Liza Minnelli’s memoir Kids, Wait Till You Hear This! – told to musician Michael Feinstein – aims to set the record straight. Born to MGM power couple Vincente Minnelli and Judy Garland, Liza’s future in the public eye was an inevitable inheritance. Relying on a “lifelong escape valve of laughter” to mask her private life, Minnelli is now keen to offer her own version of events and avoid being misremembered; “My words. My life. My memoir.”
Materially speaking, Minnelli’s childhood was one of rare privilege. From her father holding up shoots to watch Tom and Jerry with her to police cordoning off streets to accommodate her birthday parties, Minnelli offers snapshots of an idyllic childhood. Anything more sustaining, though, is absent. Her mother was pushed into drug use on set from an early age and eventually fired by MGM following rounds of electroshock therapy.
Garland’s suicidal tendencies and general unpredictability (Minnelli’s fear of screaming stems from her mother) made her daughter “an adult too early and a child much too late”. It also drove home “the psychological damage done by a business that chews you up and spits you out”, damage Minnelli would go on to experience first-hand. Besides clearing her own name, Minnelli offers a rounded portrait of her mother here, cognizant of her faults, but explaining them, and reminding the reader of her brilliance.
Minnelli is on a slim list of performers to boast Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony wins, and her story, from leaving home at 16 to starring in Bob Fosse’s Cabaret, is trailblazing. She remains a vocal ally of the LGBTQ+ community, and her frankness regarding addiction, fame and ageing is refreshing.
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Minnelli’s claims that her music foresaw hip-hop and that she taught Michael Jackson the moonwalk betray a fear of being forgotten, though, and her habit of patronising younger readers, imploring them to Google payphones and imagine a world before selfies, feels like a missed opportunity to endear herself to a generation largely unfamiliar with her. Exhausting cheesy soundbites also disrupt the book’s more serious moments, perhaps an indication that laughter is still something of a crutch.
This is a revealing memoir, which, despite its hang-ups, is largely determined in its commitment to honesty, to meeting shame and embarrassment head on.
Colm McKenna is a writer based in Paris, France
