Why didn't Lorna Luft have a better Broadway career?

She wasn't a very good actress. Wonderful voice, but she was never terribly engaging. There's something cold about her.

You answered your own question, OP.

She was molested, OP.

Both Babsh and Lishash little shishters canshel eash other out!

I saw her do a regional production of GYSPY. She’s not much of an actress

I saw that same Gypsy and I agree. She wasn't very funny or scary as Rose. It takes a really bad actress to get nothing out of that role, but that's what Lorna did. Sang the shit out of it, though.

Thank you, R3!

Dear God, how many times do I have to tell you dumb fuckers!

(BTW, Ethel, I don't mind you picking your nose at all.)

I saw her in a concert a few years ago. It was a solo concert, and David Elder and Tony Yazbeck did some numbers with her. Her singing was great. I had the same question -- why wasn't she bigger. Liza and Barry Manilow were in the audience.

Some daughters are a disappointment after their talented mothers.

Many stars are big ... not all their issue have the talent. Judy helped, but Liza had thd ather with the talent gene, Lorna didn't.

Singing 10, Looks 3

Saw her a number of years ago in White Christmas at the Paper Mill Playhouse.

She wasn't particularly good.

She did have nice voice though.

Unlike Liza, she didn't dance or even move well. She played Miss Adelaide in a tour of "Guys and Dolls" that played D.C. in 1993 and basically excused herself from taking part in any choreography.

Who?

Not showing her tits in the hot body contest scene in WHERE THE BOYS ARE 84 really cost her a lot of good parts and damaged her careee.

First she was in Grease 2. Maxwell Caulfield said it took him over ten years to recover from that film.

Second her father was straight.

I also saw her in White Christmas. She gave the script exactly all the effort it deserved and turned around and sang wonderfully. The book - her character especially - was shit and so she moved through the worst of it as efficiently as possibly to spare the audience some discomfort, rather than forcing laughs by pushing the cringe factor.

I think that is why she wasn't a bigger star - she never got cast in anything that had a strong book. She was better at giving quotes to the press than their marketing too.

I had loved Liza when I was a teen in a very ironic way but never really got Garland's heavy voice. Midway through Lorna's big number however I did get a sense of what other people see in her famous family. The big voice IS truly big and that is impressive. That said, I still prefer the restraint and control that Lorna has over Garland and Liza.

Again, riding her mother's coat tails.

Luft had it too easy, she expected things to be handed to her and she performed mediocre.

Liza also had it a bit easy but she appreciated the fact, she'd have to earn her way.

I don't know about the book thing. I saw her in Gypsy and she wasn't terribly good in that either and most would say that show has the best book of any musical. Great voice, though. I just don't think she's much of an actress. She also wasn't very good in Guys and Dolls and that's another pretty solid book musical.

To me, Liza has the better stage presence and is a better actress, but Lorna has the better voice. Liza knew what she had to work with, though, and made the most of it. I find her fascinating to watch on stage and film. I get bored watching Lorna, but love listening to her.

Sheesh sho boring compared to me and Mama.

According to her own autobiography, she spent her 20s--the prime years when actresses really establish themselves--as a coked-out party girl. By the time she got sober, she was in her early 30s, and that's late to start a real push for stardom. It also didn't help that, voice aside, she's not particularly charismatic.

If she'd worked harder as a young woman, her voice, standard blonde looks, and famous mother would have gotten her far, but she wasted her best years. Liza wasted a lot of years too, but only AFTER she'd won her Oscar. Also, objectively speaking, Liza is more talented.

Meh.

Has anyone mentioned I was molested?

R20

OK. I do agree the book to Gypsy is strong so I retract my 'writing' complaint as the cause for her not having a big career.

She didn't have as big a career as a theater star in spite of having an exceptional voice with all of the qualities her mother and sister had but none of the drawbacks - because acting wasn't her thing -- but also she did not seem to be desperate to be adored.

Huge farter

[quote] Again, riding her mother's coat tails.

Riding on mama’s coat tails was not hard because she was asleep on the floor a lot. Lorna and me used to have fun riding mama.

I like blue.

When Grease was still being planned, Allan Carr thought of Liza for Rizzo, which might have been very interesting. She said no, so he went with Liza Lite, Lorna and asked her to audition. She apparently bombed and had a very poor camera test, at which time the Lucie/Stockard challenge started. Carr used Lorna in Grease 2 and proved he should have passed altogether.

LOL-ing at R27!

I'll say what I've said before: it was partly due to their names. "Liza Minnelli' sounds like a two second roller coaster ride at night with twinkling lights. "Lorna Luft' sounds like two big wooden planks falling on a sand dune, one right after the other.

