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[0:00] Alan Seales: Welcome to an all-new episode of The Theatre Podcast. This episode is a slightly different format than our normal episodes, as this one is primarily about someone else other than the guest, and the guest, Bruce Klein, is one of the most well-known documentary filmmakers there is. And after setting up the who and the why of this episode, we dive into the subject of his latest documentary, the legendary Liza Minnelli, someone who has never felt safe appearing in a documentary until this one. It's truly interesting how different generations know Liza from different chapters from her life, and honestly, watching Bruce's film allowed me to put together all the pieces that showed me how truly one-of-a-kind and influential Liza is, and what kind of trouble she has to overcome to maintain the limelight in her own way.

In Bruce's film, called Liza, A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story, is set to premiere this June 12, 2024, at the Tribeca Film Festival, which, as I'm recording this intro, you can still get a few tickets to go see. I highly recommend it. So yes, find me on social media, tag me in your stories, and everyone, please enjoy this special Liza Minnelli-focused episode with filmmaker Bruce David Klein.

[1:14] Alan Seales: Here you go, one, two, three. Alright, film buffs, fasten your seatbelts. We are honored to have a titan of the documentary world with us. This industry heavyweight is an Emmy-nominated producer, director, and writer who's brought us captivating stories across television, film, and digital platforms, including Meatloaf, In Search of Paradise, Icon, The Restless Billionaire, Robert Blecker, Wants Me Dead, and Best Worst Thing That Could Have Ever Happened. He's the president and executive producer of Atlas Media Corp., the powerhouse behind shows that have captivated audiences for years, from deciphering the fascinating world of food with James Beard Award-nominated projects, to untangling the lives of iconic figures, Bruce has a knack for weaving documentaries that are both informative and undeniably entertaining. His latest project, Liza, A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story, is set to premiere on June 12 at the Tribeca Film Festival. Whoo, Bruce David Klein, welcome to the theater podcast.

[2:12] Bruce David Klein: Thank you for having me, and thank you for ably citing all of our very complicated long titles of our films. I don't know why we just ended up, a lot of our films have really long titles.

[2:26] Bruce David Klein: The Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened, of course, a Sondheim lyric, which kind of plays me straight into, I guess, your current project, the Liza Minnelli documentary. You've got all these other credits that we're going to get into, like, let's see, you've done Hotel Impossible, Alien Invasion, so many other things that are completely outside of the theater and performance art and culture space. Is this your love, focusing on theater and performing and singing and whatnot?

[2:58] Bruce David Klein: Yeah. I mean, basically, first of all, my company and I don't specialize in any one genre or one topic, and that's very much by design, because I like to kind of bring a fresh enthusiasm to everything we do. However, asterisk, I am an obsessive Broadway show guy. I come at it from interesting composers and lyricists, and I'm a big Sondheim freak for many, many years. And so that makes me naturally obsessed with finding ways into kind of the Broadway world. And I think with Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened, working with Lonnie Price, who directed it, was just really a dream come true. I mean, diving into the music of Sondheim and having lunch with Hal Prince, I mean, there were some really incredible things connected to that project. And I think that made me realize more than ever that, you know, hey, I could actually kind of do things that I really, really, really am excited about, and certainly Broadway's at the top of the list. So hence Liza.

[4:16] Bruce David Klein: And other things you're excited about, food and aliens and disasters. And we did for many years a hit show for Discovery called Dr. G Medical Examiner, which was a procedural show finding out about why people die. And it turns out we die because we don't take our medication, we eat too much partially hydrogenated oils, and when we park our cars on the side of the road on the highway, we forget that there are cars whizzing by at 75 miles an hour. So those are three great tips on how not to die. We did a book with Dr. Jen Garabaglia on it. But those were three takeaways I remember. They sound so obvious, but it's literally she knows, she's the one who they roll them in, how did this guy die? Well, you know, so.

[5:17] Bruce David Klein: So if you take your medication, you won't forget that there's cars traveling by you at 70 miles per hour. I think that's the takeaway. And go see theater. Okay, so let's rewind to little baby Bruce. And what did you originally want to do as a kid? What was your impetus to get into film, creating these stories?

[5:39] Bruce David Klein: Sure. I mean, look, my background, my core interest always has been since I've been a kid is in writing and telling stories. And I think that over time, that kind of evolved, I always made films, home movies and films, even from, you know, the time I was seven or eight. Academically, as I studied psychology and creative writing, and I was actually leaning towards becoming a shrink. And as I said, at that point, I evolved somehow to want to mold millions of minds and have a big impact, as opposed to having the patience, which I probably don't have to go in deep, however venerable it is on one person at a time. And I think the thing that really was the catalyst for that is, I was in college, I was in the student union, and there was this like, you know, really dark, dimly lit basement.

