Ron Howard, Emma Rice, Neil Tennant and more on Liza Minnelli

Several friends and collaborators recall Liza Minnelli’s mix of showmanship and warmth. Ron Howard says he first met her in 1963 on The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, when he was seven and she taught him card tricks; they crossed paths again on Arrested Development, where he marvelled at her comic energy and called her a fearless performer.

Bruce Roberts, who lived nearby in LA, remembers Liza arriving with her manager, spilling red wine over new white carpeting and then singing 25 songs on his sofa; the sessions were casual and "pure Liza Minnelli." He recalls her social life as full of parties around a grand piano, with "everybody in the business" turning up and those nights forming his "golden years." Emma Rice calls her "an absolute glamour bomb" with "amazing humility." Rice says Minnelli once stayed in her modest Cornish bungalow, blending in at the local pub, and later came backstage to support Rice’s work in New York—small gestures that felt "magic" to her.

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