On November 16, 1964, when she was 18, Liza Minnelli stepped onto the stage of the London Palladium to join in a concert given by her mother, Judy Garland — the first time the two of them appeared onstage together. Liza, the year before, had done an Off Broadway musical, but this performance was her entrée into the world spotlight. A famous album was made of the event (“Judy Garland: Live! at the London Palladium”), and Garland was nothing if not magnanimous in providing the platform to launch Liza’s career.
Yet in “Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story,” Bruce David Klein’s scintillating documentary portrait of Minnelli, we see black-and-white clips from the Palladium concert, and one aspect of it is startling. Liza, young as she was, already performs with a pizzazz worthy of her mother. But even as the event was presented as a passing-of-the-torch-song celebration, Garland keeps tapping Liza’s bulky microphone from the bottom so that it practically hits Liza in the face.
The ostensible reason for this is that Liza wasn’t holding the mic close enough (which doesn’t at all appear to be true). According to the singer-pianist/cabaret star Michael Feinstein, a close friend of Liza’s who is interviewed throughout the documentary (he serves as the film’s captivating psychological narrator-bard), the real reason Judy Garland kept practically knocking her daughter in the face is that she was suddenly quite jealous of her. But why would she feel that .