Radio Times 14 June 2003

Whoever said Liza Minnelli and husband David Gest don't live in the real world? Not that anything is ever normal when Ruby Wax gets involved. For Ruby Meets... (which returns next month), Wax took them to a London chip shop, where they served cod and chips to astonished customers.

The Hollywood couple have been 'regulars' at the Seashell in London's Marylebone for the past three years, says the manager, Aidan Keegan. 'They come here a couple of times a year,' he says. 'So I'm guessing they actually put Ruby up to this.' So what do they eat? 'They've probably been through most of the menu by now!'

And if they came looking for work?

'Their customer skills were great,' says Keegan, 'but the technical aspect was a bit behind. Still, if they fell on hard times we'd always give them a start.'

Photo James Stenson

The Sun 18 July 2003

Liza Minnelli's husband snogged and groped the 60-year-old Hollywood legend in front of TV cameras in an amazing interview with Ruby Wax.

Viewers will see David Gest, 50, squeeze Liza's boobs as he tells Ruby: "I wake up with my mouth on that nipple."

At one stage Ruby begs them to stop kissing, saying: "No more tonguing - it's too much." The interview is on BBC1 on Monday at 10.35pm.

Radio Times 19 July 2003

"The press gave our marriage a week" Two years on, Radio Times gave them a Mr and Mrs test...

Cover photo: Lichfield. Main photo: Alex Lloyd

Sex, Liza and videotape

Ruby Wax's new series focuses on stars. Mega stars, such as Liza Minnelli, featured in the first show. So here's Ruby's insider view on fame, while overleaf, what it's like for Liza and her new husband when the chips are down...

Ruby Wax is feeling pretty chipper, and no wonder. She's collared some big stars for her new BBC1 series, such as Jim Carrey, Susan Sarandon, John McEnroe and, of course, Liza Minnelli and her husband David Gest. Shortly after RT's Lichfield cover photoshoot with Ruby and Liza, Ruby spoke frankly about stars, two-bit celebrities and her new series. We were all ears:

What's the difference between a star and a celebrity? Surely they're much the same? A star has a skill, a celebrity doesn't. I'm saddened to think that people don't realise the difference.

If it's that simple, why do we confuse stars with celebrities? Our awareness of what makes a star seems to have slipped. A star is not someone who's been whisked out of obscurity and made to sit in a room for seven weeks being observed by cameras. A star is someone who's good at something, but we've lost sight of that. An astronaut or an athlete would now be way down the list from some complete nonentity.

So why did you focus on celebrities in previous series of Ruby Wax Meets...? For a long time I lost interest in famous people. I never wanted to make films about stars because I wanted to meet them, or because I was in awe of them; I wanted to make those films in order to study the disease of fame. That was my fascination: seeing what fame does to a person, taking notes.

You must have learnt a lot, then... By the end of the last series of Ruby Wax Meets... I had so much material I could have written a thesis! Fame is like eczema: some people can cope, but some people, get ill with it. And it's an addiction. They don't enjoy it when they have it but, boy, when it goes, that makes them even more crazy. It's like coming down from crack.

Did it have a knock-on effect for you? Yes, it's not just famous people who suffer; it's also those of us who keep thinking about them, analysing them, making films about them. That's just as much of an illness. We're the crowd watching the performers in the arena, waiting for their demise. It's not fair to raise them up so far above the normal, because it makes us envious and them paranoid.

So was that hard to handle? Mmmm, fame should make you happy, but it does the exact opposite. It has its good moments, of course; every time I sit on a plane, in the cheapest bucket seat that I can find, I get grabbed by an enthusiastic air steward and thrust into first class, next to people who have paid thousands. That's very nice, of course, but then you start to expect it. When it doesn't happen, you hurt.

Can you increase your fame to ensure that sort of thing doesn't happen again? When I was on Celebrity Fame Academy earlier this year, I was discussing how I could up my celebrity value. Unfortunately I concluded that I should get a terminal disease, or that my kids should be hit by a car. That's the level of fame that we're talking about in this country most of the time.

What's the thinking behind your new series? It's a homage to greatness. I wanted to remind people that, however nutty and crazy these stars are, they're stars for a reason. I'm sick of so-called celebrities, and I want to redress the imbalance that brackets some idiot from a reality TV show in with a true star.

And you can spot real stars? Yes, as soon as you see them you realise that they have the killer instinct. Even in rehearsals or warm-ups, they play to win. When John McEnroe is knocking a tennis ball around with his own brother he wants to beat him. Jim Carrey [featured in next week's show] and Liza Minnelli never give 99 per cent; they're always full-on. They want to be as funny or as fabulous as possible, all the time. It's not something you can learn; it's innate. I'm not like that; sometimes I'll just walk through things. With true stars, it's always the full-octane performance.

Celebrity-oriented TV is big business. What's your view? It caters to the lowest common denominator - and I'm not saying that what I do is above that. But shows such as Big Brother are like watching paint dry. It's not about dumbing down, or about mindless entertainment, it's just an endless round of cheap TV aimed at getting ratings. I don't know if we'll ever come out of this cycle, because it's too attractive for the TV companies to let go of.

Liza Minnelli and her husband David Gest are the first guests in your new series. What did you make of them? They're a circus act. You get sucked into their orbit and lose all sense of what you're doing. It should be ridiculous, but the moment Liza goes into show mode, all cynicism disappears. Her arms go up, she gets that Liza look in her eyes, and bang! That's it. When I met her, she was rehearsing for David's birthday party - she was going to sing Cabaret and she blasted the song right in my face. That's when you realise that there's more to Liza than you read in the papers.

