‘I’ve come to the point in life when I’m willing to take the risks I’ve always wanted to.’ Promoting her album with the Pet Shop Boys, Liza Minnelli was in a liberated mood when she granted the Observer an audience in Athens in 1989, but not a punctual one. She was detained – washing her hair, then losing her room key but, on arrival the delayed diva looked ‘fresh and younger than her 43 years’.
That was no foregone conclusion: five years before, she had checked into Betty Ford, amid fears she was ‘beginning to resemble Judy Garland in more ways than her extraordinary voice’. She was happy to discuss it in a candid chat. ‘At first you think, boy, Valium, what a great thing this is! My muscles don’t hurt. My back has stopped hurting… By then you’re addicted.’
Addiction, she said, was ‘a spiritual disease’; she had ‘loved’ giving up, but after that, ‘the fun starts’, meaning she had been forced to tackle her fears, obsessions and pain. That included the hurt inflicted by Andy Warhol’s gossipy diaries covering her affairs, drug use and ‘tacky furnishings’.
‘I liked him quite a lot, but I don’t like what he did to my friends,’ she said. ‘I don’t think gossiping on the phone and rewriting it is fair.’ She had kinder words for the Pet Shop Boys: the journalist hinted they might be gently sending a camp icon up, but Minnelli said they were ‘complete gentlemen’; Neil Tennant reciprocated, commenting she was ‘fabulous all the time’.
She remained fabulous as the sun set over her Greek hotel. It was the best time of day, reminding her of childhood evenings in other hotels, her parents’ perfume wafting around little Liza in her pyjamas. ‘They were about to go out and do something absolutely wonderful and you couldn’t wait till you grew up so you could do it, too.’
The journalist went in for a peck on the cheek as he left, but Liza delivered a full-bodied hug ‘tight and long, 15 seconds minimum.’
