Me and My Shadows: A Family Memoir (35 page)

As soon as I walked onstage, Michael pointed at me and said, “You! Who the fuck put that hairpiece on you?” He was referring to the long fall I wore for the part.

I stammered blankly, “Uh, I don’t know. They just did.”

At which Michael turned away and exclaimed, “James Cong-don [who romanced me in the play] looks like a child molester! She looks like she’s twelve in that thing. Cut that goddamn fucking hair off of her!” Someone did. The next day, Michael changed all my blocking. Welcome to show business! Later, Michael and I became good friends. His mercurial moods didn’t bother me. I was honored to work with him and always loved and respected his work.

By that time I was something of a veteran, and I took the
changes in stride. A few months later
Promises
closed and I was unemployed again, but this time I had help deciding what to do next. Marty Bregman, Liza’s manager, was managing me, too, and he and the Morris office decided that the next step for me should be a nightclub act. They wanted me to do the circuit, the way Liza had years before. It had worked for her, so why not for me? The Morris office set me up with Larry Grossman and Hal Hackaday, a couple of talented songwriters who’d done some good work on Broadway shows and wanted the opportunity to put together a nightclub act. They did some arrangements for me, mainly Cole Porter and Gershwin tunes, and a choreographer designed some numbers for me and two male dancers. We got some Halston gowns, and I was ready to go.

When I say that my nightclub debut was one for the books, I’m not exaggerating. Memorable doesn’t begin to describe it. I’d grown up on road stories of the Gumm Sisters and the vaudeville venues from hell, but in all modesty I’ll put my debut up against any of those. If you want to talk about the bottom of the performance barrel, try the Steel Pier in Atlantic City. On Memorial Day weekend, 1972,1 made a truly—uh—memorable debut.

It was the William Morris Agency’s bright idea to have me try out my act in New Jersey before my big opening in Houston the following month. It was a big occasion for me; my dad even flew out from California so he could be there. My road manager, Steve Vandow, had gone on ahead with my agent and the rest of the group, and I took the train down to meet everyone there.

The marquee in front of the theater was my first hint that all was not well. In huge letters across the theater it read, “JUDY GARLAND’S DAUGHTER! LIZA MINNELLI’S SISTER!” And then, in tiny letters down in the corner that you needed a magnifying glass to read, came my name, “Miss Lorna Luft.”

Now, contrary to rumor, I’ve never been jealous of either my mother’s or my sister’s success. On the contrary, I’ve always been proud of them and hoped I could someday be even half as good.
One of the best things about my family is that we’ve always supported each other’s careers, from the days when the Gumm Sisters sat in the front row to applaud madly for “Jack and Virginia Lee,” and vice versa. My mother was always proud of us. And Liza and I have always been proud of each other. But let me tell you, there’s a limit to family pride. No matter how much you love them, nobody wants to start her professional career billed as the other daughter and the baby sister!

Nevertheless, I tried to be optimistic as I greeted my dad and my crew and made my way to the tiny dressing room reserved for me in the back. My dad and my friend from the Hippopotamus, Jody Russell, crammed themselves in with me and chatted cheerfully as I tried to apply my makeup in the small mirror. I had to hand it to them for even trying to talk to me; the waves of the Atlantic were crashing against the outside wall of my dressing room with such force that the two of them had to shout to be heard. After a particularly loud wave, my dad turned to me and shouted, “So, when do we dock?” As I squinted into the mirror, I asked my road manager, Steve, to find out when I went on. There were several acts, and I wasn’t sure where I fit into the lineup.

A few minutes later he came back with a perplexed look on his face, and I said, “What?”

He shook his head and said, “Never mind. You’ll find out soon enough.” There was a pause. “Okay,” he said, “it’s like this. The chimpanzees go on first. Then the adagio act. Then Wanda. Then it’s you.”

“The chimpanzees?” I responded blankly.

“Yeah,” he replied. “They’re opening for you.”

Right then, as if on cue, the door across the hall opened, and five chimps wearing gold lamé tuxedos and blond wigs waddled out, followed by their trainer in a matching gold suit. I smiled weakly at him from the doorway. “Gee, they’re really cute,” I said, trying to be friendly.

He just looked at me with no expression. “They’ll tear your fucking arms off, lady.”

