Liza Minelli has written a ‘rip-roaring new memoir’ Kids, Wait Till You Hear This! about her extraordinary and damaged upbringing with her mother Judy Garland from whom she inherited an addictive streak and an inclination to fall for gay men.
Garland battled serious addiction and mental health problems, having been pumped full of slimming, stimulating and sleeping drugs by the MGM studio system – and, Minnelli believes, by Garland’s own mother – from the early days of her career, when she’d starred in The Wizard of Oz at just 16. Minelli clearly adored her mother whom she describes as “hilarious, wise and magnificent” even if she was bombarded with her mother’s “terrifying” and unpredictable screaming fits; and her jealousy having dragged her on stage as support and discovering Liza got enthusiastic applause. Garland died at 47 from an overdose.
Liza married at 21 a songwriter whom she caught in bed with another man; then a TV director on whom she cheated with Martin Scorsese, and Mikhail Baryshnikov; a sculptor Mark Gero; and ‘a monster’ in David Gest with an affair with Peter Sellers amongst others along the way.
Throughout her rumbustious and talented, award-strewn career, life, she has struggled with many health issues – scoliosis, miscarriages, encephalitis, crushed discs and hip replacements.
Born 12 March 1946 7.58am Los Angeles, she has a Sun Pisces in a restless, independent-minded, erratic square to Uranus and trine a horrific assembly of Mars, Saturn, Moon in Cancer. Her father was not available and her mother was unfair to the point of cruelty, angry and laid a guilt trip on her. Unsurprisingly she had a fearful Pluto in her 4th house of childhood. Her 6th house of health and work has Jupiter, planet of luck and excess, Neptune for a delicate constitution which would not take kindly to her addictions. Her Chiron was also in her 6th hinting at a split between her body and her spirit, with relationship difficulties and too often being made to feel inferior or a servant, which she certainly was with her mother.
Judy Garland, 10 June 1922 6 am Grand Rapids, Minnesota, had a creative and erratic 12th house Gemini Sun opposition Mars in an explosive square to Uranus conjunct her Midheaven; with her Uranus on the apex of a yod inconjunct Neptune sextile Jupiter. Such a yod would make her stand out from the crowd, be contrary and rebellious, high spirited and unconventional. Her 4th house Saturn square Pluto on her Ascendant hinted at a bleak childhood. She also had her Moon in her 6th house of health. If ever a pair should have avoided drink and drugs it was this one with health sensitivities so marked on both their charts.
In some other ways they were similar with excitable Sun Uranus hard aspects, a strong sense of emotional deprivation from Moon and 4th house, both with Jupiter in Libra and neither with any practical or grounded Earth planets.
Their relationship chart was emotionally cool (partly because of Judy’s career commitments) with a composite Venus square Saturn. Angry with Moon conjunct Mars; and subject to constant upheavals and turbulence with Uranus square Pluto; with an underlying hint of a one-up-manship struggle from Pluto square Jupiter.
A sad and tragic life in many ways but Liza survived to 80 as a trooper.
The post Liza Minnelli – not for the faint hearted first appeared on Astroinform with Marjorie Orr – Star4cast.
