A SURPRISE DO40 MEMBER ZOOM MEETING FOR
LIZA MINNELLI’S 75TH BIRTHDAY!

A black tie event! for Liza Minnelli’s 75th Birthday Soiree, aired online starting March 12th!

DO40 was honored to have our members featured in Liza Minnelli’s 75th  birthday event Friday night (to be repeated Saturday and Sunday March 13 and 14th on www.stellar.com), in the performer section, alongside greats like DO40 Advisory Board member Chita Rivera, Ben Vereen, Shirley MacLaine, Joel Grey, Michele Lee, Joan Collins (!!!!), Barbara Streisand, Bernadette Peters, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Lily Tomlin, Kristen Chenowith, Whoopi Goldberg, the Verdon/Fosse Legacy and many, many more performers and friends of Liza.  This was about family, Liza’s theatrical family, and included artists from all areas of our community.

Featured in our segment, Ed Gaynes (Best Foot Forward), Phyllis Wallach (Flora the Red Menace), Carol Estey (The Act) Candy Brown (Liza with a Z and Chicago) Michon Peacock and Cheryl Clark (Chicago), Kathryn Doby (Cabaret, Pippin, Chicago), Francis J. Roach and Nancy Dalton (Luigi’s Dance Studio), Eileen Casey (Happy Birthday, Hollywood), Lawrence Leritz (Rosie O’Donnell Show), Karyn Tomczak (Sondheim: A Celebration at Carnegie Hall) and our youngest member, Charles Kirsch, whose GRANDPARENTS saw Liza with a Z and The Act! A few members could not make it: Mercedes Ellington, Mary Zahn, Richard Korthaze, Judith Jones, Penny Worth…and again, many, many more!  And we had additional members Richard Skipper, Martha Warshau, Miriam Bernabei, Judy Wong, Jan Augustine, Patrick McCarthy, Ken Bloom, Francine Storey, Stephanie Stabile, Skip Shultz and Barbara Bernardo – not all pictured – zooming is hard to photograph! (We tried to video our segment – only got half!  Producer Matt Berman promised us a pristine high quality clip once the weekend is over!)

Thanks to producer Daniel Nardicio for contacting us about this through DO40 president John Sefakis, as well as producers Sam Benedict and Matt Berman, who edited our Zoom birthday greeting to Liza we streamed last week.  Liza was friend and confidant to all of us – from chorus to union backstage and the “stars” she worked with.  Also happy to see fans who only knew Liza peripherally, but whom she regularly encouraged to continue their artistic careers.  Could go on for paragraphs of other attendees, like Jason Alexander, Mario Cantone, Coco Peru, Kathy Najimy, Harry Connick, Jr., Lea DeLaria, Michael Feinstein, Billy Stritch, Julie Halston, Melissa Manchester, Andrea Martin, Parker Posey, Jim Caruso, John Stamos, Ute Lemper and again, many, many more!  Our History, Our Legacy, Our Lives!