A Star is Reborn

14 June 2003 Weekend Magazine, The Daily Mail Newspaper

Liza Minnelli and David Gest may have raised a few eyebrows when they married, but he has rejuvented her career and she may finally be emerging from the shadow of her 'mamma', Judy Garland. Lynda Lee-Potter gets a taste of their Cabaret-esque lifestyle. Photos Mike Ryan/ Allstar/ Corbis.

Liza Minnelli and husband David Gest are doing a picture shoot for Weekend and the room is packed with minions, stylists and producers, as well as their agent, make-up artist and their hairdresser Scottie. 'I can't kiss Liza's nose,' says David, 'or I'll make it shiny.' He's a record producer who has been in show business all his life so, unlike most husbands, he's aware of things like that. There is also a bossy lady who glowers and gesticulates at Liza whenever I ask her anything, and appears to be signalling, 'Don't answer that.' 'Are you the thought police?' I ask. 'I'm their production manager,' she says coldly.

They leave nothing to chance, so even a photo shoot has to be choreographed. I've arrived early and the famous couple - as always - are running late. Today it's an hour and a half, so I watch the pictures being taken. This is a floor show in itself because every so often Mr and Mrs Gest break off to dance to Frank Sinatra singing, 'What a world, what a life, I'm in love,' in the background. I've been told to ask hotel reception for Ursula and Horace Will Cocker, and try saying that when you're nervous about meeting a living legend.

These are the names behind which Mr and Mrs Gest are currently hiding in London, though I don't know why I can't simply use their real monikers. I mean, if you heard somebody ask for Mr Gest, would you immediately shout, 'Not the great American record producer?' However, the photographer has persuaded David to remove his shades, which he invariably wears to hide what appear like suspiciously facelifted eyes. 'I've had no nips or tucks,' insists Liza, but the answer to 'do I believe her?' is no... her face looks like porcelain and is too unlined for an ex-alcoholic and one-time prescription drug addict of 57. She also has an amazingly razor-sharp profile for a woman who, despite having lost 601bs, still has a way to go before she reduces her rather beer-barrel middle.

The glitzy pair are in London staying at the Lanesborough hotel for David's 50th birthday party, which was held at the Dorchester. Two hundred guests drank champagne, though Liza abstained because she's now teetotal and a regular at her local Alcoholics Anonymous branch in Hawaii. 'You can't ask her about that,' snaps the production manager, though I don't see why the hell not. The birthday supper consisted of breast of chicken stuffed with chanterelles before Liza, accompanied by her entire band, sang I Can't Give You Anything But Love. This was dedicated to 'the most important man in the world', whom she married last year at the Marble Collegiate Church on Fifth Avenue, New York. It was the bride's fourth wedding and the bridegroom's first, and it had all the razzmatazz of a Hollywood premiere. The couple got several standing ovations from the theatrical congregation, which included Anthony Hopkins, Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall, Gina Lollobrigida and Joan Collins. There were 15 bridesmaids dressed in black, which seemed an unfortunate omen. Elizabeth Taylor was maid of honour, looking a dotty 103 and the spitting image of the ancient variety star Old Mother Riley. The church was turned into a forest of orchids, Michael Jackson and his brother Tito were best men and Natalie Cole sang Unforgettable.

Liza wore an off-the-shoulder ivory beaded crepe dress and, rather than sticking to the wedding service, the couple provided their own schmaltzy script. 'I love you more than words can say. You made me a complete person and you are everything to me. I will love you forever,' said David. 'I adore you,' said the bride, with her false eyelashes flapping wildly up and down over her tear-filled Bambi-like eyes. She then did a tap dance, which was cue for more applause, and the bridegroom went into a passionate clinch with his new wife. 'The Reverend said, 'You can now kiss the bride',' recalls David, 'and, boy, when I kissed her, all the congregation were standing up, screaming and applauding. It was a kiss from the heart.'