I backed away a couple of steps. “Okeydokey,” I replied, and looked at my dad. He was staring at the chimps incredulously. I waited for the chimpanzees to clear the hallway and then stepped out. A little way down the corridor I ran into the adagio act, a nice older couple who introduced themselves as Joy and Ron Holiday. As I shook hands, I couldn’t help but notice that Joy’s hair was actually a wig held on by a chin strap that didn’t match her makeup. The chin strap was supposed to hold her wig in place while she was upside down in their balancing act. Well, at least Joy and Ron didn’t bite. By the time I got backstage, the chimpanzees were already on, and I could get a good look at the audience. As the saying goes, just when you think it can’t get worse, it does.

I was expecting to see a crowd of vacationers ready for some casino-style entertainment, but instead what I saw was a crowd of elementary-school children eating hot dogs and running up and down the aisles. I looked at Steve in astonishment and said, “What the . . . ?”

Steve cringed. “That’s the part I didn’t want to tell you. It’s the Philadelphia Safety Patrol. They bussed in four hundred grade-school kids for the shows today.”

There I stood in my Halston gown, ready to do a little Cole Porter, with several hundred hyperactive fourth-graders playing keep-away with their hot dog buns. I couldn’t believe it. But it was too late to back out. The adagio act was just finishing up, and it was almost my turn to launch into the fray. But not quite. First, Wanda the Wonder Horse had to dive into the water from a platform at the end of the pier. The chimpanzees, the geriatric Joy and Ron, and finally Wanda the Wonder Horse—ain’t show business great!

Finally, the emcee went to the microphone to introduce me. The emcee was a former boxer who looked like he was so punch-drunk he could hardly walk. Staggering up to the microphone, he
waved for the kids’ attention and then announced dramatically, “And now here she is! Judy’s daughter! Liza’s little sister! The scintillating Miss Erna Lust!”
Erna Lust?
He made me sound like a porn star! Those children could have not cared less whose daughter I was. But there was nothing to do but sweep onstage with my two male dancers in tow and launch into my act. For fifty endless minutes I belted out Gershwin and Porter, and finally, seated on a stool downstage, I crooned a tender rendition of “Mama, a Rainbow” as a group of little boys kicked opened the side doors. When it was all over, I just wanted to go back to the hotel with my friends and take a long, long nap, but I couldn’t. I still had four more shows to do that day.

That Memorial Day holiday was one of the longest weekends of my life. For three days in a row, five times a day, from ten in the morning until midnight, I trooped out on that stage after the chimps, the adagio act, and Wanda, and sang through all my numbers. It was endless. The emcee never did get my name right. It was the Gumm (Rum, Bum) Sisters all over again—Erna Lust, Lorena Tuft, Lana Ruft—until I threatened to strangle him if he didn’t get it right just once. One night, while my friends laughed helplessly backstage as he mangled my name yet again, I turned to Steve and shouted, “Get him!” the way you’d sic a dog. The whole thing was sheer lunacy. My only comfort was that I wasn’t alone.

T
he Steel Pier might not have been the most elegant kickoff for my illustrious singing career, but it was pretty good preparation for what was to come. God knows things did get better after that, and the Morris Agency booked me into some of the best clubs around. Still, I never knew what I was getting into. When I opened at the Sands for my Las Vegas debut a few months later, I was in for an education of another kind.

I was to be the opening act for Danny Thomas. Danny was a successful singer and comedian who had one of the most popular television shows in America in the early sixties. He was also actress
Mario Thomas’s father—and eventually Phil Donahue’s father-in-law. Danny was famous for his work raising money for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, and for his wholesome family image. He regularly referred to his “dear wife” onstage. Opening for him seemed like a great opportunity; Danny was still very popular at the time. When Danny offered to introduce my act, I was flattered.

That first night at the Sands, I waited nervously in the wings as Danny stepped up to the microphone. I was wearing a Bob Mackie gown, dripping with sequins and bugle beads, and feeling quite sophisticated. Danny began by saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m going to tell you about a baby.”

“What baby? What’s he talking about?” I wondered.

