'Liza' returns: Minnelli's award-winning 1972 TV special gets a major revival

PASADENA, Calif. — A third of a century after it first aired on TV, the Emmy- and Peabody-winning musical special "Liza With a 'Z' " is, if anything, more astonishing than it was in 1972.

Partly because, given that she has been a fixture in the tabloids for her rocky personal life, a lot of people may have forgotten how incredibly talented Liza Minnelli is.

Partly because nobody does the kind of one-woman show anymore that she did in "Liza."

Partly because it's astonishing to think that there was a TV special starring Minnelli, directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse, with some original songs by Fred Ebb and John Kander, and costumes by Halston.

And partly because "Liza With a 'Z' " looks better now than it did when it was originally telecast by NBC in 1972.

The project began in the late '90s when Minnelli's friend, film restorer Michael Arick, asked if he could work on "Liza."

"I said, 'All right.' That was six years ago," Minnelli told TV critics recently. "Then he presented me with this. . . . and I couldn't believe what I saw."

It took a while just to piece the 60-minute special back together. It hadn't been seen on TV since 1973 and Minnelli, who owned the rights, had the film locked up in storage. But she had loaned it out for others to make copies of the print and parts had been lost.

Arick managed to track various parts down, however, and had a big advantage over the original — a sound recording that far exceeded the quality of the mono track heard on TV in the '7Os.

"You lay everything you've got on the table, and it's like putting together a puzzle," Arick said. "And first you check to make sure you've got everything covered in terms of the track and in terms of the picture — that there's nothing missing. And then you kind of look to see how can you shift that around so that the overall (film) looks as good as it can."

The negative — shot on 16-millimeter film, "because we couldn't afford 35," according to Minnelli — was in "rocky" condition. But Arick worked off and on for six years to blow it up to 35 millimeter.

Then Minnelli presented it to friends Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, the Oscar-winning producers of "Chicago."