Having watched the wedding video, I say honestly that I've never seen such an erotic, lengthy, tongue-down-the-throat kiss and Liza says, 'Neither had I.' Later, when they sat in bed to watch a video of the wedding, David was so embarrassed he put his head under the duvet - as well he might. He looked as though he was devouring his bride and would never come up for air. 'I had not been married before and I just thought that was how you did it,' admits Mr Gest, sounding like a man who hasn't kissed too many women. Actress Ann Rutherford, who played Vivien Leigh's little sister in Gone With The Wind, was at the wedding and told him, 'I was there for Clark Gable and Carole Lombard; I was there for Sinatra and Mia Farrow, and for Paul Newman and Joanne, but never have I seen a kiss like that.'

Finally, they left the church to find the street crammed with fans shouting, 'Liza, we love you,' as she threw her bouquet into the rapturous crowd. The bride then boogied the night away at the Regent hotel, shimmying in a red mini frock. In London they look as surreal as they did at the wedding. Liza is glamorous in black with a chalk-white face and a trembling voice. She has stiff black eyelashes and hair like lots of little black icicles. She winds her long red scarf around her husband and he jokes, 'I've always been into bondage.' David is wearing a grey, rather tight fitting suit and all he needs is a trilby to resemble an old-style gangster. Mrs Gest, of course, is the only child from Judy Garland's second marriage to film director Vincente Minnelli, who directed his wife in one of her most famous movies, Meet Me In St Louis. David looks remarkably like him and seems very pleased when I point this out, saying that lots of people say the same. Liza has inherited Judy's throaty emotional voice, star quality and luminous beauty. Her father once said, 'I see less and less of Judy in Liza. Liza is stable. With Judy you'd call in a whole room of psychiatrists to see her and they would say, 'All she needs is a little love.' I'd smile to myself. Two weeks later the psychiatrists would all rush out of Judy's room screaming.'

However, there have been traumatic times for Liza when she also seemed doomed. She met Peter Sellers, fell in love, got engaged and broke it off in a week. Her first husband was Peter Allen, a bisexual who had an affair with her mother's fourth husband, Mark Herron. Undeniably, Judy was exhausting to be married to and if she'd lived would now be 81. 'Oh, Mamma wouldn't like that,' says Liza. 'She's better where she is. She had a terrible problem through the years with alcohol and she was suffering so much. When she died I was relieved that she was out of pain. All drunks go to heaven because they've been through hell on earth.'

Judy married five times before dying in London in 1969 from an accidental drug overdose at the tragically early age of 47. Her fifth wedding to the much younger club manager Mickey Deans took place only three months before her death. Liza didn't like Mr Deans and sent a telegram to her mother saying, 'Sorry I can't come to your wedding. I'll come to your next.' However, Liza's marriage to David, they both insist, is for life and they seem a devotedly happy albeit odd - couple.

'We laugh together, cry together and love together,' says David, who uses his wife's left breast as a pillow every night. 'I can't get to sleep unless I'm on her left breast. I love her right breast, but I'm addicted to her left breast - it's what I go to sleep on. It's so warm and white. I absolutely adore her body. She's a passionate, fabulous warm-blooded Italian and the sexiest woman in the world. The reason why she wanted to lose the weight was so she could JUMP UP and down on the bed.' This conjures up a bizarre picture, but luckily the large double bed in the suite looks pretty sturdy. Before the interview, I'm told that I mustn't mention David's alleged homosexuality or Judy Garland. I mention both and Mr and Mrs Gest don't seem to mind. Elton John quipped that he wished Liza had a heterosexual husband, but David says he's never met Sir Elton and he's mystified by the singer's bitchiness. 'I lived with a woman for 11 years,' he says. 'I've had plenty of women and I'm not into men; never have been.'

Undeniably, there are many parallels between Liza and her mother. Judy was performing at three and supporting her family. Liza appeared on screen as a baby and at two was in the movie The Good Old Summertime. 'My family goes back six generations in the theatre and the circus on both sides. I'm pure-bred show business. Mamma taught me to plant my feet on the earth but keep my head in the sky.'

