Liza Minnelli Got Tinnitus After Dad 'Screamed So Loud in My Ear' When She Won Her Oscar: It 'Never Went Away'

Mar. 15, 2025

From Left: Vincente Minnelli and Liza Minnelli on March 27, 1973.Photo:Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty

Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty

Liza Minnellihad lasting side effects from the pure excitement her father, Vincente Minnelli, displayed when she won an Oscar.

EGOT winner Liza reflected on winning an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1973 forCabaret.The category that year also included Diana Ross (Lady Sings the Blues), Maggie Smith (Travels with My Aunt), Cicely Tyson (Sounder) and Liv Ullmann (The Emigrants).

“I never thought I’d win that Oscar. I was sure Diana Ross was going to get it,” recalled Liza, adding, “One lasting gift is that when I won, my father was sitting next to me, and he screamed so loud in my ear I had tinnitus that never went away.”

Vincente won Best Director in 1959 forGigi, and he was previously nominated for directingAn American in Parisin 1952. Liza’s first Oscar nomination was for Best Actress inThe Sterile Cuckooin 1970.

Liza Minnelli on March 27, 1973.Bettmann

Bettmann

In heracceptance speech, Liza, who was 27 at the time, said, “Thank you very much. Making the film ofCabaretwas one of the happiest times of my whole life and I would like to thank everybody connected with it, but most especially the artistic staff: Mr. Fosse and Fred Ebb and John Kander. And thank you for giving me this award. You’ve made me very happy.”

Elsewhere in theInterviewdiscussion, Liza shared fond memories of her father, who died in 1986 at age 83.

“My father, he treated me like a princess,” she said at one point, also adding that he “knew me so well. He knew what to bring me and what I would love.”

From Left: Liza Minnelli and Vincente Minnelli.Bettmann

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“I remember he designed all the clothes for Radio City Music Hall, and I got five costumes every Christmas — a ballerina, or the costume from ‘Shall We Dance’ fromThe King and I. One time the costume was a very attractive green bug. It had a little hat and the antennae on top. With those costumes, he put magic and romance into my life.”

Liza said her dad was “enchanted that he had made such a little girl; that’s really the way to explain it.”

“He’d work all week and take me to the movies on Saturdays. I was always at his house,” she remembered.

source: people.com