Liza Minelli and All That Jazz...

[Thesbijean]

Posted: 2/15/05 at 1:14am

I have a recording of Liza doing All That Jazz, it is the most Jewish rendition of a song I have evr heard. Vocally, she is fine, just, for god sakes. If anybody wants it, PM, it is worth it!!!

[wildcat]

Posted: 2/15/05 at 2:12am

Oy, her mother's blood'd curdle....

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 2/15/05 at 9:07am

MiNNelli. Two N's. Like in the song. Fix it please - you're making Rath's hair gray.

[Glebb]

Posted: 2/15/05 at 9:27am

Did you see Liza and Goldie sing and dance it on an 80s TV special?

[wildcat]

Posted: 2/15/05 at 9:33am

Like a really expensive audition for the movie!

[Glebb]

Posted: 2/15/05 at 9:34am

I'm glad it didn't get made at that time. :)

[wildcat]

Posted: 2/15/05 at 9:38am

Ah, but if Fosse had directed it, who knows? Mind you, he might have made it hideously dark.

[baddadnpa]

Posted: 2/15/05 at 9:57am

What about it makes it a "jewish rendition?"

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/15/05 at 10:04am

She was hardly a stranger to the "Chicago" score. Remember that she did play Roxie for several months early in the original run, stepping in for Gwen Verdon, who had to have surgery. She was at the height of her popularity at the time and single-handedly turned "Chicago" into a soldout hit. She and Rivera apparently were quite terrific together (and from those who saw both Minnelli and Verdon, I've heard they were both incredible, with Liza being the better singer, of course, but Gwen, even at 50, being the better dancer).

[umgeoboy]

Posted: 2/15/05 at 10:52am

now thats a cast I would have loved to see! Damn me for being too young

[Theatrical Landladies]

Posted: 2/15/05 at 11:03am

Liza got to sing "I AM MY OWN BEST FRIEND" as a solo when she was Roxy! The view was she was a much better singer than Gwen and it orignially was intended to be a solo number so Liza made it her own! How fab to have star power!

[wildcat]

Posted: 2/15/05 at 11:41am

Well, why didn't Chita demand to sing it alone when SHE finally played Roxie? REVENGE AT LAST! Mwahahahahahahah!!!!!!!!

[WISHIHADATONY]

Posted: 2/15/05 at 3:05pm

Thesbijean, what do you mean by a "Jewish Rendition." Can't for the life of me figure out what that means.

In THE ULTIMATE EVENT where Liza performed with Sinatra and Sammy Davis, she opened her set with ALL THAT JAZZ, and did it quite wonderfully........I have the tape of THE ULTIMATE EVENT, a great concert....

For a number of years the CHICAGO film was going to be done with Liza as Velma (she of course substituted as Roxie for the ailing Gwen Verdon on Broadway) and Goldie Hawn as Roxie. Liza and Goldie did a great tv special together in the late 1970s....

It is my understanding that Harvey Weinstein's first choices to star in CHICAGO film were Barbra Streisand and Goldie Hawn...REMEMBER, in the original CHICAGO Roxie and Velma were not "youthful."

Streisand talks about being offered the starring role in the CHICAGO film by Weinstein in her interview on INSIDE THE ACTORS STUDIO, if memory serves me correctly.

I adore Liza.........But for "my All That Jazzing",,,,,,the divine Ms. Rivera is gonna be my favorite forever. She was breathtaking on stage in CHICAGO and her vocal performance is nicely captured on the OCR.

[Whatchmacallit]

Posted: 2/15/05 at 3:34pm

WishIHadATony,

At the height of the hubub regarding the movie, after the revival was a smash, the leads were being touted as Madonna as Velma and Goldie as Roxie. I remember reading that everywhere. I also recall seeing a couple of pictures of them having lunch, and the caption reading something along the lines of the two of them getting chummy before starting work on the movie version of Chicago.

I don't know how I would have felt about Madonna in the part, but she apparently had Fosse's approval. I forgot what book I had read it in(on a day killing time at Borders) but he had been quoted as saying that he would win Madonna an Oscar.

Updated On: 2/15/05 at 03:34 PM

[WISHIHADATONY]

Posted: 2/15/05 at 3:43pm

Whatchmacallit,,,I think we are speaking Decades apart......Firstly, Bob Fosse was dead when the revival of CHICAGO opened.

Secondly, I too remember some buzz about Madonna and the CHICAGO film at one point.

I am glad Madonna did not do the film, she hasn't really done a successful film where she was the lead, as yet.

But, when CHICAGO was originally on Broadway, for a number of years the film was absolutely slated for Liza and Goldie. Clearly,,THAT film was never made.......and the years went on and so on and so forth.

It seems Goldie Hawn is the actress who absolutely had the longest "rumored to be starring in" association with CHICAGO. She was forefront for the film with the original production, and was certainly up there when the smash revival opened.

[umgeoboy]

Posted: 2/15/05 at 3:44pm

wish Madonna never had a successful movie with her as the lead? Does Evita not count?

[Whatchmacallit]

Posted: 2/15/05 at 3:50pm

Maybe I was not clear, but I did not mean it to sound like Fosse was involved with hubub after the revival. The quote about him getting Madonna an Oscar, was obviously before he died(in 1987, almost ten years before the revival opened), I just assumed it would be clear that it was said when he was alive.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/15/05 at 3:59pm

In one of the Fosse bios (I'd give you the quote, but I'm at work and my copy's at home), Fosse did indeed say he wanted Madonna for Velma. This was towards the beginning of her career, right after "Desperately Seeking Susan" and after he'd seen a few of her videos (circa 1985). At the time of his death in '86, he had begun to make preliminary overtures to do a film of Chicago with Madonna and (I believe) Goldie Hawn.

[WISHIHADATONY]

Posted: 2/15/05 at 4:14pm

umgeoboy, EVITA the film was a critical and financial failure.....I enjoy the movie a great deal, but it bombed with critics and audiences. Madonna's Golden Globe award was very, very generous.

The most successful films of Madonna's career have been:

DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN
A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN (or is it OUR own?)
and
TRUTH OR DARE