And I walk and I see this, this sign on this door that looks like it was painted, you know, 30 years before, and it said TV workshop. And I said, Well, what's that? And the door was closed, I got a janitor, he opens the door, I go in, and it was literally like out of a movie. It was 1960s black and white cameras with cobwebs on them. And wires, you know, like old school wires going all over the place. And basically, I saw this one button that said power on and I am technically the worst. I pressed power on, and the entire studio came alive. And I said, wow, this is kind of cool. And I started making these quotes, student films, and we started this workshop to have other people do it. And then we started like a weekly TV show.

And there was one day that we did and I was very avant garde back then I should say, I used to light pianos on fire saw them in half, like, you know, performance art, it was performance art. So basically, one day I was at the pub, the Ratzkeller, and I look up and they had TVs all around and my show was up there. And you saw me like, lighting a, you know, piano on fire and everything like that. And I said, Wow, I definitely want to do this. I don't want to do psychology. It was just really cool that people were drinking beer and they were like looking out of the corner of their eye at this, you know, crazy thing that I did, which was terrible. But just the idea that, you know, other people would watch it was kind of cool.

When I graduated college, you know, I had this idea that I had to be do something in television. So I got a job actually in an upstate New York ABC affiliate. After a couple years of that, all these people, these syndicators were called at the time were trying to sell me shows for my stations. I was like a young program director choosing what shows and literally they'd say, Hey, what about this show? What about this show? And they would bring in demo tapes. And there was a moment in my life where I said, You know what, I could make this crap as well as they can. I started my own company, I was 25. And I started it with a credit card and, and basically built it up with we grew with the cable industry.

And along the way, I would kind of get my ya ya's out by directing feature docs that were where I can dive in a little deeper. And these days, I'm spending a lot of my time most of my time directing my own films and you know, having a lot of fun learning about a lot of things I never thought I'd know anything about. I guess the trust side, there's an emotional side to this. And this takes me to Liza, because when you're, people have to trust you to tell their story and tell it accurately. Right.

[10:04] Alan Seales: And so I know, a little bit about the, this Liza Minnelli documentary, and I believe it's, is it true? It's the only one that she's allowed herself to appear in willingly?

[10:09] Bruce David Klein: Yes, it is shocking that first of all, there have not been many, many documentaries about Liza over the years. And that was like a big wow to us. And that made it even more exciting to dive in, really. Well, how did you get connected with it, though? How did she choose you and Atlas Media to be, you know, to trust you with her story, with her life story?

[10:34] Bruce David Klein: The trust factor is really important in making a documentary film, without question, of course. There's a really interesting push pull that happens between director and subject. And sometimes it's very fractious and intense. So as an example, and again, you know, no surprise to anybody who knows anything about him, but our film on Carl Icahn, who was, you know, billionaire, corporate raider, legendary, tough negotiator, hardcore business person, there was a lot of friction, which is, hey, I want to show your history, I want to show what it was like during your bar mitzvah, I want to show your relationship with your mother and father. And then you get the pushback. And then you say, but I really want to show you, I really want to show bring people and show this side of you.

And then they say, I'll give you a little and then you like but I want more because my answer is always I want more my subjects, I would film you in the toilet if I could, every moment is revealing in a different way. And what's interesting is that what you look for is you look for these themes in people that in that situation, their behavior was x, in this situation, their behavior was x, in this situation, their behavior is that, oh, what is the theme running through? Oh, that could be connected to their childhood. So you're always looking for things like that. In Liza's case, it's kind of an interesting story, because I was obviously too young when cabaret came out. But I remember always seeing the poster that looked so naughty to me, it was, you know, with Liza and the bowler hat, and the purple stripe.

And it looked like, Oh, I should, I'm not allowed to watch that, which, of course, made me watch it even more made me want to watch even more. And then I remember seeing Arthur. And I remember saying, Wow, what an incredible comedic actress, this woman has incredible timing lives of Manali. Oh, wait a second. She was the one in that bowler hat that movie I never saw. So I went back, and I started watching, you know, sterile cuckoo and cabaret and all our stuff. And I started getting really, really interested in her cut to 2008. In 2000, I am an obsessive Broadway completist, I must see as many of the classic icons in their classic iconic roles as possible, whether it's Yul Brynner in The King and I, Carol Channing in Hello, Dolly, whatever it is Topol, even though he didn't do the movie, he did the movie, not the Broadway show, still Topol and Fiddler on the Roof.

