God Bless the Child

Just as true as when Billie Holiday wrote it in 1939. Holiday knew well about the harshness and unfairness of being poor, and she knew about the fair weather friends money can bring. Holiday was one of those people born to endless night, as the poet said. She had a brutish childhood, and the wealth and fame didn’t make her much happier. She was addictive, self-destructive and unlucky in love, with or without money. She wrote God Bless the Child, perhaps in resignation to living hard, and sang it with knowing sorrow. It’s become a standard since then, covered by many. One popular version, which might sound light-years away from the spirit of Billie Holiday, is Liza Minnelli’s. While Holiday crooned as if to herself, Minnelli is not given to understatement – she starts out slow but by the final verse she’s belting it to the rafters. It might seem at first a cynical song choice for a glitzy star like Minnelli. She was, after all, born to a mama and papa who had it all (except happiness) and she is a broadway baby, all showbiz and spangles. But she and Holiday have a lot in common. Like Holiday, Minnelli has been an alcoholic and an addict, which caused her health and career to suffer. She went through a series of unhappy marriages, and her early life, though financially privileged, was dysfunctional and chaotic. Maybe she can’t resist turning every number into a show tune, but she knows what she’s singing about.

 

Cabaret

I just saw Liza Minnelli in concert, fulfilling a longtime ambition. I’ve adored Liza ever since I first saw Cabaret at an age when nearly everything that movie is about went directly over my head. I loved the hair, loved the lashes, loved the spangles, and especially loved the vivaciousness of Sally Bowles. I wished really hard that I could be that way too, vivacious and charming, because I was quite the opposite. (Now I’ve learned that vivaciousness is usually deployed to disguise crushing insecurity.) I always admire people who live life with gusto. Of course, Sally was an extension of Liza, because Liza’s job is to be Liza. So, anyway, I went to her concert, and Liza was Liza, like a champ. She looked fantastic, and she’s a trooper. She’s had some severe health problems in recent years, including hip and knee replacements among other things, so she can’t hoof it like she used to. She was a tiny, sparkly, extremely dynamic figure. She coughed and wheezed a little between numbers, but she delivered the big songs, belting ‘em like there’s no tomorrow. Poor Liza, as legendary as she is, gets a lot of flak, I’m not sure for what – being too campy, perhaps, or being an icon for gays-of-a-certain-age. Perhaps it that she’s less a singer or an actress than a delivery girl for her own persona. Because whatever she does, no matter how well she does it, she’s always Liza. That’s what makes her so appealing (or not). It’s almost impossible to separate the performance from the person underneath. She’s a larger-than-life personality, except that being larger-than-life is her life – she is, after all, born and bred for the spotlight. The emotional gymnastics of the theatre are second nature to her. For her, being a living legend is just, life. Only somebody who knows she’s a legend (and feels quite comfortable with it) can pull of a song about her own name. Say LIZA!!!