Liza Minelli

Liza Minelli, star of Cabaret - a film of interest to all those interested in Louise Brooks and the Weimar period, is currently in Forth-Worth, Texas, where she will be making an appearance at Bass Hall. The local paper, the Forth-Worth Star Telegram, asked the performer a few questions which were transcribed to today's edition. Minnelli mentions Louise Brooks in these excerpts.

Liza Minnelli has show business running through her veins. Not only does she have legendary parents -- Judy Garland and director Vincente Minnelli -- but she's an icon herself. Her storied career spans the latter half of the 20th century, and along the way she picked up numerous awards, including an Emmy, three Tonys, an Oscar for the 1972 film Cabaret and a "Grammy Legend Award" in 1990.

Minnelli is making her Bass Hall debut tonight, part of a weeklong celebration of the hall's 10th anniversary. Minnelli, who has been touring in Europe, will do her trademark material and will perform work from one of her mentors,  composer / musician / singer / actress Kay Thompson, who was a vocal coach for Garland, Lena Horne and Frank Sinatra, among others.

We asked her a few questions about the show and her career.

Is there anything autobiographical in this show?

I have to talk about my life when I talk about Kay. This is my godmother. I learned to appreciate music early because of her, and I learned from her joy of life, her pizzazz. She's my idol.

With show-business parents, was it a given that you would enter that world, too?

They were involved in Hollywood, so that was boring to me. I wanted to be an ice skater. I wanted to go to the Olympics. But then I saw Bye Bye Birdie on Broadway in 1960, and I knew that's what I wanted to do.

Do people assume that you had an easy route into show business?

They do. But I started off-Broadway, moving scenery. I did years of summer stock. I was a "flower who bloomed between the floorboards of the stage." Charles Aznavour told me that. You make it not because of your parents' success, but in spite of it. That's why so many people who are the sons and daughters of whoever don't make it, because it's too tough. What about Frank Sinatra Jr.?

I recently saw the movie Cabaret again, and it's still amazing. How did you approach the role of Sally?

I thought everybody in Germany looked like Marlene Dietrich. I thought "I'm going to pluck out all my eyebrows and dye my hair blonde." I went to my father, like I usually did, and he showed me all those great stars from the '20s. I saw Louise Brooks and my hair was brunette.

In soft focus

From archiv nega

Another article about an accompaniest

The Bangor Daily News ran an article yesterday about film pianist Harry Weiss, who as it turns out, has accompanied such "darker classics" as Pandora's Box. Check out the article here.

Weiss now lives in Bangor, Maine where he will be playing tonight for a screening of The Battleship Potemkin at the Bangor Opera House.

Beggars tonight in NYC

This short write-up appeared in today's New York Times.  I wish I could be there for this special screening . . . . 

THE MONT ALTO MOTION PICTURE ORCHESTRA We are lucky enough in New York City to have a handful of highly talented pianists who are experts in the subtle, self-effacing art of providing accompaniment to silent films. But it’s a particular pleasure to hear silent-film music as it was actually performed in most of the first-run theaters of that era — which is to say, by an orchestra.

The five-member Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, based in Louisville, Colo., and led by Rodney Sauer, can be heard on several silent-film DVDs, but the group will offer its first live performance in Manhattan on Friday at Lincoln Center, accompanying two films of high interest in themselves: Harold Lloyd’s 1927 comedy “The Kid Brother” (6 p.m.) and William A. Wellman’s rarely screened 1928 social drama “Beggars of Life” (9 p.m.), with Louise Brooks (above, with Richard Arlen) as a young woman who kills her abusive stepfather and, to escape the police, disguises herself as a boy and joins a group of tramps.

Mr. Sauer specializes in compiling scores from the authentic photoplay music of the period, drawing on the work of neglected composers like Gaston Borch and J. S. Zamecnik; the results are often breathtakingly beautiful and always in the strict service of the film on the screen. (Friday at 6 and 9 p.m., Walter Reade Theater, 165 West 65th Street, Lincoln Center, 212-975-5600, filmlinc.org; $20.) DAVE KEHR

A new book

There is a new book out about silent film - and what's more, in mentions Louise Brooks (and the Louise Brooks Society). Sounds like a good read to me.

Beggars of Life in NYC

Beggars of Life (1928) will be shown at the Film Society at Lincoln Center theater this Friday (that's April 25th). The print to be screened is the newly restored version from the George Eastman House - so don't miss it. More information can be found here.

Golden Silents: The Kid Brother and Beggars of Life
Friday, April 25, 2008 6:00 pm and 9:00 pm

The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra onstage accompanying screenings of two silent film greats: Harold Lloyd at 6pm in The Kid Brother and Louise Brooks at 9pm in Beggars of Life.

The Kid Brother
Ted Wilde, US, 1927; 83m
Harold Lloyd was the most successful comedian of the silent era, more popular than Buster Keaton and in more films than Charlie Chaplin. In his comic masterpiece The Kid Brother, Lloyd plays Harold Hickory, the youngest son in a family of burly mountain lawmen. When Mary Powers (Jobyna Ralston) arrives in town with a medicine show, it sets brother against brother in one of the finest––and funniest––of all the silent comedies. Guaranteed fun for the whole family. Fri Apr 25: 6 

Beggars of Life
William A. Wellman, US, 1928; 82m
Louise Brooks plays an abused orphan on the run from the police. She dresses as a man, befriends hobo Richard Arlen, hops a freight train and hides in a hobo camp run by Wallace Beery. But which man is helping her escape to Canada, and which is after the $1000 reward? Beggars of Life is a well-crafted thriller with a straightforward look at 1920s hobo life. Special thanks to The Film Foundation for their funding of the George Eastman House restoration of this film. Fri Apr 25: 9


The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra creates film scores in the same way it was done in the silent film era, selecting music for each scene from their large library of historic “photoplay music.” With five-piece orchestration typical of smaller movie houses of the day, Mont Alto has scored over 50 films since 1994, performing at historic theaters and film festivals around the country.

The year-round Golden Silents series is made possible through the generosity of the Ira M. Resnick Foundation. Golden Silents is programmed by Sayre Maxfield.