When I heard that Liza was appearing on Broadway for this 2008 Liza's in the palace, I said, I have to go. I'm just curious. I, you know, I'm a completist, I have to see Liza on Broadway, my god. So I go to

[13:51] Bruce David Klein: Eliza at the palace, I'm sitting down, and I saw something I never saw before. And that is, there was a lot of questions at the time about Liza, she had had some health issues, there were questions, could she still sing? How was her health? And I think she had just had knee replacement surgery. And so you know, the drum roll happens, spotlight comes on, she walks out. And I kid you not, she did one little kind of signature Liza move. And the crowd lost their mind in a way I have never seen in my life. I mean, I've seen like Bowie, the Stones, like you name it, you know, in terms of, you know, famous performers, there were grown men, not standing up, standing on the Broadway seats, in tears. Okay.

I have never seen such an intense reaction in my life. And that I never forgot that I said, Liza has some kind of connection with her audience that at the time I really did not understand. Cut to a couple years ago, we're sitting down, we're talking about, you know, different people who may be interesting. And Dana Craig, my co-producer on this project, along with Alex Goldstein, Dana's a Liza, you know, big fan, she put her on the list of people who we talked about. And then once we talked about Liza, it became clear, we couldn't believe that there wasn't anything on her already. So we started talking to her management. And what really did it, I think, for us, is yes, we had to make them trust us, make them feel comfortable.

That takes time that takes a lots of zooms and calls. And here's what we're doing. They want to see that you're not just in it for like, you know, whether it be a quick buck or to use Liza for something. But the thing that really sealed it is in one of the conversations, her team said, you know, Liza recently found some footage in a storage locker. And we were like, what? She's like, yeah, it's about 25 hours of footage of her in the 70s on tour that her husband at the time filmed. Okay. All right. So they sent us some samples. And I kid you not, we hit play in the office, I'll never forget it. And there she was. Right after Cabaret, she was the it girl. She was the most one of the most famous people in the world.

She was beloved. She was selling out every concert and, you know, had just won the Oscar, the Emmy, I mean, just mind blowing. And there she was like washing her hair. And there she was in the back of a limo, being nervous about going to the show. And our jaws dropped, because and then there were performances in this. And we said, Oh, my God. And that's one of I think, the points of our film, as a kind of corrective, I think it's really interesting, even with iconic, kind of mythical figures in entertainment. Time is so cruel, as we get further and further away from the time when they were kind of at the height of their powers. We kind of remember more what's happening today. And we forget what was, well, what was, was explosive.

And the level of talent that I just think people, many people today don't get, in terms of when you say Liza Minnelli, we talked to a lot of people under the age of 40. Under the age of 30. We kind of, you know, we're kind of doing a our surveys. There are some people who don't know Judy Garland was her mother. Yeah, there are some people. Oh, Liza Minnelli. Oh, she's in Arrested Development as a guest actor, right? Oh, Liza Minnelli. Oh, she was at Sex and the City, right? She did the single ladies thing, whatever. And that's how they know her, which is fine, because that's their age. And it makes sense. But hopefully, it became clear as soon as we saw this footage that we could create some sort of corrective to kind of make this statement and show people, this was, and is an explosively talented person, who can dance better than anybody who can sing as well as her mother, if not better, that that's a whole back and forth of people arguing back and forth.

She's certainly this incredible actress, you know, being nominated for an Oscar in basically her first film or second film, Sterile Cuckoo, in 1969, and then winning Best Actress in Cabaret when she's like 25, 26.

[19:17] Bruce David Klein: Time for a quick commercial break. Hang on a second. Welcome back to the episode. We want to bring people back to that time so they remember that and understand and give them an insight into kind of what made her because the working title of the film is always how Liza became Liza, which is not a good title, but it's a great working title. And that ultimately is what we kind of ended up with is and these things kind of take interesting twists and turns over a period of time as you kind of develop these films. And, you know, as I always say, which is my big rule, which is to let the material speak to you, to not come to it with, I want to make a film about this, this, this, I want to show this, this is going to begin here and end here.

No, that will never lead you well. You want to let the material indulge in all, you know, the information and the footage and every song and every video clip and every headline and newspaper article ever written about the person. And then you want the material starts talking to you. It's like a really cool process. And that definitely happened with Liza. You've got such amazing guests in the documentary too, like Ben Rimelower, Ben Vereen, Mia Farrow, Michael Feinstein, Joel Gray. I mean, even the late great Chita Rivera. I just love that there's, you know, Chita footage in here and they all, every one of them talks about her in such a, a caring, caring is not strong enough of a word, admiration, loyalty.

I don't know. I mean, even like in the part of the documentary where you talk about getting her going into Chicago to save her friends, you know, Kander and Ebb were like two of her besties and, and all these other people involved with the production. And, and she's like, yeah, I'll go in. And, and I forget who was the lead at the time who had to go out for surgery?