Do you think their marriage is genuine? Whatever you think of it, it works. I like David. We all know guys like him; in fact, I think I've been married to a couple. He's good for Liza, and they make a great couple. Who knows what goes on when the lights go out? That's none of my business. But as a public couple who are constantly surrounded by people, they work well together.

And did you feel they were genuine on screen? I gave them the opportunity to show themselves as they really are and it was amazing how quickly they forgot that the cameras were there and just relaxed into their normal routine. Making a film with me isn't like going on Graham Norton for half an hour with your show face on; I want them to be natural. Or as natural as these people can ever be.

Lord, look who it is!

"Why didn't you shoot our wedding?" said Liza Minnelli when brought face to face with Radio Times' famous cover shoot photographer. "Because you couldn't have afforded me!" Lichfield jokingly replied, before revealing he had always wanted to shoot the star - and cleared his schedules in order to make it happen.

Liza and David take our Mr and Mrs Test

Would you have plastic surgery?
Liza: I've had no nips and tucks.
David: I don't think at this stage of the game we'd care about it. We're not teenagers, and we know who we are.

What do you prefer to do in bed: eat, read or sing?
Liza: It's a loaded question make up your own answer.
David: Eating would be absolutely the greatest, then hearing my wife sing.

What first attracted you?
Liza: He was so different from anyone I'd met. He knew exactly what he wanted and was very tough, but without being mean He took care of me. Everyone else, I'd taken care of. He was bossy, in charge, and "Hollywood", which I recognise and like.
David: The soul. The heart. She had the cutest little face. I loved her nose. In many ways she reminded me of a woman I lived with for 11 years. We moved in together within a week.

Did you want to marry?
Liza: He didn't want to because he saw what had happened to his friends, and I didn't because I saw what happened to myself. I thought three marriages was enough.
David: I never planned to marry, even though you can be in love with someone. I wanted my freedom.

So why did you?
Liza: It seemed the right thing to do when you find someone you get along with, who makes you laugh and you want to spend your time with.
David: I probably wasted more years not being married. Ours is a true love story. I love her more life itself. I'd kill for her and take a bullet for her.

Who paid for the wedding and David's 50th birthday party?
Liza: That's David's part. I was just worried about it being right.
David: OK! magazine paid for the wedding and contributed to my 50th birthday party. I had no qualms. What was I selling? Pictures of a party. If I didn't, someone else would make money off it. Our wedding was expensive, but why not help offset the expense?

Any notable guests at David's 50th?
Liza: I knew quite a few. I sat with Dame Diana Rigg and Jane Russell, who look so beautiful she sti11 a killer.
David: Dame Diana Rigg is so special. Sir John Mills is one of our dearest friends. We took Jane Russell with us on our last trip because she's like a second mom.

Will you have children?
Liza: I don't want to talk about it in case I jinx anything, but I'd lovve to. I'd make a good mom.
David: [cryptically] Soon we'll have a child in our life - it's definite.

What was your last romantic gesture?
Liza: I don't know darling. I'm always romantic.
David: Last night I surprised her with a diamond necklace. I'd give Liza anything.

What's her/his most annoying habit?
David: Smoking. I hate it: I want her to live, and she should quit. Her doctor says she'll lose her lungs in five years if she doesn't.
Liza: He's so busy he doesn't hear when I call his name.

Life is a cabaret...

...or a circus act, depending on your view of Liza Minnelli and her husband David Gest. Andrew Duncan watches the show.

They are the ultimate celebrity couple, fawned over and sneered at in equal measure, described as a 'circus act', and inhabiting that never-never land where fantasy blurs into reality, and truth is hard to find.

Liza Minnelli and her fourth husband David Gest, 50, for whom Liza is a first taste of matrimony, should be at home in New York, but she fell and cracked her right knee leaving a hotel to perform at Pavarotti's annual charity concert in Italy, so she's recuperating at London's Connaught Hotel under the alias of Mrs Will Cocker.

We've met twice before: once for a convivial dinner in New York 20 years ago, a few weeks before Elizabeth Taylor persuaded her to undergo her first rehab for alcohol and drug abuse; and seven years later for lunch at the Savoy. On both occasions she was outgoing, excellent company. Now, I read, in interviews, this apparently self-destructive diva is under the Svengali-like influence of David, a successful record and TV producer (Michael Jackson, Ray Charles, Luther Vandross) who's supposedly a control freak with homosexual proclivities, so it's no surprise when I arrive for our scheduled meeting to be told Mrs Cocker is refusing all calls. I leave a message, and minutes later she's on the phone. "Darling, I'm only dressed in jeans and T-shirt and haven't done my hair. You don't mind? Great. Come up, and I'll order food."

In the corner of her suite there's a pair of crutches, but she doesn't use them, hobbling elegantly about. "It's my dance training," she explains. "I worried that after the accident I'd never dance again, but my teacher Luigi, who I've studied with since I was 13, saw the x-rays and says I'll be OK, but I'll have to go slowly. I've always been patient about recuperation."

She wears large tortoiseshell glasses and two crucifixes - one jewelled from David, which she wore in bed last night, too tired to take it off. Her spiky hair, dyed jet black, matches an ensemble through which it is possible to glimpse her pleasantly plump and impressive, bra-less embonpoint - David swears he can only sleep if his head is resting on her left breast.

