Twenty feet in front of you, and you can’t see a thing.
Even the closest faces are in shadow – lit, but not quite enough for you to see for sure what the people there are thinking. Still, you can hear them, their gasps, their laughter, and applause. Such is life, on-stage. Now read “Kids, Wait Till You Hear This! My Memoir” by Liza Minnelli, as told to Michael Feinstein, and read about it beyond the spotlight.
Almost from the moment she was born, Liza Minnelli was famous.
It was inevitable: her mother was Judy Garland. Her father was director Vincente Minnelli. Her godparents were Hollywood glitterati, her neighbors were famous, her playmates would be famous someday, too.
But her life wasn’t all starlight and happiness.
She made her stage debut as a toddler. She became her “mother’s caretaker” at age 13.
At 16, she had a growing career of her own – one that her mother tried to stop. But, she says, “In her own way, Mama was wonderful to me. Try understanding – she was my mother, not a movie star…. I knew her as the person who loved me and always would.”
At 19, Minnelli was working, happy, and madly in love with the man who’d become her first husband, and life was wonderful - until she came home one day to find him in their bed with another man. Before they were divorced, she lost her beloved mother, and became “engaged” to two other men simultaneously, neither of which made it to the altar with her.
She married her second husband, the son of one of her mother’s former co-stars, in 1974 but her love affairs and addictions led to a second divorce.
Her third husband was a stage manager.
She doesn’t have much good to say about her fourth, and last, husband.
Overall, she says, “You gotta play the comedy for all it’s worth and leave ‘em laughing. Even when your heart is breaking.”
Are you expecting bluntness, sass, or attitude here? Good, because that’s what you get inside “Kids, Wait Till You Hear This!” It’s strong on honesty and don’t-give-a-flip. It’s wonderfully edited, so it moves fast. It’s eye-opening and funny and a pleasant surprise for a first, and only (so far), memoir.
Even better, author Liza Minnelli (with best friend, Michael Feinstein) is really quite candid and nicely gossipy, starting from the beginning. There are some Hollywood folks, in fact, who are feeling edgy tonight, because of what’s inside this book and the secrets spilled. Minnelli and Feinstein seemed to have fun telling her story, and they comfortably lure readers in.
That’s not to say that it’s all a cabaret. Minnelli tells about her addictions and recoveries, her marriages and why she wed two gay men, and the losses she endured, including miscarriages, deaths, and broken relationships. The bad balances well with the good for a tale that’s several notches above most celebrity memoirs. “Kids, Wait Till You Hear This!” is, in fact, a real joy to read, a genuine bright spot.
“Kids, Wait Till You Hear This! My Memoir” by Liza Minnelli, as told to Michael Feinstein
c.2026, Grand Central $36 421 pages