[21:20] Alan Seales: Gwen Verdon.

[21:21] Bruce David Klein: Yeah. Gwen Verdon, of course.

[21:22] Alan Seales: Who was Bob Fosse's wife.

[21:24] Bruce David Klein: Who was Bob Fosse's wife. Who, and Bob Fosse was the director. So. Yeah. So she's got this relationship, like Fosse polished her dancing and Halston polished her, her, the fashion designer, Halston polished her looks. And it's like, she, she even says this, I think, that she surrounds herself with talented people and strong friends that make, that they all amplify each other. And it is, it is such an inner group of, of caring, really loyal friends that all look out for each other and happen, just happen to be massively successful in their own right.

[22:00] Bruce David Klein: Oh, they were, they were all brilliant in their own way. I mean, first of all, we specifically wanted to make sure that everybody who speaks in the documentary knows Liza, knows her fairly intimately. We did not want this to be a hagiography, a, you know, apple polishing, Liza's the best, only good things or whatever. We wanted it to be truthful. And that's actually came from Liza, because Liza, at one point during the filming, as we were leaving, she asked, you know, tell Bruce to come to come back. And she grabbed my hand and she said, Bruce, please don't make me look like a phony. Don't put in anything phony in it. And it was like heartbreaking because nobody says that, because most stars, they want the phony in there.

They want it to be all glittery and glistening and perfect and everything. There's no bad note and whatever, not that there's any bad notes per se. But that was such an insight into her, into her character, the way she thinks of things. When you approach telling a story of a subject, there is this impetus deep within you that says, tell the story chronologically. Okay, tell the story. She was born in 1940, then she did this and then she did this, then she won this award, then she did this movie, then she did that and blah, blah, blah. And there's a reason for that, because we're used to getting information that way. We're used to, like, you know, cavemen telling stories. And it's like, oh, I went out to get the, you know, the meat.

First, I didn't know what to do. Then I killed a mammoth. Then I brought the mammoth. It's like we're used to hearing stories sequentially. And it's my job as a filmmaker to figure out ways to satisfy the audience while giving it to them in a very, very different way. And that is where this kind of golden rule of letting the material speak to me comes in.

[24:14] Bruce David Klein: So, basically, what happened is, over time, we kept hearing people say, oh, you know, Fred Ebb, yeah, yeah, he invented Liza. Oh, my God, you know, Halston, he invented Liza. And then when we were spending time with Liza, she would literally say, Fred Ebb invented me. You know, Kate Thompson invented me. She would say these words. And that's when the light bulb went out, and it became obvious that the way to tell her story was through the point of view of her interaction with her mentors, who were people like geniuses like Bob Fosse, Halston, Fred Ebb, Charles Aznavour, who's a little lesser known in America, and Kate Thompson. And these people, literally, it was Liza's talent, her enormous talent, plus Kate Thompson, plus Fred Ebb, plus, you know, Bob Fosse, equal Liza Minnelli, who we know today.

And she's very humble about it. She's very honest about it. She's not afraid to say these people helped make me. Of course, she doesn't need to say the fact that she was born with explosive talent. She was raised around explosive talent. And that certainly, you know, helped as well.

[25:39] Alan Seales: She's caring. She's genuine. She's authentic. Like, she doesn't know how to be an inauthentic person. And even in the part in the documentary where you dive into the substance abuse and the addiction, right? Like she very publicly went to the Betty Ford Clinic. And then instead of like what you were saying, other celebrities want the fake and the faux and to bury the dirty stuff. Even in her real life at that time, she started giving interviews about it and was talking about it. And like, didn't know, it seems to me as watched, I didn't know any of this at the age that I am. I didn't know really much about this at the depth that I learned about it in the documentary. And for watching this, it just seems like she just doesn't ultimately know how to not talk about what's on her mind and how to express what's right in front of her face.

And that's, I think, the mark of like a true artist, true sort of genius in this space of like, she's expressing, she's bringing everything out of her onto the surface. And it's talking through singing, and it's talking through movement, and it's talking through literal talking sometimes. But she just has to tell the truth.

[26:57] Bruce David Klein: Well, this is what's really interesting. And that's what makes her so complex and so interesting. Because there's another layer to her that, you know, we talked about briefly in the film, this layer of she was brought up in the MGM system. Her father was one of the greatest directors in MGM history. Her mother was the grandest star of MGM. Victor Minnelli was her dad, right?

[27:22] Alan Seales: Vincent Minnelli.