"Isn't that hilarious?" she says. "He's so funny. He said that to shock Ruby Wax. I don't know how he copes being married to me. The lack of anonymity freaks him out, but he's learnt to live with it." Airily, she dismisses talk of his sexuality. "He had wonderful girlfriends, and I've known so many of them."

There is no ferociously protective retinue, only a pleasant young woman publicist who says she'll sit in on the interview, until I insist she won't. Liza agrees, asking her to call David on his cell phone on her way out. "He's probably bargaining with someone, buying or selling - depends on whether he's shopping or working. What have you been reading about me? That I'm difficult? I don't believe in that. It takes up too much time. Journalists build you up, knock you down. It gives them something to do because they're bored with their own lives."

A waiter brings tea and she leaves the room, the first of several times, for a minute or so. "I want some sweetener. I know I have it here somewhere," she explains. When she returns, she pours hot water into a cup, crushes some sugar cubes into it and drinks quickly.

At 57 she looks in good shape, particularly for someone who's had several miscarriages, two hip replacements, surgery on both knees and her back, and battled alcohol and drug addiction. She pulls up her trousers to reveal a gaping scar down her knee and numerous stitches. No wonder she needs a toy boy, I say, and David is an ardent lover by all accounts, including his own. He'll confide in me later that, "she's the most warm-blooded woman, with a very hot body. On a cold night she's better than a blanket, and much more active." I ask which part of his body she admires the most, and he replies without hesitation, "My ass."

Her voice has an occasional little-girl lilt, as well as a tremor, but often bursts into a raucous cackle. "I'm so lucky to get my voice back. I lost it, had an operation, and then viral encephalitis [a brain disease, in October 2000]. I had to work my behind off to get better. The biggest gift God has given me is being able to recognise who's better than me at certain things, and take their advice. If you're worried find an expert. And don't just take his advice take the advice of three experts."

She is not immune to endemic Hollywood mawkishness laced with Alcoholics Anonymous spiritual psychology, and occasionally lapses into autopilot and gives a word-perfect, well worn answer. For the most part, though, she's larky and self-deprecating.

"People thought I was dead," she shrieks. "I've fooled them all. I'm the ultimate survivor and believer. I just love life and am basically a happy person, which some find hard to believe. At times fame has been difficult, but only when I've been around the wrong people. You get into trouble when you avoid your problems, or when you're told you don't have to deal with them now. It can't have had that bad an effect, though, otherwise I wouldn't be sitting here.

"I don't have time to reflect on life. It robs you of the moment. The fear of tomorrow and the regret of yesterday cancels the 'now'. It's out of the question for me to wonder whether I should have done things differently, although all women have those girly 'if only' moments when we wonder if that football player had loved me when I was 14 we'd have married and still been together.

"We all think we're going to live for ever. We have to, although the 'reality' of death isn't a real reality. If it were, you'd never do anything except lie in bed all day and worry. You have to take the exact opposite attitude, which is thank God I'm alive today, and get on with it. I don't worry about getting old - no more than anyone else. I haven't got a stick of make-up on. I go out like this all the time, and don't care. The public has known me their whole life and I'm like family in a funny kind of way, and I consider them to be that as well."

A showbiz construct - she jokes she left the womb wondering which camera to face - her story is well known: the daughter of Judy Garland by her second husband, film director Vincente Minnelli, she attended 20 different schools, left home at 16 with $200, married at 20, 28 and 33, and had a number of romances, including ones with the late Peter Sellers and Charles Aznavour.

"I've never stopped being busy. It doesn't come from wanting to prove myself. Anyway, who to? My parents always thought I was wonderful. The only time you have to prove yourself is when something has gone wrong and you need to come back. I've done that."

When Liza appeared for the first time with Garland at the London Palladium nearly 30 years ago, her mother was reportedly incensed by her daughter's rapturous reception. But Liza says, "She wasn't jealous. She was surprised I was so talented. It knocked her out. My mother was wonderful, but, of course, she annoyed me at times. Every girl is annoyed by her mother."

She leaves the room again. "Sorry to keep leaping about, but I just want to cheek my jewellery thing." When she returns she says, "I've written two musicals that others seem to want to produce, and a lot of stories that were made into films. I'm not telling you my code name because I want to keep telling stories, but I'm proud, and one day it will come out. I'm a big fan of many actors. I love being a fan. I agree with whatever sells, because that's what the public wants at the moment."

Her film career, after Charlie Bubbles, with Albert Finney, was more disappointing than she hoped, although she was brilliant in New York, New York and Arthur, and in 1973 won an Oscar for her role in Cabaret.

"They're so narrow-minded in Hollywood. They say, 'We have to get her another musical', so I was talked into Lucky Lady. My film career went off balance because I was all over the place and people were greedy, wanting to make money off me. They sent me on the road for 46 weeks a year, turning me into a machine, but I did it because I love it."

She told me previously that she'd been so ripped off by 'sharks' - to the extent that her electricity was cut off when she discovered she had no money, despite a huge income - that she hired bigger sharks, and I joke that maybe she's now married the biggest of the lot. "David's associates have to deal with him carefully because he may be crazy - like a fox. Where is he?" She leaves the room again to try to contact him.

