He reveled in them, be they the fantastic ballet he devised with Gene Kelly to climax "An American in Paris" or the bravura sequence in "The Bad and the Beautiful" when Lana Turner confronts Kirk Douglas and has a breakdown while driving her car in a rainstorm. That he was equally at home in musicals and melodramas points to how the excesses of these genres appealed to his sensibilities. Minnelli's sophisticated sheen is a hallmark of his films, as is his bold use of color and a mobile camera.
Is there not a more recognizable Minnelli image than the coiffed, sophisticated women that adorn his films if only on the margins?įred Astaire and Cyd Charisse in "The Band Wagon"
But in a wide variety of films in numerous genres, Minnelli brought his queerness to the forefront through his use of color, design, and iconography. His only film that touched overtly on queer subjects is "Tea and Sympathy," a 1956 adaptation of the Robert Anderson hit 1953 play, about a young man's gay panic at a boarding school. While he doesn't believe in a "queer sensibility," Levy concedes directors like Minnelli (and Cukor, Gus Van Sant and Todd Haynes) "imbue their work with a gay/queer sensibility regardless of the particular genre or narrative they work in." In Minnelli's case, it is the style, not the substance, of his films that shows his queer sensibility. You can read his movies for their sexual politics." (Source: Elaine Stewart in "The Bad and Beautiful")īut was Minnelli being gay an influence on his films? Emmanuel Levy, another biographer, felt so, saying in an interview with The Advocate, Minnelli "channeled his homosexuality or his sexual phobias and tensions and anxieties directly into his work. (Minnelli would go on to marry three more times and have a second child.) Her drug use intensified and in 1947, she was hospitalized for nervous exhaustion. "I was employed by the studio and Judy was now against the studio," Minnelli said at the time. But, she discovered, Minnelli was married to his career. The trust she developed with Minnelli led to their marriage and the mistaken belief on Garland's part that he would protect her against the studio. But he coaxed her with the role of Esther Smith and Garland gave her second great performance (after "The Wizard of Oz") in a hugely successful film. This put her in an adversarial relationship with Minnelli who found her dismissive attitude worked against the story's wholesome authenticity. Louis," the Technicolor musical that Freed was rushing into production because she didn't want to play another teenager. At the age of 21, Garland was reluctant to star in "Meet Me in St. He was told by the studio to stop wearing makeup on the set and began to pursue relationships with women. Harburg, Moss Hart, and Oscar Levant, who would go on to appear in a number of Minnelli's films.īut once in Hollywood, Minnelli disappeared into the closet. After his quick success as a set designer, he was soon also directing major musicals and became part of the smart set of New York celebrities - George and Ira Gershwin, the previously mentioned Parker, Lillian Hellman, E.Y. Minnelli discovered his "dandy" persona after reading a biography of the flamboyant, 19th-century artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Born Lester Minnelli, he was said to have dated Lester Gaba, a sculptor and designer, who also wore makeup. Throughout the 1930s he also lived pretty much as an openly gay man who endured the barbs by Dorothy Parker about his wearing makeup and dating a man with the same name.
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Minnelli would deserve an entry in this series if only for having married Judy Garland and, with her, fathered Liza Minnelli, but he was a far more important and curious talent in queer Hollywood history, and one filled with contradictions.īefore he went to Hollywood and settled in for a 30+-year career (mostly as an MGM contract player), Minnelli was the toast of Broadway as a designer and director.
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