Word: liza
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Judy's emotional problems?her drinking bouts and her numerous attempts at suicide?were less easily laughed off. But again, at least according to Liza, they are worse in the telling than they were in fact. At home in Los Angeles, Judy would often take a few aspirins, lock the bedroom door and announce that she was committing suicide. On to the act after the third or fourth time, Liza would merely borrow the clippers from the gardener and snip a hole in the window screen so that she could climb in. Once inside, she would try to talk...
Minnelli recalls that "Liza actually was a very calming influence on her mother. Their roles were reversed; Judy had some very childlike traits, while Liza was grown-up." Adds Liza: "Mama and I talked a lot. She'd put too much trust in somebody, then they'd do something slight, and she'd take it as a slap in the face. The thing I tried to get through to her was that none of it really mattered. Of course people were going to let her down. They couldn't help...
When Judy had money, she would entertain, and Liza stayed up and mingled with the guests. "Terrific people were there like Lauren Bacall, Bogart and Sinatra. And Mama always invited Marilyn Monroe, too, because Mama was very adamant about how rottenly people treated Marilyn. Marilyn talked to me a lot, and I remember knowing why: because no one else talked to her. We were really good friends when I was about ten. She used to tell me how lonely she was. I told her that she had to talk with people and let them know she didn't want anything...
...decisive spark to Liza's career was set off when she attended a string of Broadway shows with her mother. "It wasn't that tedious process I saw at Metro," she says. "I could see it happening before my eyes. The chorus of Bye Bye Birdie fascinated me. It had kids in it, and a camaraderie that I recognized. It seemed like an answer to the kind of loneliness I felt. Just friends kidding around, with lots of laughter." Two years later she quit school and began trying to join in the laughter...
...York was almost as tough on Judy Garland's kid as on any other show-biz hopeful. While looking for work, Liza stayed with a friend of her mother's, then moved into a hotel for women, only to be thrown out and have her clothes confiscated when she could not pay the bill. Neither parent could be found for help, and she spent one night on the steps of the fountain in front of the Plaza Hotel, another in Central Park. Luckily, she was cast in an off-Broadway revival of Best Foot Forward. The salary, $34 a week...