I suggest she has a trusting nature. The last time she was scheduled to be interviewed by Ruby Wax seven years ago in Nashville, Tennessee, at Liza's suggestion - she didn't show up, sending messages that she was ill, even though a film crew had travelled from England at great expense. Wax made a mocking 'tribute' to her, disclosing that four months later Liza called her at eight one morning, suggesting they do the interview in London that day. They were filmed in a hotel suite, where Liza sang a bizarre duet, with Wax, of her latest record. "I asked Ruby why I should be interviewed by her again because she was so lousy to me last time, and she explained, 'That was different. I admire you so much and am fascinated to see what you're like now.'" A very trusting nature.

Is it possible Liza's more 'real' on stage than off, I ask her. "It's a combination. I've been blessed with talent and sometimes feel like a star, especially when I'm on stage. I love being excited by ideas, though - working with writers and other talented people. I'm a director's daughter, so I listen. There are so many things I want to do. We just bought a house in Hawaii, so I'm working on finishing that and I want to start a dance school there."

At last David arrives, and they kiss affectionately. "Now, darling," she says. "You take over." He smiles, and says, "Liza and I have been misunderstood, but the public loves us. The press gave our marriage a week and that was two years ago. You know what? Ours is a great marriage. We have normal problems. One day you wake happy; the next you fight about whether you'll eat sushi or Chinese. In three seconds the fight is over, and you're eating ribs because you love each other." Jokingly, I wonder if he married her for her money. "I was much, much richer than her. And still am."

She looks at him adoringly, and I wonder if he's a control freak. "He's a producer, and all producers are the same," she says. "I know. I grew up with them." He says, "Of course I'm not a control freak. I'm a perfectionist, though, and like to get things right." He says he's planning to produce Rose Tattoo in London's West End, starring Liza. "If I could do anything in life it would be to produce a Shakespeare play. I'd make no money, get little attention, but it would be the highlight of my life."

A reality-style documentary on Liza and David for the US TV channel VH1 was scrapped after hours of film had been shot. VH1 claimed that the couple hadn't cooperated properly and Gest refused to appear unless he was exquisitely dressed and made up. "People invent so many stories about us, I wish I knew the couple they're writing about, they sound so interesting," says Gest. "One person connected with VH1 said I locked Liza in the bedroom and wouldn't let her out. You try doing that to an Italian woman. It's ludicrous."

She sits next to him again, looking contented. "I love Britain, and the spirit of the people. The British aren't unkind, and when they are, at least it's humorous. Americans can be rotten, but I don't dwell on it. You can't base your life on other peoples' opinions. You do your best, and then get a hamburger."

They're off to Paris in the morning. "Hopping on a train," he says. "Hopping?" She guffaws "He's carrying me, and it's him who's hopping." True love.

There's a woman down the chip shop, swears she's Liza

By Benji Wilson

The other day I nipped out to get some fish and chips. Imagine my surprise when I found that living legend Liza Minnelli and her husband David Gest were manning the tills at the local chippy!

Actually, that's not quite how it happened - I was sent there by Radio Times after we received a tip-off that Ms Minnelli and her spouse would be doing a turn behind a shop counter for Ruby Wax with...

In order to prove that they were normal, Liza and David were going to be filmed at the Sea Shell fish-and-chip shop in London's Marylebone, serving good, honest grub to the masses. My job was to get in, get some fish and chips and get out without being exposed as an RT undercover agent.

As soon as David appeared, I pounced, ordering cod and chips. "Hang on," I said, "don't I know you?" He laughed, obviously pleased to be recognised. "Wow!" I said,"I can't wait to tel1 my mum that Barry Manilow was in the chippy." Sadly David didn't find that very funny. Only joking, I said - but David was already taking out his anger on a piece of cod folding it up to make it fit in the take-away box.

And then Liza appeared, resplendent in a plastic boater and pinny. "Would you like ketchup with that?" she asked, politely. "Yes I would:," I said, "and make it snappy, love; I've got a bus to catch."

Liza took my little quip with the composure of a true superstar. Then followed an intriguing altercation on the subject of 'mooshy' peas. David, as his pronunciation suggested, had not come across them before, but Liza was insistent that I should have some. A celebrity tiff was only averted when Ruby Wax jumped up, also in boater and apron. She took one look at the mooshy peas and stuck her hand in them. Everyone laughed.

By now word was getting out that something was going on at the Sea Shell. A cabbie came in, and Liza was delighted to discover that he was a cockney and they gabbled about apples and pears a bit, and sang something together. David, meanwhile, was proving to be a remarkably chipper chippy.

Until, that is, my parting shot - another harmless joke. Suddenly men in dark glasses began to circle. Your correspondent made his excuses and left.

Radio Times preview by Alison Graham

If you're the kind of person who feels queasy witnessing public displays of affection between couples, you might find yourself gibbering under the stairs at the end of this surreal and frequently jaw-dropping half-hour.

Liza Minnelli and her husband David Gest cannot keep their hands off one another. On one level, this is quite sweet. They obviously care deeply for each other, and Minnelli, who has suffered dreadful illnesses in her recent past, looks great and obviously flourishes under his extremely solicitous care and affection.

On another level, it's hard not to seek out the nearest bucket. Even Ruby Wax, who joins the couple on a visit to London for Gest's birthday party, looks a little taken aback when she's caught in their frequent blizzards of overly demonstrative mutual affection. She accompanies them on a visit to a jeweller's, where Minnelli's eye falls on an lavishly expensive diamond crucifix. The fact that the couple are surrounded by shop staff and customers, Wax and a TV crew in no way inhibits them as they slobber and declare their love while she tries on the pendant.