Danny continued by talking about his “old friend, Sid Luft,” and it gradually dawned on me that
I
was the baby in question. Then he began to talk about the “legendary Judy Garland,” and I continued standing in the wings as he went on and on about my mother. By this time nearly fifteen minutes had passed, and I was climbing the walls. Finally he said, “Now, ladies and gentlemen, don’t expect a young Judy Garland to walk out here, because you’ll be disappointed. Nobody could fill her shoes. But here she is, anyway. Miss Lorna Luft.” And he walked offstage with the spotlight trained on him as he’d instructed the technician to do. Thoroughly demoralized, I walked onstage and found my place in total darkness.

Night after night this miserable process continued. I couldn’t understand why Danny was doing it. I tried to talk to his personal assistant, an odd man who seemed to be a combination butler and valet—a bad imitation of Alistair Cooke, complete with a fake English accent. The valet stuffily replied that “Mr. Thomas is doing you a favor.” Some favor! I called everyone for help—Sid, the Morris Agency—but no one seemed able or willing to do anything about it. Finally I called my old friend Maxine Messenger (now my son’s godmother) and asked her what to do. Maxine’s a columnist with the
Houston Chronicle
and had been a big supporter of mine
from the beginning. Bless her; she hopped the next plane to Las Vegas, caught my act, and walked straight into Danny’s dressing room after the show and said, “What the hell do you think you’re doing to Lorna? Cut it out!”

He replied, “I don’t know what you mean.”

She said, “You know exactly what I mean. The truth is that she’s wiping up the floor with you, and you don’t like it.”

Danny didn’t like it, but he didn’t dare ignore her, either; she was too powerful a columnist. So he quit introducing me. Instead, when I finished my act the next night, he walked onstage right behind me and said, “You know, ladies and gentlemen, Vegas is such a hot, dry town, and the winds have been so bad lately. Miss Luft just hasn’t been feeling her best. Even Robert Goulet, who’s playing just down the street, is having trouble with his voice, and just think, he’s a
trained
singer.”

I couldn’t believe it. I just kept right on walking, through the wings and out the back. I don’t know whether he made that speech every night after that. I didn’t hang around to listen.

What a guy.
Make Room for Daddy.
The only problem with “Daddy” was that he had a lapful of sexy young things in his dressing room every night. When I asked someone if they worked for Mr. Thomas, she laughed at me. I decided they must be his girlfriends, but then I heard him onstage one night talking about his “lovely wife.” Wife? I wondered if he made the girls get off his knee before he called home at night. I doubt it.

One thing about the life of a nightclub entertainer: you get to know a very—uh—diverse group of people. Las Vegas may be known for some less than upstanding citizens, but it doesn’t hold a candle to Chicago. Two months after my Sands appearance, my sister introduced me to one of the oldest “families” in that toddlin’ town.

I’d just opened at the Palmer House in Chicago, and I hadn’t seen Liza in a few months. She’d been in Paris since the fall with Marisa Berenson and the cream of European society—including all
of the Rothschilds. Liza’s introduction to European royalty had followed closely on the heels of her success in
Cabaret,
and for the past several months I’d seen pictures of my sister in newspapers and magazines as she hobnobbed with the classiest of the high class. That November, however, she apparently got tired of the high life, for she flew in from Paris to Chicago to catch my show and try a change of pace. A big change of pace.

When I looked down into the audience at the Palmer House one night, there was my sister, surrounded by the most amazing group of human beings I’d ever seen. Liza was seated at a table near the stage; next to her sat a little guy with a strikingly Italian face; and seated around them was a group of gorillas—no, not primates, just tough-looking. All four of them were huge, hulking men in shiny suits and white ties who looked like they should have been wearing name tags that said, “Hi, I’m a gangster.” Grinning up at me from the midst of them sat my sister, with “Isn’t this a trip?” written all over her face. I couldn’t believe it. I almost choked with astonishment.

After the show Liza brought the whole gang backstage to introduce to me. “This is my friend Nick,” she said with no further explanation, and then invited me to go out to dinner with the five of them. I said, “Sure,” and off we went. I remember thinking, “My sister thinks she’s in a movie.”

We all piled into a car together—me, Liza, the “little guy,” and the four gorillas—and went speeding off to a nearby restaurant. Once inside, Nick led us upstairs to a private room with a long table that was lined on both sides by Italian men who looked vaguely alike, all wearing suits straight out of
Guys and Dolls.
Nick told me they were his “family” and then seated me and Liza at the head of the table. Various people introduced themselves, and finally someone leaned over to me and, nodding at Nick, said, “That’s Nick Nitti, you know.”