When Liza's father Vincente was only four he also went on stage, as the little boy who dies in the Victorian melodrama East Lynne. His real mother was playing his heartbroken mamma, and on the first night when she sobbed, 'Don't die, don't die', the young Vincente sat up and said, 'I'm all right Mamma. I didn't die', whereupon she hissed back, 'Lie down and shut up.'

After Judy divorced Vincente, she married agent Sid Luft and had two more children, Lorna and Joey. Sadly, that marriage also ended and it was a desperate time in Judy's life. When her mother was drunk, hysterical or drugged, Liza looked after her siblings. There were glamorous times when Hollywood set designers came at Christmas to transform the family house into fairyland. Then there were days when Judy had to creep out of hotels with her children so broke she couldn't settle her account. 'The one thing I learned from my childhood,' says Liza, 'was how to stay in hotels without paying the bill. The first time we were thrown out the manager confiscated all our clothes. The next place we went to they took Mamma's music so we had to raise money to get it back. 'I thought, 'There must be a way of getting round this,' so I had the music copied and got lots of confiscatable things. I went to thrift shops and bought cheap clothes. Every time we were in a hotel and they said, 'You haven't paid your bill, we're going to confiscate your possessions,' I'd say, 'Oh, you mustn't do that,' and Mamma would start crying. Then we'd leave because we'd already booked into another hotel where we wouldn't be able to pay the bill either. The day before we'd all have gone there wearing as many of our best clothes as we could get on and Mamma would wear three fur coats.' It's a sad story but Liza clearly thinks it's funny. 'People talk about my childhood as though it was tragic, but there was a lot of laughter and love. Mamma told me everything and I understood.'

Judy told her too much because Liza always knew she had to be the adult in the family. Possibly this is why in middle age she's rather childlike. She needed to grow up too soon and now she clearly loves being told what to do by her controlling husband. Her mother made so many suicide attempts that her young daughter learnt how to use a stomach pump. When she appeared with Judy at the London Palladium she discovered that a superstar mother can be jealous if a younger, prettier version of herself brings the house down. 'I was on stage with my mother but suddenly she wasn't Mamma, she was Judy Garland. I thought 'Yikes', but I kept up with her. When we danced, nothing was choreographed, but if she went on the left foot I was there with her.' Afterwards, with a steely look in her eye, Judy said grimly to her daughter, 'You are really, really good.'

Liza had early glittering success with Cabaret and concert tours, but she inherited destructive genes and until now has been a terrible picker of husbands. In 1984 she was in the Betty Ford Clinic for substance abuse. She's had two hip replacements, surgery on both knees and back, and five miscarriages. Then, in October 2000, it was believed that she'd suffered a stroke. In fact, she had been misdiagnosed and had viral encephalitis, which is an inflammation of the brain. Doctors told her that her lungs were damaged and unless she rested for a year she might lose her voice. I ask her if she thought she would never work again and she says, 'I didn't believe I would live, let alone work. But then the hope came back because my father always told me, 'Anything is possible.' My mother gave me my drive and my father gave me my dreams.'

The news that she might have to spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair was devastating. She consoled herself with food and drink, and there were terrible pictures of her looking bloated and gargantuan. 'Liza Minnelli is fighting for her life' screamed one headline at the time. However, like her mother, who time and time again pulled herself back from the brink to make a tumultuous comeback, she was determined to survive. 'One day I thought, "What do I know how to do?" and the answer was, 'Rehearse'. So I turned my face to the wall and tried to say, 'A... B... C...'

'I started to do the alphabet and I did it over and over and over again, until I could talk. Then weeks later when the doctors came back I said, "I'd like to try walking." I got up and I took one step. I said, 'That's all I have to do.' The next day I took two steps and just kept doing it like that. My body was in pain but that's part of the process of getting well. You don't just jump out of bed after encephalitis. It was a long process, but I was so determined to get my posture back and I did. I have crushed discs and rotated vertebrae so I'm three inches shorter than I was, but I'm standing straight. You get to a certain point of recovery when you need help. If you're lucky God puts somebody in your path and for me he put David.' Her husband doesn't like to stay silent for long and interjects to say that 90 per cent of patients with the same disease never recover.