We get to hear in unnecessary detail which of Minnelli's breasts is her husband's favourite; and when Gest (in his omnipresent sunglasses, which he takes off only once) declares over afternoon tea with Wax and his wife: "I get to come home to fill my baby with love", you might wish to breathe into a paper bag.

It's hard to work them out, even though Wax tries her hardest. Despite all these very public displays, they remain an unknowable pair inhabiting their own world.

Play Magazine (The Times Newspaper) 19 July 2003

What is it that drives top-notch celebrities again and again to endure a full Wax, asks Giles Coren.

If there is one thing scarier than watching poor old Liza Minnelli canoodling with her spooky husband, David Gest, it is watching her doing it in the middle of Harrods, surrounded by ogling security men and elderly tourists, with Ruby Wax leaping around in the background, all but lighting her wind in her desperation to attract attention.

What on earth makes a celebrity want to appear on television with Wax? The old adage about not working with animals or children seems to exclude her on both counts. Not only does she embody all the conversational dangers of such stunt interviewers as Ali G, Mrs Merton and Frank Skinner, but Wax is as hysterical in her attention seeking as a four-year-old on a two-day tartrazine bender. And yet top-notch celebs have been queueing up to appear on Ruby Wax With... Jim Carrey, Ben Stiller, John McEnroe, Joan Collins and Susan Sarandon do not need exposure at all costs. So why are they all slated to appear in forthcoming episodes of a show that is every bit as humiliating, desperate and vulgar as any bug-eating jungle trial or fumbled attempt at sex in a house full of cameras?

Monday evening on BBC One sees Minnelli and Gest co-starring in the first of the run, and it is gruesome. Not since an Act of Parliament outlawed Victorian freak shows have three such horrific monsters been put on public display for money. And if you think I am exaggerating, then tell me that you wouldn't rather watch a bearded lady in a cage than see Gest (who looks like Tom Jones with alopecia) plucking two thick, brown hairs from Wax's nose over tea and cakes.

Before tea we heard Wax voicing over the couples' wedding kiss as follows: "There's Michael Jackson, and there's Judy Garland's little girl getting tongued."

She turns to Gest and says: "It looks like you're blowing her up!" Gest responds by grabbing Wax's breasts and complaining that they are floppy before whipping his wife's coat open to show hers and inviting Wax to "feel how firm they are".

Appearing with Wax is like having your picture taken with the organ grinder's monkey. Assured of an audience by the celebrity of her interviewee, this nobody leaps around, waving at the camera like a schoolboy doing bunny ears behind the teacher in the school photo. "See me! See me!" she cries, climbing the walls with her ludicrous explosion-in-a-wig-factory hairdo, Marilyn Manson make-up and the rictus grin of Jack Nicholson's Joker in Batman. I am convinced that in her original pitch for the show Wax was planning to perform naked, and that the wearing of clothes was a condition forced on her by the BBC.

Wax is so solipsistic that she makes even Minnelli look positively modest. Most chat shows depend on guests who are stupid enough to believe that the minutiae of their own lives are endlessly fascinating ("it's true Ruby, I did once spread lemon curd on a chocolate rice cake!"), but here we have both of them playing the game. Wax is always first in the queue to bare her soul on Celebrity Detox Live or Celebrity Colonic Video Quiz, so when she persuades the proprietors of a fish shop in Marylebone to let Minnelli serve some chips it is really an excuse for Wax to muscle in. She slaps ketchup over the customers and earnestly mimicks their Cockney accents, while Liza laughs at the antics of the mad lady and Gest stands there in his sunglasses looking puzzled.

It is only a shame for Minnelli that her attempts to look younger than she is by whatever means she has chosen to employ (make-up, Botox, surgery, who knows?) have been less effective than Wax's, whose squeaky smooth features are suggestive of Rizzo from Grease, recently defrosted after 25 years in the cryogenic tank of some mad scientist. Minnelli's face, on the other hand, is beginning to sag in strange places, so that she resembles one of the surgeon's planning charts for Michael Jackson's next operation.

Quite what Carrey, Collins and McEnroe will make of it, I don't know. Do they even know who Ruby Wax is? Do they think she is famous? Surely nobody in America has heard of her. Wax has claimed in the past that she came to England because "America put too much value on being tall and blonde". I think the truth is that just as British television personalities who want to be really big have to make it in America (as Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver have both attempted recently), so North Americans who can't get on the television over there finally give up and come and work in Britain - one thinks of Loyd Grossman, Katie Puckrik and Caprice Bourret.

Later in the programme, Minnelli bashes out a subdued, almost spoken rendition of Life is a Cabaret, with which Wax claims to be impressed almost to tears. She whispers to camera, "This makes me realise how untalented I am". It was then that I finally realised why it is that the celebrities are so keen to appear on her show. It's because sharing a screen with Wax can make anyone look good.

Famous Wax treatments

The Duchess of York (1996) More than 14 million people watched rapt as Wax plunged through the barriers of Royal decorum by persuading Fergie to reveal the contents of her fridge (full-fat yoghurt) and bedroom drawers (all labelled). There was a deluge of complaints, but Wax retorted. "If you saw it as an attack, it wasn't. I just didn't understand her Englishness." Despite being locked out of her own house by Wax, the Duchess thanked her after the interview, which was nominated for a Bafta award.

