Not a Book – Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story

Another Sunday, another documentary from me. And it’s probably not unexpected that a musicals geek like me would watch a documentary about Liza Minelli, but I’m here to make a case forwhy you’d be interested in it even if you’re not a fan of musicals or divas.

This is a documentary about Liza Minelli, which focuses principally on Liza’s life after the death of her mother Judy Garland, and her work establishing herself as separate to her mother and building her own legacy and legend. As you can see from the trailer, Liza is in it (a lot) as are numerous of her friends – both famous and not.

Liza’s life is pretty incredible. She’s the daughter of one of Hollywood’s most beloved (but troubled) stars and a legendary director of musical films, She was in the public eye from the day that she was born, but she went on to be an iconic performer herself. She’s one of only six people to be a non-competitive EGOT – her Grammy is an honorary one, but she won her Oscar, Emmy and three Tonys in competition (and has a fourth honorary Tony too). And that career is covered extensively in this documentary.

But the reason that I think that this is of interest to people beyond the Liza fans, is because of that life time of fame. Liza has never really had a private life, and she’s had a public persona from the moment her parents first put her in front of a camera. in a way, she’s one of the last vestiges of the studio system: a child brought up in the business who watched how her mother was portrayed in the press and who has deliberately and constantly guarded what facets of herself she shows to her fans and her public when she’s not performing. So don’t go expecting any big revelations or confessions here – but that’s what I found so fascinating – what Minelli is like in normal life is essentially unknowable unless you’re in her inner circle. And you get glimpses of that from the friends and family – but just that, glimpses because her one overriding motivation in her public persona is to prove to everyone that she’s not Judy Garland and that she didn’t inherit all the problems that her mother had.

So it’s incredibly watchable, but there’s a lot of smoke and mirrors. There’s loads of great archive and lots of evidence that she’s a kind person but she’s not going to tell you how she feels, or what she really thinks. I know that Peter Allen was the husband that she liked the most – according to her friends but there’s nothing really good or bad from her about any of them, although various of her friends are not shy to tell you that they really didn’t like David Gest. She’s still sticking to it that she never really saw any drugs at Studio 54, despite all other evidence to the contrary. You come away feeling doused in showbiz pizzaz, and slowly realise that you’re none the wiser about the reality. Just fascinating.

This one is available on different streaming services depending on where you are – in the UK it’s on the iPlayer at the moment.

Have a good Sunday!