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January 12, 2025 15 mins
Original Air Date: January 12, 2025

She is one of the few people known only by her first name: Liza.  “Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story” opens jan. 24 at the IFC center.  Bruce David Klein directed and had long conversations with this legend.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio, conversations about issues that matter.
Here's your host, three time Gracie Award winner, Shelley Sunstein.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
If you are a fan of Liza to need no
last name, you have.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
To stay tuned.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
I want to introduce you to Bruce David Klein. He
is an Emmy nominated producer, director and writer, and he
is the director of an extraordinary documentary that's opening at
the IFC on the twenty fourth. Liza A truly terrific,
absolutely true story. And my first question to you, Bruce.

(00:42):
First of all, great job. My first question to you is,
how the hell did you land this? I mean, there
must be thousands of directors who have sought a documentary
with Liza Minelli and a one on one with the
great Liza Minellie. Why you and how did you do this?

(01:05):
It's like a miracle for you.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
Right Well.

Speaker 4 (01:08):
I like to think that passion changes everything, and it
was passion. I think it was a combination of several factors.
One we had done a couple of years back, a
film I produced called Best Worst Thing That Ever Could
Have Happened on Stephen Sondheim and how Princes merrily we
roll along film, and that kind of got us into

(01:29):
the Broadway mode. I'm a big Broadway fan. In two
thousand and eight, I actually saw Liza at the Palace
and I was completely blown away by the audience reaction
to her. And I think that, you know, there were
some questions at the time, you know, how was her health,

(01:50):
you had just had hip surgery? Could she still sing?
And you know, kind of the spotlight comes on at
the beginning, she walks out, she does a little of
that Liza move, and the audience lost their minds in
a way I never saw, I mean, grown men and
women standing on the Broadway seats with tears.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
Running down their cheeks applauding.

Speaker 4 (02:13):
So I think when we first started talking to Liza
and her team, I'm hoping that that passion is what
did it. But what really did it was casually, on
that first phone conversation they mentioned, you know, Liza just
found about twenty five hours of footage never before seen

(02:33):
of her in the seventies in some storage locker.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
You know, is that good? Are you interested in that?

Speaker 4 (02:40):
And of course as a documentarian, your jaw drops.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
I said, my god. They sent it over and.

Speaker 4 (02:47):
We were reminded again at the explosive force of this
talent and personality, particularly at the height in the seventies
when she was the it girl, she was the tailor's
So I think when we came back to them and said, look,
we think the story in here is about this time

(03:08):
in the seventies, this magical time in the seventies, after
her mother passed tragically in nineteen sixty nine, I think
that's when we kind of connected and they said, oh,
I see these guys know what they're doing. We will
entrust you know, Liza's story to them. And the footage.
So it's a long answer, but it's the truth.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
The footage is just extraordinary. I mean, I just couldn't
get enough of watching, particularly the young Liza Minnelli. But
what I'll tell you later what kind of surprised me
or what I learned that you know that I just
loved in the documentary and again it's called Liza a
truly terrific, absolutely true story, which you can see at

(03:55):
the IFC starting on January twenty fourth. But Bruce David Klein, well,
what most surprised you or what were some of the
biggest revelations to you?

Speaker 3 (04:04):
I mean you talked to her. Yes, we talked a bunch,
both on and off camera.

Speaker 4 (04:10):
I think for me, the big wow kind of surprise
was this was this idea of you know, a word
that's talked about a lot these days, privilege.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
Well, Liza was born on third base.

Speaker 4 (04:25):
She acknowledges that her father was one of the greatest
directors of all time. Her mother's was one of the
greatest Hollywood stars of all time.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
With immense, immense talent. So she was born on third base.

Speaker 4 (04:38):
But here is the kind of revelation or insight when
you were around her, her getting from third base to
home was almost as hard as many people rounding all
the bases. And that's because of the enormous expectations that
they had. I mean, here was a girl twenty two,
twenty three, twenty four. Will you sing as well as

(05:01):
your mother? Can you really dance as well as your mother?
Are you a good actor?