Imelda Marcos (1996) The former dictator's consort considered Wax a worthy interviewer after spotting her on the cover of Hello! magazine. Wax borrowed £100,000 worth of Theo Fennell jewellery for the interview, in which she convinced Marcos to reveal her infamously vast footwear collection and perform a mortifying rendition of Feelings before asking her the killer question: "Where did all the billions go, honey?" Wax remembers: "Imelda Marcos was the most outrageous game that I've ever played and yet when I left, she presented me with a lot of gifts. She wasn't angry, she was pleased."

0. J. Simpson (1998) Wax took the sportsman-tumed-actor-turned-murder-suspect out on to the streets for a public meet and greet. Some asked for his autograph, while another shook his hand before saying "I've never shaken hands with a killer before." The interview had a disturbing ending, in which 0. J. crept up on Wax from behind and re-enacted the shower scene from Psycho, stabbing her repeatedly with a banana.

Pamela Anderson (1996) Despite being warned not to broach the subject of Anderson's breast implants. Wax immediately set about comparing the bombshell's bust with her own. She later remarked: "If I burst one of these, do you know how much I'm gonna to get sued for." Wax also donned a red swimsuit to appear as an extra on the Baywatch set and later encouraged Anderson to demonstrate her favourite sexual positions in the back of a limo. Finding the mechanics of one particular maneouvre difficult to grasp, she tested it out on her producer. The brazen frolics were not over. When she met Anderson a second time, Wax tried to pair up her daughter with the actress's son.

Ruby's jewels

Persuading the actress Lisa Kudrow to perform her Friends favourite tune, Smelly Cat, in Trafalgar Square.

Examining Zsa Zsa Gabor's neck for signs of plastic surgery.

Prompting Sandra Bullock to reveal how she had trimmed an intimate part of her anatomy into the shape of a heart.

Convincing Bette Midler to sing a song from her latest album, while on an escalator in a department store.

Swooning under the Gallic spell of the French footballer Emmanuelle Petit.

Getting the Hollywood action star Jean-Claude Van Damme to headbutt a plastic crocodile that was 'assaufting' her.

Asking Van Damme's mother "The birth must have been painful. Did he just kick-box his way out?"

Being informed by Sharon Stone that the actress prefers sex to be over quickly so that "I can get on with eating".

Joining the Spice Girls in an on-stage rehearsal.

Saying to Burt Reynolds: 'Nice wig, baby, what about your love life?"

The Information (The Independent newspaper) 19 July 2003

Ruby Wax excels in slipping under the guard of celebs, before probing them mercilessly with her mischievous jibes. Then, having established a bond of trust, she miraculously gets away with it. In the first of a new series, she hangs out with Liza Minnelli and her husband David Gest. Wax catches up with the couple as they make a brief pit stop in London, and endeavours to get behind the glitz and gloss of their lives and to gauge whether they really are passionately in love. When they take Wax to their favourite chippy, Liza and David find themselves serving perplexed customers from behind the counter.

Television and Radio (The Daily Telegraph) 19 July 2003

Ruby Wax with... ...Liza Minnelli (and Husband) continues the title. Note the parentheses. (Did we know who he was before she married him?) David Gest is turning 50, so the couple are in London preparing for a big bash at the Dorchester, where Liza will be warbling his favourite toons in front of a celebrity guest list. In the run-up, Ruby strolls out with the pair - in the park, to Harrods - and there's plenty of time for chit-chat. Miss Wax doesn't let her audience down: she's as vulgar, loud-mouthed and tactless as you'd expect, even throwing in a clip from Liza and David's wedding day (Michael Jackson as best man) of "Judy Garland's little girl getting tongued." Yuk.

The Express (Charlie Catchpole) 22 July 2003

The star of Ruby Wax Meets... Liza Minnelli (and Husband) was, of course, Ruby Wax. Minnelli, not long recovered from a life-threatening illness, was in Britain with her most recent husband, the slightly creepy record producer David Gest, to celebrate his 50th birthday with a lavish party at a swish London hotel.

"Just anyone who's anything is here!" cried Ruby, as the camera lingered on Lionel Blair and Michael Winner. In Wax's mysterious mind, she's someone who's everything, so she spent most of the programme muscling Minnelli and Gest out of the way so she could gum furiously and yak away into the camera. During rehearsals for the party, Minnelli belted out a corking version of her signature song, Life Is A Cabaret. In a rare moment of self-awareness, Wax commented: "It really makes you understand how little talent I have." Quite.

However, this did not prevent her from demonstrating the fact at every available opportunity. Her talent for drawing information from whoever she's interviewing is almost non-existent. When the chatty Minnelli began explaining how she was stricken with brain encephalitis that confined her to a wheelchair for four months and prevented her from speaking, let alone singing, Wax cackled: "YOU couldn't speak?" What sounded like an astonishing story was just brushed aside. Wax skirted around the question of Gest's sexuality which many commentators have raised, and nudge-nudgingly asked him which of Minnelli's breasts he preferred. He revealed it's the left, which is higher. Too much information.

They went to a fish and chip shop where the reaction of customers to finding a Hollywood legend serving behind the counter was overshadowed by Wax plunging her fingers into the mushy peas and asking punters to lick them - "my fingers have been nowhere you haven't heard of!" By the end, we had learned hardly anything about Minnelli, absolutely nothing about Gest, but more than we ever wanted to know about Wax.

Still, it made for half an hour of "car crash" TV - gruesome, jaw-dropping and utterly compelling.

The Daily Mail (Peter Paterson) 22 July 2003

There was something of the horror movie combined with a kindergarten about last night's Ruby Wax With..., the first in the British domiciled American comedienne's new series.