[27:23] Bruce David Klein: Vincent. Some say Vincente, but Vincent Minnelli. And she was taught from a very early age. In fact, she says, I was born, they took a picture. Because the fact is, it's like the third person who held her was Frank Sinatra.

[27:42] Bruce David Klein: Ex-neighbor was Humphrey Bogart. If you look at home movies from her fourth birthday, you have Ira Gershwin and Harold Arlen and all these famous songwriters and actors and actresses. She was born into that. The MGM system taught you never to say anything bad about somebody and to always put a sunny, positive spin on things. You have this interesting duality in Liza, which is she is not afraid to tell the truth and to do that. On the other hand, she also has a natural instinct to put a gloss on things. She herself talks in the documentary about how in the 70s, she wasn't always truthful about her substance abuse problems and that she actually would kind of spin them. That's because of where she came from.

Ultimately, she is emotionally extremely honest. She's very vulnerable. She wears everything on her sleeve. She's very touchy. She likes to feel you and touch you and pet your hand and feel close to you. It's really a remarkable thing. There's really nobody like her. There's no surprise that she is who she is and has maintained this for decades upon decades. Privilege and who your mother was and father was only get you so far. There's a reason there's a documentary in 2024 being made about her because she just has that, whether you call it it factor, X factor, whatever it is, and she still has it. How do you decide who needs to be spoken to? Chita, Ben Vereen, Joel Grey, those are kind of obvious.

Then there's other people like Darren Criss, for example, who shows up several times in the documentary. He's of the recent, I'll call it the glee generation. He shows up and he's like, yeah, I hung out with Liza. Liza has this ability to make everybody feel like they're the most special person in the room. I think, I, Alan, think that in the moment when she's with people, they are the most special person in the moment to her. That's just who she is. Like you said, she's wearing her enthusiasm on her sleeve. Absolutely. When Liza walks into a room, even today, she doesn't walk in cerebrally and say, I'm going to do this. Logically, I'm going to do this and this and this. Her natural instinct when she walks into a room is to go over to everyone, pet them, look into their eyes, and really say, how are you doing?

Unlike 99% of all people, she listens to what you say, cares about what you say. It's a remarkable trait. I know we talk about it a little in the film. I've never seen anything like that. Somebody that she really needs you to love her. She needs you to be her friend. That's why, quite frankly, out of hundreds of people we talk to about her, there's nobody who really says anything bad about her. Even during years when maybe she was a little more vulnerable and that kind of thing, it's more about, oh, Liza once did this for me. We talked to a member of her band, and it's like, oh, yeah, I remember all the guys were missing all their girlfriends back at home, so she took us all to a strip joint in Paris or something like that. She paid for it, and she went with them. That concept of wanting you to be friends with her is a really, really important insight into what makes Liza tick.

[32:04] Alan Seales: I like how you dive into the insights and the motivations behind what makes people people, because that's a lot of the questions I ask on this podcast. I got a psych minor, so I appreciate—

[32:14] Bruce David Klein: My psychology background, there you go. I'm getting into it anyway.

[32:18] Alan Seales: Right, right. That's what I mean. You're talking about the motivation, and they're like, oh, that probably relates to childhood. I think that's such an overused trope because it's so true. You know what I mean? We are who we are because of where we came from, and where we came from often has to deal with our childhood. I love that, oh, God, the clip that you put in of Liza and her mom, Judy Garland, where Judy keeps sticking the mic in her face to—

[32:46] Bruce David Klein: The Playdium show, yeah.

[32:47] Alan Seales: Yeah, the Playdium show. Because all of a sudden, and this happened with Kay, her other best friend and mentor at the time, too. I think that the women in her life that were mentoring her, her mother included, started to get jealous because they wanted what Liza was getting naturally.

[33:02] Bruce David Klein: Yeah. Look, I think there was a very complicated relationship with her mother. I mean, she still, to this day, tears well up in her eyes when she talks about her. Michael Feinstein talks about how she melts anytime she sees her mother quickly on TV, or hears her mother singing. I mean, there is such a love and such a respect there, but it was complicated. I know the classic Freudian theory of personality being frozen, essentially, at the age of five. I don't know if it's quite that in her case, but certainly from an early age, she knew exactly what she wanted to do, exactly what she was good at, exactly how to work the system. We talked to George Hamilton, who is a family friend. He was, in 1960, starring in a Vincent Minnelli movie, Home on the Hill.

It was an MGM movie. Liza is 12 or 13, whatever she was, on the set. As he mentioned, she's doing a little tap dance, she's doing this. He was this young, I think he was maybe 19 or 20, young actor with wide eyes. And Vincent Minnelli was this great director, and he would go to Liza for the juice. Give me the tea. What's happening on the lot? Who's sleeping with who? How do I get ahead? How do I get the best scripts? How do I get cast? Oh, you got to talk to her. She knew her way around. This is like the age of 12 and 13. She had that in her system, and I think a lot of times with great artists, we don't always realize the amount of work, the 10,000 hours or whatever you want to call it, the amount of work that goes into it.

