A Tale Of Two Sisters – Liza Minnelli and Lorna Luft

I watched “A Tale Of Two Sisters” yesterday and was very moved by not only their relationship, but by the positive attitudes they have on their mother, the fans, the drugs, and life in general.

This was an interview back in 2003 or 2004 aired on British TV, probably to promote the show “Songs My Mother Taught Me” that Lorna Luft was doing in London. It was the first time I actually saw them together as adults. What’s funny is that Lorna seemed to have the more outgoing personality of the two.

One of the things Liza Minnelli said was that she did not blame MGM for prescribing the pills to Judy Garland at 15 years old. She stated that the drug was new, everyone was taking it, no one knew what “addiction” was in the 30’s (I think that was when they were still putting cocaine in coca-cola products!) and so she didn’t have a grudge against MGM. Her mother had the alcoholism gene and she also inherited that. Lorna seems to have not gotten that gene.

Another thing that really touched me and I had never heard before was a story Lorna told. She was walking with her then 7 year old daughter down a street in San Francisco and her daughter asked what that flag was that they were seeing. She told her, “It’s the gay flag, to symbolize the gay community’s pride.” The daughter then asked “Why is it a rainbow?” She responded that it was actually a reference to her grandmother, Judy (Over The Rainbow).

I did not know that! How obvious, but never noticed. Gay men used to have to call themselves “Friends Of Dorothy”. A code that was used because of the oppression of homosexuals.

I looked up the rainbow flag on wikipedia( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_flag_(LGBT_movement) ), and lo and behold, it was true. While I was there, I also found out that the original rainbow flag had 8 colors, then reduced to 7 because of a shortage in a certain color, then to 6 to become an even number. Each of the colors represent something as well.

Back to the interview. It’s on youtube (that’s where I watched the whole thing). Watch it here(5 parts):




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