Her guest was Liza Minnelli, famous for Cabaret - a film she made 30 years ago - as Michael Jackson's apostle on earth, and for being the daughter of the considerably more accomplished Judy Garland.

As the insulting parentheses in the title suggest, Ms Minnelli was accompanied by her latest husband, David Gest, though the way the programme panned out, the brackets might as well have been applied to her. For the film star was strangely quiet as though under sedation, coming alive only once, when she feebly tried to stop Gest and Wax talking about her breasts.

Gest, with his shades (which he removed only once) and his oddly immobile face - has he been on the Botox? - was full of odd capers as he tried to match Wax's pranks and insults.

Miss Wax's style, of course, is constantly to try it on. She hopes to rile her guests to the point where they will say something that reveals their true character: if they give as good as they get, she turns to flattery, as though wishing to share in their fame.

But Gest adopted the school playground tit-for-tat style of insults and undoubtedly blunted the edge of Wax's teasing.

Thus, after he'd been made to seem painfully slow-footed in the repartee stakes, Gest went after his persecutor while the trio were having tea together - though for Minnelli it consisted of a cigarette, while Gest concentrated on the cakes.

So, with his wife's refusal to eat cream buns the subject, he suddenly observed that he could see two hairs protruding from Wax's nose.

Like any woman would be, she was clearly discountenanced by this offensively personal remark, but recovered in time to call the make-up girl for tweezers, allowing Gest to remove the offending hairs.

When it was done, he inflicted further collateral damage by announcing that she also had lipstick on her teeth.

Obviously he'd become fed up with Wax's goading, perhaps because she'd just been filming the couple in the jewellery department of Harrods, where Minnelli had taken a shine to an £82,000 platinum and diamond crucifix. "It's a symbol of belief - I believe in everything," she'd said.

Egged on by Wax to buy it for Minnelli, Gest first had to put a call through to the president of Cartier, the jewellers: "Are you negotiating?" Wax asked unnecessarily, wittily warning that kids all over England might try the same thing at home.

Earlier, Wax, Minnelli and Gest, pretending to be the Hollywood Rat Pack, took over a fish-and-chip shop and served the customers, adopting Mockney accents and rehearsing their two words of rhyming slang.

It was dire, particularly when Wax invited customers to lick mushy peas from her fingers.

And there was a Hollywood-style climax, with a crowd of bemused celebrities at the Dorchester Hotel to hear Minnelli sing in honour of Gest's 50th birthday - the poor woman seemed aged, out of breath and but a shadow of the dynamic star of Cabaret.

First, she paid tribute to her husband. "It's such a pleasure when someone has done something for you, to give it back," she said. "That's what it is all about, really that we hang on to nothing, really, unless we give it back."

The thought immediately occurred that she might have been referring to that expensive crucifix and the inability of Cartier to offer a big enough discount for Gest to grant her wish to possess it. So she'd had to give it back. Who knows?

The Guardian (Gareth McLean) 22 July 2003

In the misty forests of India's Western Ghats and the murky mangrove swamps of Bhitarkanika,a legend endures. If 100 people see a king cobra, it dies. This, gleaned from O'Shea's Dangerous Reptiles (Channel 4), could be considered proof that fame is corrosive. If you needed any more persuasion, there was Ruby Wax With... Liza Minnelli (and Husband) (BBC1).

Even before David Gest finally removed his sunglasses to reveal a striking similarity to one of the melting Nazis from Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ruby Wax With... was a freak show, a horror movie, a hazard to your mental health. Just when you thought it couldn't get any more disturbing, it did. Every time you wished Minnelli and Gest would get a bit of dignity (or else a room), they sank further into excruciating embarrassment. Watching the couple frolic around London (him full of bravura, her looking like a rabbit on crack) was most perturbing. Like chihuahuas fighting in a sack, the show was a bundle of yappy chaos best watched with the sound down and subtitles on.

It started, as things do, with a kiss. Well, it was more of a face-suck, really. Liza had just taken Gest to be her husband and, after a toe-curling "I adore you", he launched himself at her and began chewing like a ravenous, burrowing insect. She began to reciprocate, but reluctantly, looking not unlike a contestant on I'm a Celebrity who had just taken a mouthful of witchetty grubs. An excerpt from their wedding video, with best man Michael Jackson lingering in the background, this was one of the show's least stomach-churning moments. "I looked like a fish going in to take out her whole intestines," Gest said, appraising his passionate performance. Now that would be being generous.

In London to celebrate Gest's 50th birthday - with 500 of their closest friends in the Dorchester ballroom at a paid-for party, no doubt commemorated in a celebrity magazine - the pair had a merry old time scampering around with the expertly obnoxious Ms Wax. If they weren't in Harrods buying Cartier diamond necklaces (that'll be £82,500, thank you) and engaging in inappropriate kissing, they were hilariously serving up fish and chips and mushy peas in cockney accents. Anything, you understand, for a bit of attention, a bit of what Ruby called the "media mayhem that brings meaning to their lives".

Ruby Wax With... Liza Minnelli (and Husband) left you in need of a good wash, particularly whenever Gest piped up ("I am going home to fill my baby with love"; "We are sluts!"). It also left you feeling terribly sorry for the happy couple who seemed more than a little desperate, whether grinning maniacally at each other or at their party guests, many of whom they'd never met. While other celebrities in attendance appeared as freebie-grabbing mercenaries or insincere air-kissers, scuttling towards any hint of limelight with a Mandelson-like determination, Minnelli and Gest seemed disconnected from the reality. Since their discombobulation is unlikely to be due to really great drugs (prescription or otherwise), you can only assume it is the result of them living their lives. Makes you feel lucky, don't it, Cartier necklaces or no.