It was not effortless in Liza's case. It was not a free ride because of her privileged background. In fact, to the contrary, and that to me was one of the great insights, Liza, because I know the word privilege is bandied about a lot today as a negative thing, and certainly there are negative aspects to it. But in Liza's case, privilege was really a double-edged sword because, yes, it's true. Humphrey Bogart was her neighbor. She went to MGM every day. Her mother was the most famous actress of her time. Her father was the most successful director of her time. Yes, she also had enormous talent, but here's the fact. For Liza, who was born on third base, her getting from third base to home was harder than for you or me or the average person to round all the bases.

It was harder for her because of the expectations. Oh, she'll never be her mother. Oh, maybe she's as good as her mother. Nah, she won't do it. Oh, you know what? She doesn't have movie star look. She doesn't look like the movie stars, the blonde bombshells of today. There were such expectations which can get into your head, which can cause you great problems, obviously, but she overcame those, and that's why I say that was one big revelation to me. Here's an example where privilege was good, but it wasn't great, and it didn't mean the gravy train to stardom. She had to work at it, and the public needed to like what she was offering, which they obviously did.

[36:50] Alan Seales: Time for a quick commercial break. Hang on a second. Welcome back to the episode. Something that I'm curious about too is what happened with her parents behind closed doors because Liza herself had four marriages, right? So, not saying that that is any direct correlation to her parents' relationship, but you often repeat the behavior that's modeled for you. So, I wonder if any of that was ever talked about, or you thought about putting that in the film or anything?

[37:27] Bruce David Klein: I think the most insightful thing said about that was by Mia Farrow. Mia, unlike just, oh, yeah, she's a famous actress talking about Liza. No, no, no, no. She knew Liza. They were in grade school together. They became close friends when they were 12. They were at each other's house. They used to have sleepovers regularly. They went to modeling class together and dance class together. They really, really, really were very close. And I think Mia's insight about that was correct in that Liza always throws herself into a relationship. And under that theory that she loves to love people and be loved, I think sometimes, as Mia said, she's like, I met this person. This person's great. This is the best.

This is the one. And it's kind of this cute, endearing aspect to her personality, which ties into that idea of wanting you to love her and wanting to love you deeply. And it's really interesting how it played out in each of her marriages and relationships. Because at each given time in some of these famous relationships like Peter Sellers or Baryshnikov or whatever, I mean, these were like, I think Peter Sellers was four weeks. They were engaged and broken up in four weeks. But at that time, and we have a clip of her talking about her love for Peter Sellers at that moment, you kind of see it, you see, this is the greatest, this is going to be the best. And it's almost childlike in that way. So I think it's less, you know, her mother, than it was that aspect of her personality.

Because, you know, she adored her father. And I mean, she was very, very close to her father. And her father obviously outlived her mother by many decades. And she, you know, saw him often and was very emotionally close to him.

[39:47] Alan Seales: I had forgotten, actually, too, that Judy Garland died of an overdose.

[39:51] Bruce David Klein: Yeah, there's a lot of that like golden MGM era type of those performers that did not fare well, because like you said, the whole thing was to gloss it over and to not speak your truth. And there was also conveniently a doctor on the set, as hired by Louis B. Mayer, to go around and say, how are you feeling? You feeling okay? Okay. Are you a little tired today? All right, take this. Or you sleep well last night? You didn't? Okay. Tonight before you go to sleep, take this. So the Mr. Feelgood, there was an actual doctor Feelgood, you know, that did not help a lot of these young stars, especially a 14, 15 year old Judy Garland, who had to maintain her weight, maintain her voice, maintain her, you know, get good night's sleep. I mean, they worked her, you know, crazily. She was the biggest box office draw.

[40:52] Alan Seales: Yeah. Yeah. Mayer of the second M of MGM, that Mayer. Yes. Oh, God. Okay. Well, I feel like I could talk about this forever. All right. So everybody needs to, if you can't, oh, real quick, actually, what I was gonna say, everybody's to go to Tribeca if you can on June 12th and see this premiere. But I wanted to ask you, for those of us dummies like myself, who don't understand the benefit of festivals, why push for festivals? Why? And you always hear about Tribeca. Tribeca and Cannes are the two big ones that you hear about all the time. Like, what is it about festivals? And why are these two like, sort of, how can they launch a movie? Sure. Festivals, what it is, is that

[41:34] Bruce David Klein: You know, a movie is so personal in terms of your response to it, your reaction to it. It's just so subjective, okay? And I think industry execs are always very wary until something has a rubber stamp of approval. So what's the stamp of approval? It's audiences like it. A critic reviewed it at a festival and wrote a good review, whatever it might be. And that allows you, once there is that kind of buzz, to have more opportunities in terms of where you want the film to end up. Is it better as a theatrical? Is it better as a big streamer? Is it better? What's the best life for this film? And the kind of audience reaction allows you to feel that. Also, there's just something about so many films these days is, you know, they just go to, you know, right to streamers, and they've never hit theaters.

