Though she has, like her mother, Judy Garland, made her reputation largely in film and in cabaret, Liza Minnelli has also been a lifelong performer on Broadway. After winning a 1963 Theatre World award for her featured role in the off-Broadway musical, Best Foot Forward, Minnelli made her Broadway debut at the age of nineteen in 1965 in the title role of Kander and Ebb’s Flora, the Red Menace, for which she won a Tony® for Best Actress. Her association with Kander and Ebb on stage and in film would last another three decades.
In 1975, she returned to Broadway as the replacement for Roxie Hart in the original run of the Kander and Ebb Broadway hit, Chicago, and later performed on the tenth anniversary Broadway cast album recording of the show. In 1977, Minnelli starred as Michelle Craig in yet another Kander and Ebb musical, The Act, under the direction of Martin Scorsese, and won yet another Tony® for her performance.
Her only Broadway role in the 1980s came in The Link, a Kander and Ebb musical with a book by playwright Terrence McNally. In 1996 she returned as the replacement for the starring role in Blake Edwards and Henry Mancini’s musical adaptation of their film, Victor/Victoria.
In film, Liza Minnelli originated the role of Sally Bowles in Cabaret and in 1977 starred with Robert De Niro in the musical film, New York, New York.
In 1974 Minnelli was given a Special Tony Award® “for adding lustre to the Broadway season.”