Back in the Indian forests, the intrepid O'Shea had risked life, limb and stinging nettles to ensnare a snake on which to test the theory that king cobras can't hear, despite growling when miffed. After encounters with salt-water crocodiles, monitor lizards, vine snakes, and a pit viper, O'Shea and his friendly expert in snake acoustics concluded that snakes are indeed tone deaf. It seems that if you have a super-sensitive tongue, you don't need ears. (Which would explain a lot about Mr Gest.) "A negative result is just as illuminating as a positive one," O'Shea said, persuading nobody.

The Times (Joe Joseph) 22 July 2003

Ruby Wax with... should have warned people that it contained scenes unsuitable for those with a weak stomach for scary images.

David Gest is as good an argument as you will find for introducing a classification system for television programmes. I mean, should you be allowed to look at a face like that without some warning that this is an X-rated show containing scenes unsuitable for those with a weak stomach for scary images?

Throughout the opening episode of Ruby Wax’s new BBC One series, Ruby Wax with... Liza Minnelli (and Husband), you kept wondering why Gest — Minnelli’s spouse of two years — never removes his sunglasses; even at night; even at night, indoors. Then it hit you: maybe it is to stop himself being ambushed by his own reflection whenever he passes a mirror. Gest has a face that looks (apparently naturally) as if it has been cruelly reconfigured as a result of his having enrolled in a witness protection programme.

The thing is, we can forgive Liza Minnelli almost anything on account of her performance in Cabaret. Banking a performance as stunning as that, in a movie as wonderful as that, is the goodwill equivalent of winning the pools. You can spend, spend, spend, but it takes a lot to fritter away that kind of capital (God knows, Minnelli has tried); up to, and including, marrying David Gest. But we owe Gest nothing.

Possibly the scariest moments in Wax’s film were clips of the couple’s wedding video, with Liza, David and Michael Jackson standing on a podium looking not so much like bride, groom and best man as finalists in a fancy-dress 'Victims of Cosmetic Surgery' competition. I say 'fancy dress' not because their wedding outfits were particularly vaudevillian, but in case there are lawyers reading, since none of this threesome has actually had cosmetic surgery.

Jackson has admitted, of course, to a few modifications on his nose (one of the modifications being to make it appear detachable), though these were undertaken purely for medical reasons to do with his singing. Minnelli, 57, told this week’s Radio Times that: "I’ve had no nips and tucks."

When asked if he would have plastic surgery, Gest told the magazine: "I don’t think at this stage of the game we’d care about it"; which would indicate that he hasn’t — though it also means that Gest is in the happy position of having been born with a face that allows him to blend effortlessly in to the nipped-and-tucked Los Angeles facial landscape without ever having had actually to suffer a scalpel blade.

That wasn’t the only unconventional thing about their wedding ceremony. Instead of saying, "I do", Minnelli blinked moistly at Gest and said, "I adore you"; and when it came to kissing the bride, Gest behaved like a novice on a porn movie, trying to ram his tongue through the portcullis of his wife’s gritted teeth, until she surrendered and allowed her new husband to probe his tongue deep into her larynx, like a doctor investigating for tonsillitis. If Jackson’s ringside reaction to this scene was anything like yours and mine (remember, politeness would have prevented him from averting his eyes), it is possible that this may have been the emotionally shocking trigger that made him turn white.

Gest knows that he and his marriage are mocked, but he is not interested in pandering to the press’s prejudices; or even to his wife’s modesty. When he publicly, unblushingly, declares his preference for Minnelli’s left breast over her right, she, to her credit, looks mortified.

Later, at Harrods, Minnelli swoops on an £82,000 Cartier diamond-caked crucifix necklace (Minnelli: "I believe in everything"). David, offering to buy the jewellery as a reaffirmation of his love for his wife (which he also demonstrates by again probing her tonsils with his tongue), tells the sales assistant to "make the call". What?

This, it appears, is what you say when you have plenty of money. You and I pay the ticket price. The rich — who can actually afford to pay the asking price — have a call put through to the president of Cartier to see what can be done about the painful figure written on the ticket (try it the next time you are in Waitrose and reluctant to shell out the marked price for the barbecued chicken: tell the deli counter assistant to "make the call" to see if you and the manager can’t cut a deal on the bird).

Maybe Gest also made Cartier’s boss aware that his necklace was being worn by Liza Minnelli on the BBC, because when we later caught up with him at his 50th birthday party at the Dorchester, it turned out that OK! magazine, which had previously paid for the Minnelli-Gest wedding, was also contributing to the bill for the birthday bash. This might explain why some attendees didn’t actually know the birthday boy. When, for instance, Tracey Emin arrived at the party and Wax asked her if she was was a friend of Gest’s, Emin replied: "No, I’m not friends with anybody actually. I’m here because I was invited. I was on the 'Interesting People' list, I think." Oh David! Oh Tracey!

So? So it is possible that David and Liza were using Wax, and the publicity her show provides, as much as Wax was using them. But Wax’s knack is for keeping her subjects on-side, while metaphorically winking at us throughout the film to make the case that she is just as astonished by her guests’s kookiness as are you and I. This might look simple, and cynical, but it is a tricky tightrope to walk.

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