In keeping with the one word nomenclature customary for PSB releases, at one stage a mooted title for the album was the not unsubtle Pink, suggesting the boys had already conceded exactly what kind of icon she was, and who her target audience were. So the Pet Shop Boys producing Liza Minnelli’s “first pop record” - ably assisted by Aussie expat Julian Mendelsohn - must have seemed like a natural fit. And after years in the doldrums, recording with the boys just cemented her LGBT following. In fact, it makes her now legendary status as Britain’s greatest ever blue-eyed soul singer even more remarkable. In recent years, Tennant, in particular, has expressed belated niggles about the ‘gay icon’ label, but Dusty was a lesbian and gay icon, and acknowledging that fact doesn’t detract from her musical achievements in the slightest. Only this time the vocalist wasn’t Tennant but Liza Minnelli, celebrated singer of showbiz and showtunes who also happened to be the daughter of Judy Garland, one of the world’s most beloved gay icons. Before the seminal synth duo jetted off to peddle their stagecraft - because they “quite like proving that we can’t cut it live” - Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe spent most of March and April that year recording an album after all. Having released an album a year since their dazzling debut - 1986’s Please - enjoyed five* transatlantic No.1 singles, gave Patsy Kensit her only decent record and brought back Dusty Springfield from utter obscurity, by 1989 they took a breather, opting to prepare for their first tour in lieu of a new album. There was a time when, to get Bondian for a minute, the Pet Shop Boys were the men with the Midas touch. Written by Stephen Sondheim, it’s the story of Losing My Mind. Looking back at that time to the summer of ’89 when the Pet Shop Boys gave Liza Minnelli gave her something she’s never experienced before: a big hit single. Well, she was until the Ruby Wax show.” - Neil Tennant So, I rushed on stage, pantsless, and said, ‘I’m not quite ready. On this particular night, I heard your announcement from my dressing room, and I was yet to put on my pants,” remembered Grey. I was on first, and you introduced me from offstage. Of the memories shared on Friday, Grey may have summed Minnelli the best, recounting a story from their early days touring the country. And in her shows like “Liza with a Z” and “Liza’s at the Palace,” she melded the singular sensation of a powerhouse solo act - like that of her mother’s - with the enduring precociousness of a modern Broadway icon. By “Cabaret,” she rode the musical’s modish, sex-infused return to the screen with Bob Fosse. When she moved to New York at age 16 - eschewing any help from her parents - she made it big on Broadway, winning a Tony in three years’ time.
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The daughter of Judy Garland and MGM director Vincente Minnelli - and goddaughter to Ira Gershwin - Minnelli’s early years touched the Golden Age of Hollywood, when the musical film drove the movie machine.
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In her 75 years, Minnelli has mirrored the full breadth of American musical theater in a way few performers have. “And the reason, my sweet sister, is because you’ve lived your entire extraordinary, Sally-Bowles kind-of life staying true to that very simple phrase.” “The song that really makes me think about you is one that Fred Ebb and John Kander wrote, called ‘Say Yes,’” recalled Joel Grey, Minnelli’s counterpart in “Cabaret,” for which she won an Academy Award for best actress in 1973. And clear on Friday was the undeniable fact that Minnelli’s iconicism - ever a concoction of unadulterated talent and biography - is exactly what’s needed to keep the Broadway tradition alive. But, as one reviewer once wrote, Liza Minnelli isn’t a has-been. In the year since Broadway closed, star-studded birthday tributes like these - celebratory receiving lines at their best - haven’t changed much. Joined by the likes of Nathan Lane, Ben Vereen, Barbra Streisand, Carol Burnett, John Kander, Waters, MacLaine, Joan Collins, Neil Meron, Michael Feinstein and Lily Tomlin, stars gathered, performed and wished ‘Liza with a Z’ well. Memories like those abounded in “A Love Letter to Liza,” a benefit for the Actors Fund on Friday night, meant as a birthday tribute to Minnelli. A year to the day since Broadway shuttered, Liza Minnelli celebrated her 75th birthday - but not over post-show drinks with Joan Collins, in a limo in Paris with John Waters, or at her childhood home with Shirley MacLaine.
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