality' (MGM's version of old Chinatown) that was itself a non-reality to begin with."

At the end of this overlong and partial book, Minnelli remains elusive and the only thing “out” concerning his sexual orientation is the jury. The author spoke to Lauren Bacall, Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, Nanette Fabray, Angela Lansbury and many other Hollywood names and none of them seemed quite sure, either, though they supply many a sparkling anecdote.

The one person who might cast some light on the subject refused to be interviewed. Perhaps Liza Minnelli has enough ambiguities in her own life without delving into her dad’s.

Stephen Dixon is an artist and journalist