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When Judy had money, she would entertain, and Liza stayed up and mingled with the guests. "Terrific people were there like Lauren Bacall, Bogart and Sinatra. And Mama always invited Marilyn Monroe, too, because Mama was very adamant about how rottenly people treated Marilyn. Marilyn talked to me a lot, and I remember knowing why: because no one else talked to her. We were really good friends when I was about ten. She used to tell me how lonely she was. I told her that she had to talk with people and let them know she didn't want anything from them."
Lots of Laughter. "Everyone used to tell me their problems; it was really funny. But I wasn't like a kid then. I don't really remember having any childhood. I always had responsibilities and never felt free until I was 20. Then I thought, 'This is ridiculous. I'm going to be a kid for a while.' "
The decisive spark to Liza's career was set off when she attended a string of Broadway shows with her mother. "It wasn't that tedious process I saw at Metro," she says. "I could see it happening before my eyes. The chorus of Bye Bye Birdie fascinated me. It had kids in it, and a camaraderie that I recognized. It seemed like an answer to the kind of loneliness I felt. Just friends kidding around, with lots of laughter." Two years later she quit school and began trying to join in the laughter. She was 16.
New York was almost as tough on Judy Garland's kid as on any other show-biz hopeful. While looking for work, Liza stayed with a friend of her mother's, then moved into a hotel for women, only to be thrown out and have her clothes confiscated when she could not pay the bill. Neither parent could be found for help, and she spent one night on the steps of the fountain in front of the Plaza Hotel, another in Central Park. Luckily, she was cast in an off-Broadway revival of Best Foot Forward. The salary, $34 a week, barely covered expenses.
In those days Liza was overweight, with long, stringy hair that looked "like a forest of evil," according to one friend. Liza became one of the theater gypsies, the singers and dancers who play in Broadway choruses and wait for the big break. Her morning would often start at night and her night in the morning, a reverse cycle that she still follows. For all her waif-like air, she drew on a vast reserve of energy, a fierce instinct to keep moving no matter what happened. "Liza's got a desperate thing," says Mia Farrow, another childhood friend. "She reaches just as far and as deep as she can. There's a lot of depth in her, and a lot of anguish."
Boos and Raves. A friend introduced her to Fred Ebb, the lyricist for an upcoming musical called Flora, the Red Menace. "I remember this shy, awkward girl coming into the room," says Ebb. "She looked awful, like Raggedy Ann. Everything was just a little torn and a little soiled. She just sat there and stared at me, and I stared back." Liza convinced Ebb that she was his Flora,