Liza Minnelli made a rare public appearance in Studio City, California Friday, where she gave her thoughts on how her mother, Judy Garland, would have reacted to the 2018 remake of A Star Is Born.
Garland famously starred in the 1954 A Star Is Born remake, the first to add music to the story of a rising Hollywood starlet and her relationship with a drunk has-been actor. In Bradley Cooper’s 2018 version, Cooper played the has-been while Gaga played the rising star.
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“She would have laughed. And then she would have gotten into it,” Minnelli, 73, told Entertainment Tonight at the opening of the Feinstein’s supper club at Vitello’s.
Minnelli added, “I can hear her saying, ‘OK, let’s go!’ Great to the end!”
The Arrested Development actress also told ET she has some concerns for Judy, the upcoming Garland biopic starring Renee Zellweger. The film is set during the last year of Garland’s life, when Garland performed a five-week run of sold-out shows in London. The Rupert Goold-directed film is based on Peter Quiltier’s play End of the Rainbow and hits theaters on Sept. 27.
“Oh, really? No, no I haven’t [seen anything],” Minnelli admitted, before calling Zellwegger a “wonderful” actress. However, Minnelli coyly added, “I just hope they don’t do what they always do. That’s all I’ve got to say.”
In May, Zellwegger told USA Today she did not meet with any of Garland’s children, including Minnelli.
“We have a really close mutual friend. One of my best friends, actually. And I had spoken with him about trying to find her. But, I guess I wasn’t successful in that,” Zellwegger said. “My intention was to share with (Garland’s children) how I perceived the project and what I was hoping from it, and to ask what they might hope from it.”
The Bridget Jones’s Diary star said she feels anything Garland’s children would like to share publicly, they already have, so she would not press to hear private stories. “Anything that they’ve chosen to keep private is treasure, and I would never in my life imagine to impose in that way,” she said.
Minnelli previously said she did not support Judy.
“I have never met nor spoken to Renee Zellweger,” Minnelli said in a statement last year. “I do not approve nor sanction the upcoming film about Judy Garland in any way.”
Minnelli was at Vitello’s to support her longtime friend, singer Michael Feinstein. He named a bar and lounge area after Minnelli.
“I wanted to create a space that was just for Liza. So we have Liza’s room now,” Feinstein told ET. “We met at a nightclub, [so] it’s fitting. l was playing a Christmas party and Liza came by. She heard me playing a song and I lost a line. I lost a lyric, and she threw the lyric to me. I said, ‘Thank you.’ She said, ‘You’re welcome.’”
The musician added, “She kept going, then she came back and sat down next to me and said, ‘From now on, we’re going to be joined at the hip.’ And I went, ‘Haha, yeah right.’ And that’s what happened.”
Photo credit: Gilbert Carrasquillo/FilmMagic/Getty Images
