The scene had all the subtlety of a sequined sledgehammer: Liza Minnelli, a performer who has often been measured against her mother, actress Judy Garland, was lounging on a sofa beneath fluorescent Andy Warhol portraits of Garland, Minnelli and her father, director Vincente. Minnelli, 78, was sitting in the living room of an apartment she uses as an office and studio in West Hollywood, California, on a Monday afternoon in August, with a small entourage that included a manager, a personal photographer and Michael Feinstein, a singer and pianist she has collaborated with for years. Tabletops were packed with nearly arranged accolades and other detritus from her career in show business – a French Legion of Honour award here, some Golden Globes there.
Minnelli was wearing a red collared shirt over a black turtleneck and swingy black trousers – no shoes – along with silver bone cuffs and other jewellery designed by her close friend Elsa Peretti. Peretti, who died in 2021, has long been associated with Tiffany & Co: this is the 50th year that the brand has been selling her pieces. But Minnelli’s relationship with the Italian jewellery designer goes back even further.
The women had a mutual friend in Halston, the US fashion designer, born Roy Halston Frowick, who introduced them in the early 1970s (he also introduced Peretti and Tiffany, in 1974). Liza Minnelli, wearing bone cuffs and a jug pendant by Elsa Peretti. Minnelli has been wearing jewelry by Peretti, whom Minnelli.