There is something still in this day and age magical, you know, on the Wednesday, the 12th, we're gonna sit there with 1000 people. I think the theater holds 1000 people and watch and experience this incredible person's life, you know, on the big screen, and we're going to react and hopefully people will, you know, laugh and cry and feel connected to her. You can't get that when you have millions of people separately watching it in their living room. So I think that's the benefit, you know, the big benefit of the festival early on. With Liza, we're not worried. You know, separate from whether the movie is good or not, Liza is fantastic. So I won't make any prediction that front, but she is the one and only.

I know that, you know, you could go on the Tribeca site, and I believe there are some tickets still available for the premiere screening, which is on June 12. And that's going to be wild. I will be doing a Q&A after that. Although people who watch this probably heard me talk enough. I don't know if they need another Q&A. It'll be fun. So that's why we do festivals to start the factory going that is the promotion machine of the film. That's the turn on the factory. That's the beginning.

[44:06] Alan Seales: That's so cool. Yeah, that's cool. And I think there's a reputation that comes or an association, a positive association, of course, that comes with being even accepted into Cannes or Tribeca in the first place because they have a quality bar. And then we like one, they won this, and they won that. And then it's like, even better, right? Like, it's...

[44:25] Bruce David Klein: Oh, yeah. I mean, I think Tribeca announced it. I think they got something like 12,000 entries. So while documentaries, obviously, but you know, they choose 100 or 150 total films out of 10,000, 12,000. So it is an honor to be accepted. And we were accepted pretty early in the process. And that hopefully is a tribute to how interested people are in hearing Liza's story. And I think people will be surprised by a lot of stuff you have certain expectations about Liza based on whether the last couple of years or her license at the palace in 2008, or her marriage in the early 2000s to a very unusual person that was the, you know, head of the on the cover of all the tabloids. But, you know, she's so many layers deeper than that.

And the talent. I think one of the expert professors in the film says, you know, the talent from the beginning just oozed from her. And I think that, you know, that may be an alternative title that's much shorter than ours, you know, ooze oozing talent or something. I love the word ooze. I don't know. I always wanted to use that somehow.

[45:51] Bruce David Klein: And you can repurpose the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to title the secret of the ooze. They'd be all about Liza Minnelli, the secret of the ooze.

[46:01] Alan Seales: Oh, yeah. Ninja Turtle also, she could do that.

[46:05] Bruce David Klein: She could dance her way out of any fight with Shredder. All right. So three closing questions I ask to wrap up the episodes. The first one just very simply is what motivates you?

[46:15] Bruce David Klein: What motivates me? What motivates me is taking traditionally dry or esoteric subject matter and making it commercially palatable for the masses, taking whether it be a business icon like Carl Icahn, or whether it's somebody like Liza, who people know two percent about. And a lot of her story is kind of in the weeds that you have to fill out, taking that and putting it through, you know, the filmmaking process and then emerging with something that is hopefully extremely commercial and something that, you know, my mother can watch and like and understand, whether it be Icahn, the history of Merrily We Roll Along and best worst thing that ever could have happened or the Liza film. I love that. And I can relate. It's similarly why I started this podcast. Just I want to bring untold stories to the world and in a way that's palatable and easily digestible at the tip of your fingertips on your smartphone.

[47:29] Bruce David Klein: All right. So the next question is, what advice would you give to your younger self and younger people listening now starting out on a similar path?

[47:33] Bruce David Klein: That's two completely different questions. Okay. As you know, you know, the entertainment industry is in a state of incredible disruption right now with people not knowing where the financial models are going to lead. Is it going to be commercials? Is it going to be streaming? Is there going to be a theatrical? Are there going to be theaters? So, you know, to people, if I speak at colleges or give advice right now, today, my advice is to choose something that, you know, you will have the wind at your back. And that is AI. And if you could become somebody who can, as an artist, take the technology of AI and basically weave it into filmmaking or whatever it is, that kind of middle ground is going to be the next 10 years and it might even be the next three years.