What if their names had been reversed!?!?!?

At the Golden Globes, Jill Ireland called her "Lorna Lust".

Lorna has a very good voice but is not a naturally interesting performer. Lots of second gen Hollywood stars have done more with less, but, honestly, did Lorna ever want it I enough to push herself? I think she was lazy.

[quote] I'll say what I've said before

Ha ha ha! I’ll say.

What is the story behind the Lucie/Stockard challenge?

In her book Lorna says she auditioned for Grizabella in Cats and they had her work with somebody for months training for the role. She then read in the paper that Betty Buckley had been cast in the role.

Somehow the story doesn't ring true. Would a show really pay for her to work on the role for months?

The story also conflicts with Buckley's version. Buckley says she had a bunch of auditions and she knew whom she was up against. Everybody was a Broadway name. Buckley broke down at her last audition and said something like all those other women you are considering have had a big moment already. I haven't and I'll do what ever you want! I'll lose weight, gain weight etc. She thought she had blown it by sounding too desperate but they hired her that day.

R34, Lucie was badly wanted in the role by Randall Kleiser He just about guaranteed to her she had it. He even auditioned with her in front of the Paramount brass. Apparently, Michael Eisner didn't like her. She had just come off Vanities with Sandy Duncan and an Allan Carr client, Stockard Channing. She had committed to doing Bye Bye Birdie with Tommy Tune and had already been paid. It had gotten to the point that she had to either pay back the theater and wait for the role or go and work with Tommy Tune. She told the studio and Carr called her bluff and hired Channing, which was likely his intent all along. The biggest irony is that she wanted to work with Tune again but he pulled out because he was offered a bigger project.

Lorna is the image of her father in both looks and temperament. Both talk big, but in the end never quite follow through. That's why none of Sid's projects worked out aside from the ones directly tied to Judy (and even plenty of those sorta-kinda flopped).

Though Liza is always compared to her mother, she also has her father's neurotic genius and ambivalent sexuality. With those two as parents, it would have been nearly impossible for Liza NOT to be a star.

Because she sucked?

Lorna's voice was okay, but she seemed so self-conscious, "on" all the time, never natural. To me she was like the overly friendly next door neighbor performing in a role in her kid's school play - trying to be a "star" but never making it believable.

I do think Lorna has a better voice than Liza (and she's managed to hang on to it fairly well unlike Liza who can barely shriek out 2 notes these days), but Liza was just a far more interesting performer. Hell, I really don't think Liza ever really got a fair shake. She came around in the 60's and 70's when her style was already going out of style. Can you imagine if someone like her came around in this day and age? She'd probably never get work. She was all raz ma tazz, standards, and showtunes. There's not a big audience for that anymore unfortunately.

Both Liza and Lorna have/had performance voices- like Merman. They were not "singers" or vocalists in the sense that you could close your eyes and listen- as you surely could their Mom. In fact just listening to both of them is kind of like chalk on a blackboard.

Liza was the far better performer and larger than life actress in her prime- although eventually I had a hard time watching her overdo every gesture and and sound. It was as if she always forcing it- not flowing. Her Mom, along with her characteristic movement was natural (even if it was not), like a big wave coming in and going out. Liza was "fake", even though she seems like a nice person.

In my opinion, neither come close to the greatness of their Mom.

Judy was one of the most talented singers ever. She also had a lot of pain and struggle throughout her life. Despite that, she had a good heart, which is hard to encounter in Hollywood. At a time when gay people were oppressed beyond belief, they identified with her struggles and she theirs.

Not as good a performer has her sister, at all. Both have performance voices- not voices you want to listen too. Their Mom had it all (a voice for the ages) as well a stage style that while perhaps learned was totally natural in it's support of the singing. Liza was always forced.

Someone upthread mentioned Lorna was lazy. I don't think it was laziness so much as lack of ambition. At least that's how she sometimes comes across in interviews. I like her, think she has a nice voice, and seems well-adjusted for having been around showbiz all her life and chaos with her mother and sister. But I always get the feeling - and maybe she has said this somewhere - she just went into the family business because what else was she going to do?

I wish charlie would say "mother" instead of "mom" like a person his age should and like Liza does.

She seems more domestic than Liza, comfortable drinking coffee at her breakfast nook while scrap booking.

I'd even go as far as to say that, sometimes, Judy had a "performance voice" too. I know some younger people who don't like her voice at all. I don't get it. To me, she had one of the most perfect and expressive voices of all time.

The stakes are high--and the winner takes all!

[quote] I know some younger people who don't like her voice at all. I don't get it. To me, she had one of the most perfect and expressive voices of all time.

If everyone liked the same thing it would be a dull world.

