Friday, Sept. 24, 1999 | 10:24 a.m.
What: "Songs My Mother Taught Me," by Lorna Luft.
Where: Bally's Jubilee Theater.
When: 9 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
Tickets: $45, $50, $55, and $60.
Information: Call 967-4567 or (800) 237-7469.
(My mother's) brain was literally shorting out. No amount of narcotics at night could counteract such a load of stimulants, and the more she took, the more she craved.
Her intake of stimulants was complicated by the fact that she drank, never in large amounts, but enough to throw another chemical into the mix. To top it all off, she was consuming huge amounts of nicotine, two or three packs of Salem menthol cigarettes a day. The combination of chemicals was explosive.
The description is of Judy Garland. The words were written by her daughter.
But strip away the booze-alcohol-cigarettes subtext of Lorna Luft's 1998 bestseller "Me And My Shadows: A Family Memoir," and you're left with the compassion and fierce loyalty of a daughter to an oft-troubled, long-departed mother.
And if the reader assumes that the substance-abusing description of Garland has been sensationalized, Luft's book is laden with similar harrowing tales of torment and psychological anguish. The anecdotes are so frequent that they become incidental, related in a shrug-of-the-shoulders manner and often accompanied by an aside that Garland was a victim rather than perpetrator of abuse.
"I wanted to tell the whole, honest story," Luft said during a recent interview from her Los Angeles home. "When I started the book, I wasn't at peace with myself, the legacy of my family or the ghost of my mother. Now I am."
Serving as a showroom sequel to "Me And My Shadows" is Luft's one-woman show "Songs My Mother Taught Me," scheduled for Saturday and Sunday night at Bally's Jubilee Theater.
Wary for years of performing her mother's famous songs for her own live show (and long enduring a rift with half-sister and Vegas regular Liza Minnelli), Luft says that she's comfortable reviving Garland's legendary career.
"It took a long time for me to come to terms with what I have and who I am, and she's a monumental part of my life even today," Luft said. "In many ways she was a great parent, a funny woman and a giving person."
Luft also seems to have come to terms with her cool relationship with Minnelli, the daughter of Garland and Vincent Minnelli. Luft is the daughter of Garland and Sid Luft. Upon the release of Luft's book, there was no feedback-- positive or negative -- from her older half-sibling, one of Luft's admitted "shadows."
"Everything is the same and it's alright," Luft said. "You make choices in life and that's fine with me."
More bothersome to Luft is a lineage of warts-only books written about Garland, who passed away in 1969 at age 47 from an overdose of sleeping pills. Luft was just 16 at the time, but was already accustomed to her mother's trespasses winding up in print.
"There has been so much written about public incidents and people just go with it. There have been more than 30 books written about my mother, none by people who were there," Luft said. "She always hated being depicted as someone who was unloved or unloving, that just wasn't true. She had the problems other people go through, people who aren't famous and whose every move isn't documented."
Upon the completion of "Me And My Shadows," Luft, who has worked to overcome her own bouts with chemical dependency, sought to further provide historical documentation of her mother's legacy.
"I'd been working in show business, but never as a way of telling a personal story," Luft said. "I was not a nonentity. I had a story to tell. I mean, Frank Sinatra was my godfather and I hung around with very famous people. I lived in a world not many people get to see, but was normal to me. I feel I have license to show people what it was like."
Luft's 90-minute show is a multimedia, interactive experience that begins with a video clip from Garland's early '60s television show featuring Garland singing a song written for the occasion: "Lorna." Luft also sings Garland classics such as "When You're Smiling," "Come Rain or Come Shine," "The Man That Got Away" and "Be A Clown."
"I'm aware I'm not the only person to have a famous parent," Luft said. "I wanted it to be personal, but also like a Broadway show that sort of takes you into our living room."
Wisely omitted from the performance was the most famous Garland song of all, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."
"I couldn't do that song and not have the Dorothy questions come up and I couldn't do it justice," Luft said. "Everyone knows her as Dorothy. In the crowds I've been getting, I get all these little kids, young girls who have played Dorothy in the school play."
Luft can't count or estimate how many times she's seen "The Wizard of Oz."
"So many times, I couldn't say. I've got it on laser disc, on video, everything," she said. "My children watch it every chance they get. It's part of our lives, so why not?"
Also included is a tribute to her mother's friends, Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr., spiced with personal anecdotes. Luft is nearly as passionately protective of those three as she is of her mother, and is obviously aware of the Sinatra family estate's lawsuit against "The Rat Pack Is Back" at the Desert Inn.
"You have to understand that a lot of work went into their fame and there are other people affected who are left to protect our parents' names and likenesses," Luft said. "Tina Sinatra (Frank's daughter) is a good friend of mine, but I wouldn't feel right about using Frank's image without her permission.
"Performers should have to pay a royalty when dealing with legendary names and likenesses and making money off that."
Besides, in Luft's view, the entire Rat Pack concept has been misrepresented.
"The original Rat Pack is my mother, Betty (Lauren) Bacall, Frank and Bogie (Humphrey Bogart)," Luft said. "That was the original group of legends. My mother was like the female version of Frank. Neither can really be duplicated."
Luft is keenly aware that not all forms of tribute are flattering. Many are even, shall we say, campy.
"I'm not going to sit here and pretend she's not a huge, huge gay icon. I can't tell you how many years I've been asked about female impersonators imitating my mother," Luft said. "Maybe it was because she was so dramatic. Whether she was really up or really down, she had unique physical movements and for that reason she was a great person to imitate.
"Maybe it's because she was very, very unbiased toward people and felt that we're all in the same boat and should be kind to each other. But as far as I can see, in God's honest truth, there is no logical answer for that."
In her own show business fashion, Luft isn't finished dusting off her mother's legacy. A three-hour television movie based on Luft's book is scheduled to air in May on ABC. Based on sales of "Me And My Shadows," the movie (which has yet to cast the role of Garland) should be a ratings hit.
"There are so few people like her," Luft said. "If you look at the history of entertainers, very few started as child stars and worked continuously until they were adults. My mother and Elizabeth Taylor are the only ones."
Luft is also confident that her mother would applaud her touring tribute.
"Oh, please," Luft said, laughing. "She would've wanted to direct it. She would've wanted to star in it."