Speaker 3 (05:05):
Can you be directed like you know your father's great movies?
Do you have movie star looks? Traditional?

Speaker 4 (05:13):
You know all of this If you go back into
the footage in the seventies, this is what the reporters
were asking her, and you realize the expectation it was
not inevitable that she would become a one word force
one named Force Liza in the Red sequence. That was

(05:37):
not guaranteed. If you in fact, if you look at
her in the sixties footage you see her on the
Ed Sullivan Show, enormous raw talent, but there was this sense.

Speaker 3 (05:48):
That she was more beholden to what.

Speaker 4 (05:52):
Was popular at the time and the styles that were hits.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
She was singing that kind of stuff. And then when
her mother.

Speaker 4 (05:58):
Died, suddenly she you know, with the help of mentors,
just becomes this force of nature, and I don't think
it's ever been done where in two or three years
she won you know, you know, Oscar, the Emmy, the
you know, the Tony, she won you know, a Grammy
a little later. So it was just an enormous So

(06:21):
so the takeaway for me was this idea of privilege
sometimes being a double edged sword.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
I didn't know that she was a dancer first and
a singer second, that her great love growing up was
dance and motion, and that she actually had physical problems,
which you know, she overcame back severe back issues, but

(06:52):
as a dancer, I mean that just kind of that
that just amazed me because I would have thought voice first.

Speaker 4 (06:59):
If you talk had talked to Liza when she was eight, ten, twelve, fourteen, sixteen,
she would have said, I'm a dancer.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
I want to be a dancer. I'm a dancer.

Speaker 4 (07:10):
And then when she got a little older, people started
telling her, well, you can't kind of just dance. You
need to put it together with singing, with acting, with
other stuff. Although it was interesting, I think when Liza
made one of her first performances, her mother, Judy, came

(07:33):
up to her and said, you should be dancing, or
something to that effect, which you could read it both ways.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
But you know, clearly she.

Speaker 4 (07:41):
Was recognizing her daughter was a talent. But I think
there was a kind of friendly, loving rivalry.

Speaker 3 (07:50):
There as well.

Speaker 4 (07:51):
But yes, you know, she says in the film her
dream in life was to be part of a dance troupe.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
What also surprised me speaking with Bruce David Klein, he
is the director of the documentary Liza A truly terrific,
absolutely true Story, which is opening at the IFC January
twenty fourth. What also amazed me was how humble she is.
That she really credited surrounding herself with the right people

(08:23):
and not just surrounding herself professionally with the right people,
but personally, like who you pick. Not many people talk
like that, who you pick to be your friends, who
you pick to surround yourself with? She gave them the
credit for her career. How many stars would do that.

Speaker 4 (08:46):
I mean, you hit an important point on the head,
and that in some ways goes to the core of
who Liza is as a human being, as a performer,
as a talent, and that is She's probably certainly the
only celebrity I ever connected with that had this ability

(09:08):
to in a very strong, powerful way thank her mentors.

Speaker 3 (09:14):
Give tip her hat to her mentors very often.

Speaker 4 (09:18):
One of the things that she often said, and this
was kind of how the film developed its theme, was
we were watching thousands of hours of footage of her
from the seventies and sixties, even eighties, and so many
times she would use the phrase, oh, he invented me. Oh,
she invented me. Halston, he invented me. Freda Abb he

(09:39):
invented me. And we didn't think much of it. It
was kind of an interesting turn of phrase. But then
when we interviewed her for the first time, one of
the first questions I asked her, I think was about
fred Ebb and she said, oh, Freddie invented me. And
that was such an interesting term for somebody who has
thought of as this uniquely one of a kind performer

(10:04):
and personality to say somebody else invented me, Halston invented me,
and you realize this is very much cuts to the
heart of Liza's real personality, which is she's very generous
and she really believes that her talent is in picking
the right people to be around, as you say, both

(10:27):
friends and talented mentors. Of course, it helps that her
mentors were geniuses like Bob Fosse and Halston and Kay
Thompson and all these people, so that helps. But you
really don't see that a lot in a celebrity, nor

(10:47):
do you see which is another unique personality I think
of Liza's, is this idea that when you meet Liza,
I mean, when you're meeting an icon, you know clearly
you want to pay respect to that icon of oh
my god, you you know you've brought me so many
hours of joy and blah blah blah, which you do.