Just about guaranteed doesn't count, Lucie.

I love Liza, but she got by on sheer bravado and talent. She was DETERMINED to be a big star, and she did it--just barely, because she was never pretty, and as someone points out upthread her style of singing and performing was going well out of fashion when she hit it big. It helped her career immeasurably her mother died young, because Judy was such a huge gay icon and gay men wanted someone to take her place. But Liza's not much of a wide-ranging actress, though she's been great in the right oddball role--and she really only got two of those onscreen (Pookie in Charlie Bubbles and Sally Bowles in Cabaret) before her career was largely over.

Lorna had little ambition, and though she has a fine voice, that just wasn't enough. Like Liza she was completely fucked-up because of her mother's drug use and early death, and so she also became a druggie--but at the wrong time.

Most of the people who make it big as singers, actors and/or performers have to have tons of drive. The lazy just don't make it in that field. Bradley Cooper is a handsome man but ordinary standards and has a nice voice and a decent actor, but he made it as a big star much more because he has the overwhelming drive to be one--you can even see it in his eyes in those early "Inside the Actor's Studio" episodes in the audience asking questions in that ridiculous beret cap. He was like Eve Harrington. Liza was like that once too--Lorna was not.

No charisma.

Sterile Cuckoo, r50.

How would you describe Joey’s singing voice?

Sorry--you're right, r52.

Liza would have been a great Mama Rose in Gypsy!.

According to Stevie Phillips, Liza's ex-agent, she (Stevie) had scored a big producing deal for Liza in the late 70s, one that would have made Liza a real player AND allowed her to develop properties that suited her talent. Then Liza dumps Stevie for then-boyfriend Desi Arnaz Jr.'s agent. That agent didn't have a big-picture plan for Liza, but kept sending her out on tours and club dates, which Liza didn't mind doing because she enjoyed the easy money and the opportunity to party her ass off on the road. But her career went cold in Hollywood without a movie-focused agent, and it never really came back after that.

At the end of the book, Stevie tells a devastating anecdote of being invited to Liza's place years later, after Liza had her bout with encephalitis. Liza was using a walker and dragging one foot, her face was all fucked up, but she told Stevie that she was recovering and wanted Stevie's help getting her career back. When Stevie demurred, Liza instantly dismissed her and left the room.

Obviously Stevie has an ax to grind, but it's an interesting glimpse into the way things work at the top, even if the story is not entirely accurate.

Who are Robert & Freddie & David & Sue in her title? I would guess Sue is Sue Mengers, but I don't recognize the other first names.

Robert Redford (she was once his agent), Freddie Fields and David Begelman (Judy's former agents where Stevie got her start). I honestly don't remember who Sue is: I read the book a while ago and it's a very fast read. I THINK it is Sue Mengers, though.

Stevie kisses Redford's ass all the way through it, but she was Judy's minder for a couple of years in the early 60s and describes her as an insane nymphomaniac monster.

No charisma like Liza.

[quote]First she was in Grease 2. Maxwell Caulfield said it took him over ten years to recover from that film.

That movie didn't seem to derail Michelle Pfeiffer. She did SCARFACE immediately afterward, which she followed up with hits like THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK, MARRIED TO THE MOB, and TEQUILA SUNRISE. 8 years after GREASE 2 she was already a twice Oscar-nominee and one of the biggest female stars in Hollywood.

Caulfield is amazingly like Matt Bomer. Beautiful but boring. Very disposable.

"Stevie kisses Redford's ass all the way through it..."

Ha ha, there's a lot of shit about Redford that will come out when he dies. No, he was not gay or a womanizer, but he was hardly the "family man" he pretended to be. Lots of pills, booze, irresponsibility and negligence.

Lorna has always acted like she was entitled. Entitled without the acting talent, passable singing talent and no charisma whatsoever. Perhaps Judy was partially to blame because she considered Lorna the talent of the family, and the best singer.

[quote] Ha ha,

Ha! I’ll say.

I'll give Lorna this - she has killer pipes. That's about it. She can't land a joke, she's not a great dramatic actress, and you simply just don't want to watch her. Just try to turn away from Judy or Liza. It's impossible.

Funny how Lucie Arnaz lost the Grease role to Stockard Channing and then Stockard Channing replaced Lucie in They're Playing Our Song (and Lorna did the national tour!)

Liza's singing career actually hurt her acting career. She turned down Cinderella Liberty for a tour. Had she done that she may have continued in films at a higher level. She could have done most of Marsha Mason's Oscar winning roles come to think of it. She should have had a part in Nashville for Altman. Maybe even done some non musical plays on Broadway.

[quote] Just try to turn away from Judy or Liza. It's impossible.

Mary!