So what I say is if you want to be successful, have an impact starting today, I would try to not do what everybody is trying to do, which is be an influencer and start a, you know, start an influencer, you know, TikTok, you know, account where you post, you know, what you're reading tonight and all that stuff. That was five years ago or seven years ago. The future, certainly the next couple of years is AI because some of the stuff that I've seen is, you know, when I say some of the stuff, some of the stuff we've all seen is amazing. Some of the stuff I've seen to actually help filmmakers up from a very artistry craftsman level is just mind boggling and it's going to change everything. So learn that shit and you'll fly. That's my advice. It's an AI bubble and it's going to pop and what's left is going to be incredible. And it's going to be, it is incredible now.

[49:45] Alan Seales: Yeah, it is. That is true. Have you seen the opening to The Simpsons as created by AI 1950s style?

[49:53] Bruce David Klein: No. I'll find that. I'll find it. But I imagine what that it's like incredible.

[50:01] Alan Seales: Yeah, it's like Leave It to Beaver. I mean, like, yeah, all generated by AI and it's real. Anyway, it's incredible. I'll try to find it and put in the show notes and I'll send it to you too. I should say, though, is unlike action adventure movies that are going to become increasing AI, in fact, they could with LED screens and all this new stuff, they could probably make a Mission Impossible all in a studio. Yeah. But the one benefit of documentaries is we could not have generated the little moments of Mia Farrow giving a little revelation about her insight into Liza or Liza laughing when she says excellent. No AI could do that. So I feel like I don't want to say we're safe in documentaries, but in what I do, hopefully I will not be out of a job.

I'll say it. I think it's going to be hard to recreate reality, like to create fiction, I think is going to become very, there'll be lots of tools to create augmented reality and fiction, but to create I would reality, truthful, authentic reality from scratch.

[51:03] Alan Seales: Yeah, I think you're right. At least I hope you're right. All right. Last door. Last question, then the hardest one is if you could only see one show for the rest of your life and you can see it as many times as you want, what would you see?

[51:15] Bruce David Klein: That's easy. It would be Merrily We Roll Along. And not just because I did a film on it with best worst thing that ever could have happened. Not only because it's a Sondheim, you know, film, Sondheim show, and I'm Sondheim obsessive. But even before I got involved in the film, whatever, it was my favorite show. The song Our Time is my wedding song. Okay. I mean, I go back with that way, way back. And I think it is still the greatest insightful story, if you will, both in song and the story into the foibles of humanity and why we like fuck up our lives and how we just keep moving ahead. But we're actually moving backwards. And I think we started that movie with the quote by Heidegger. Although I purposely made them take out the word Heidegger because I'm like, nobody wants to start a movie with as Heidegger said, which was that life is best it life is is lived moving forward, but it is best understood backward.

And I think that show captures that idea that the only things that makes time things make sense that we do are after and we look back and we say, Oh, that kind of made sense. Oh, that didn't make sense. Whereas you cannot make sense of your life today. So I think that that show separate from having the greatest songs ever. That's that's an easy question. Guys and girls, a close a close second. Guys and girls.

[53:06] Alan Seales: All right, well, where can we find you online? Learn more about your projects and all the films you're working on?

[53:11] Bruce David Klein: Well, I, you know, we have Atlas, Atlas Media Corp. We have Twitter, we have Instagram, Atlas Media Corp. Also, most importantly, now is on the Tribeca site. If you search for Liza, a truly terrific, absolutely true story or long title. That's the landing page a little bit about the film, and a great little teaser photo of Liza from the found footage that the long lost but found footage that we had, and a way to see all the screenings and how to buy tickets. So highly, highly recommended to see it. It'll be a great, great night for me and for people who love Liza and for people who want to learn about Liza.

[54:04] Bruce David Klein: So well, I hope that when this wins all the awards and gets the major theatrical release and has a smashing opening weekend that all the critics write raves about that we can look back on this episode and be like it all started on June 12, 2024. Hopefully for that, but my reward is literally people walking out of the theater and saying, Wow, is she talented? Like, that's the goal. I mean, honestly, that is really, really all I want is then I knew know that I proved what I wanted to do, which is, there's no one like her. And you have to know her story because it is so connected to each of us in different ways.

[54:45] Alan Seales: It is absolutely, isn't it? I agree. I loved it. I love the film. And I can't wait to share it. I can't wait for everyone to see it. It's just good. So thank you.

[54:57] Bruce David Klein: Thank you. First audience. So thank you can find more of me on threads, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. This is a podcast. So of course, leave a rating in a review. The music you're hearing now is from Jukebox the Ghost and Bruce Klein. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed this chat.

[55:15] Bruce David Klein: Me too. Me too. It's been fun. Take a deep breath, make the world a little colorful.