(11:08):
But the sense you get when you talk to Liza
is no, no, no, no, she wants you to like her. Oh,
you're wonderful, darling. Tell me about you, tell me about
your life. And it's very very disarming. I mean, most
people will say, who meet Liza, even you know, for
three minutes, they say, oh my god. You know, I

(11:30):
feel like she's my closest friend now that I can
call her tomorrow and gossip. So that is another kind
of remarkable trait about her. And at times, back to
the word you use, which is humble.

Speaker 2 (11:45):
You mentioned Holston, the great designer, and he worked, he
works with somebody's physicality and what again, surprise me? You
know Liza with the sequence. Of course she was known
for the sequence, but the sequence were to hide her sweating.

(12:09):
Who would have ever thought of that? You know, the
shine of the sheen of the sequence hiding the sweat.
I didn't know that. Also, I didn't know that he made,
you know, all of the outfits in not one, not two,
not three, but four different sizes because her weight would

(12:30):
you know, vary that much? And again she well, so
I have to ask you, did she have the final
say in what was included in the documentary? Could she
veto certain things? Because you know some other people would
have said no, I don't want anyone to know that
I varied by four different sizes or that you know,
I sweat a lot.

Speaker 4 (12:51):
Another hat tip to Eliza. The answer is no. She
entrusted us, in fact to the contrary.

Speaker 3 (12:58):
And this was.

Speaker 4 (12:59):
A unbelievable moment during production where once we were wrapping
up one day at her house and we were leaving
and the crews getting out, and she asked somebody, Oh,
could you tell Bruce to come back?

Speaker 3 (13:14):
So I came back. You know, why is she calling
me to her throne?

Speaker 4 (13:19):
It was her throne was actually her bedroom, and she
was sitting on the edge of the bed and she
grabs my hand and starts petting it, and she looks
up at me with you know, those kind of dark
saucer eyes, and she said, Bruce, don't put anything phony
in the movie. I don't don't make me look like
a phony. And that was like, oh, you know, my god,

(13:42):
I've done so many films with so many different, you know,
well known personalities, and we've shot with so many celebrities
over the years.

Speaker 3 (13:51):
I have never heard that it is always the opposite.
What are you going to put in?

Speaker 1 (13:55):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (13:56):
I didn't like that angle on me, and I didn't
like when I.

Speaker 4 (13:58):
Said that, but she tip of a hat to her,
is so comfortable in her own skin.

Speaker 2 (14:05):
We only have about a minute left. What have we
not talked about? Liza truly terrific, absolutely true story debuting
at the IFC January twenty fourth, What else, Bruce David Klein.

Speaker 4 (14:18):
Well, what we talked about a lot of the seventies footage,
which is again is never before seen. It is unbelievable,
and it was shot in a time you know, kind
of I guess, the end of the MGMBI studio era,
when everybody was controlled and you had pr people manipulating
your story and not seeing kind of behind the scenes

(14:41):
stuff the way we do today with TikTok and celebrities
showing what they're eating for breakfast. Now, this footage literally
is raw behind the scenes footage never before seen of
Liza in the nineteen seventies. That is effectively like she
would post this stuff on TikTok today, just the way

(15:05):
a star does. And that is something that really I
think is a gift both culturally both you know, people
who love her, but also importantly it's a historical document
of an era, the seventies of its biggest star one
of the biggest star It girl of the seventies, and

(15:26):
it's an important document, so hopefully we did it proud
by kind of weaving it into the narrative of our film.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
Was it was just fascinating. Thank you so much, Bruce Data,
Kleine Laza. Truly terrific, absolutely true story. Debuting at the
IFC January twenty fourth.

Speaker 1 (15:43):
You've been listening to Sunstein sessions on iHeartRadio, a production
of New York's classic rock Q one O four point
three
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