Liza Minnelli Weighs in on Prop 8 Ruling

Oscar- and Tony Award-winner Liza Minnelli has weighed in with the Advocate on today's Prop 8 ruling. Minnelli said, "Today's ruling in California encourages me to believe that people are beginning to understand that if you want to be with someone, protect them, and care for them through vows and the legalities of marriage, then you should be able to do that. Wonderful news."

Today, U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker overturned California's Proposition 8, stating that "A private moral view that same-sex couples are inferior to opposite-sex couples is not a proper basis for legislation."

The daughter of actress/singer Judy Garland and film director Vincente Minnelli, Liza Minnelli was destined for stardom, beginning her professional career at age 16 in an off-Broadway revival of the musical Best Foot Forward. In 1965, Minnelli became the youngest woman ever to win a leading actress Tony Award for Flora the Red Menace at the age of 19. Since her early stage performances, Minnelli has continued to appear on Broadway in musicals such as Chicago, Victor/Victoria and The Act. In 1999, she paid tribute to her father in a show called Minnelli on Minnelli. Her most recent stint on Broadway in 2008's Liza's at the Palace... garnered her fourth Tony Award.

Minnelli's concert performances have electrified audiences around the world including London's Palladium, Sydney's Opera House, Paris' Olympia Theatre and New York's Carnegie Hall. In 1991, Minnelli's Radio City Music Hall concert engagement broke box office records playing to sold-out audiences for three weeks. She is noted as having starred in the first concert ever filmed for television in 1972. The resulting album "Liza with a Z" was a Top 20 album and won the Emmy for Outstanding Single Program and the prestigious Peabody Award. It has been released in recent years on DVD and aired on Showtime. This year, she will release a new CD, "Confessions" with her longtime collaborator pianist Billy Stritch.

Minnelli has also lit up the big screen in films such as "Charlie Bubbles," "The Sterile Cuckoo," "New York, New York" opposite Robert DeNiro, "Arthur," "Arthur 2" and, most famously, the 1972 film "Cabaret." In 2010, Minnelli made a much talked about cameo appearance in "Sex and the City 2."

To learn more about Liza Minnelli, visit www.officiallizaminnelli.com.