Headlines continued to appear saying her career was over, but once again work saved her. Her old friend Michael Jackson wanted her to appear on his 30th anniversary show. David Gest was producing, but was opposed to Liza's appearance. 'She'd gotten very heavy and I didn't want her on the stage feeling embarrassed and not as good as she had been. But Michael was insistent, so I sent my producer over to see if she could still hit the notes. He called me from her house and said, 'She can do it; she can hit a three-octave range; you will not be ashamed of her performance.''

Liza overheard the producer talking to David and realised he'd had doubts about her abilities. 'I'll show him,' she thought and when he visited her she sang We Are Not Alone. 'I thought,' says David, 'God, this woman is really talented - she has the greatest heart of anyone I've ever seen and is an incredible human being.' She smiles, and you can feel love and warmth from her. I knew that with the right motivation, if she set her mind to it, she could do anything she wanted to do in life. And that's what she did. She went on a great diet and she worked as hard as anybody I've ever seen. I was ruthless with her. I said, 'You've got so much to give the world as a performer and as a human being, and if you lose the weight you can do it.' I was the disciplinarian but she was the one who did it. Now she's drug-free, alcohol-free, and she dances for two hours a day. There's something about her that's infectious and contagious to people. There is a little girl quality about her and when we met, that's what I saw.'

David came into Liza's life at just the right time and a week after she sang for him they were living together. 'I knew I was in love with her and I spoke to an actor buddy of mine, Liam Neeson, who is married to Natasha Richardson. I'd never wanted to get married but I said, 'I'm really in love with this woman and I don't know if I could live each day without her.' He said, 'Marry her. Natasha and I are so happy. When you find someone you love, you should settle down because you won't find greener pastures.' So I took Liza to the top of the building where I live to look at the stars. I got down on one knee and I said, "I love you. I want you to be my wife. Will you marry me?''

Liza remembers a myriad of emotions rushing through her mind. 'I thought, 'I don't want to get married again, I'll have to tell him.' 1 opened my mouth and said, 'Yes'.' David gave Liza a teardrop diamond engagement ring, saying, 'Then you can have it on your finger not in your eye.' Five months later they were married. The tearful, unstable bingeing and alcoholic days are over. David treats his wife with an amalgam of adoration and severity. He's her lover, worshipper, jailer and manager, He decides what she wears, how she looks and what she eats. 'My wife is an alcoholic,' he says. 'She has to cope with one day at a time. But if a drink was in front of her, would she take it? No. She's strong enough to know that she has to choose between life or death, and she's chosen to live.'

Liza still goes back to the rehabilitation centre, Caron Foundation, for self-help sessions and counselling for alcohol addiction, and now David goes with her. When she returned recently there were rumours that she was back on the booze, but she's clean, though not complacent. 'If you had cancer you'd go back for treatment, wouldn't you? That's what I do; it's that simple. We all help each other and the support is amazing. My God, the hours that we all work up there. But it's marvellous because you see people regain their lives - families are put back together and all the things which weren't available when I was dealing with my mom. There is no cure for alcoholism. The only thing that helps you is your attitude. Mamma was chemically dependent and an alcoholic, so was her father, and now we know that it is a compulsive inherited disease.'

The Gests are hugely entertaining to be with, but I can't imagine them ever being alone at home, relaxed and ordinary. The room is still packed with people tending their every need. However, Liza insists this is not normal life and says, 'You should see us at our house in Hawaii. We've just bought a new home there, which is paradise. You wake up and you're right on the ocean. We wear baseball caps, T-shirts and jeans, and go barefoot. We throw everything into our jeep and go on the beach. We have picnics and we're going to adopt a little girl called Serena.'

Wherever they go people greet them warmly and David believes he knows why: 'When we got married we weren't Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. Here was a man of 49 who said he'd never marry and a woman who had overcome every obstacle. She was looking incredible and her voice was stronger than ever. All of a sudden it was like a Cinderella story. Everybody was touched and felt they could relate to us.'

His wife looks at him and says tremulously, 'We give people hope.'

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