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“Tasteless And Classless”: Liza Minnelli Blasts Gene Hackman One Year After Hollywood icon’s Tragic Passing
Liza Minnelli dished some secrets about her late co-star Gene Hackman, calling him “downright rude” in her newly released memoir.
Calling herself the “original nepo baby” of the industry, the 79-year-old actress wrote a tell-all memoir titled Kids, Wait Till You Hear This!, which hit the shelves on Tuesday, March 10.
Her candid confessions included catching her first husband Peter Allen in bed with another man.
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Highlights
- Liza Minnelli exposed secrets about her late co-star Gene Hackman in her newly released memoir.
- Her revelations came just over a year after Hackman and his wife's remains were found by a maintenance worker in their New Mexico home.
- The candid confessions in her memoir included catching her first husband Peter Allen in bed with another man.
Liza Minnelli dished some secrets about her late costar Gene Hackman
Image credits: jfizzy/Star Max/Getty Images
Liza Minnelli had a front row seat to the real-life drama of Old Hollywood, being the only daughter of movie icon Judy Garland and director dad Vincente Minnelli.
The Sterile Cuckoo actress grew up surrounded by onscreen legends and witnessed not-so-picture-perfect moments behind closed doors.
In her memoir, she recalled having a tense relationship with her co-star Gene Hackman while filming their 1975 movie Lucky Lady.
Directed by Stanley Donen, Lucky Lady saw Minnelli and Hackman share the screen with Burt Reynolds in a complicated onscreen love triangle.
The EGOT winner called Hackman “downright rude” in her newly released memoir Kids, Wait Till You Hear This!
Image credits: SGranitz/Getty Images
Minnelli’s character is a songstress and a widow named Claire, who gets involved in smuggling alcohol with her lover Walker Ellis (Reynolds) and his buddy Kibby Womack (Hackman).
The trio navigates through their complicated relationship dynamics while trying not to get caught.
Minnelli remembered having a dull chemistry with Hackman in the film that ultimately flopped at the box office.
“I don’t like to whine, but Stanley [the director] later shared publicly that Gene was very dismissive of me during the film,” she wrote.
“It’s hard to go to work when the chemistry is absent,” she continued. “I think it’s fair to say that Gene was downright rude.”
Image credits: Joella Marano/Flickr
The revelations about Hackman came just over a year after he and his wife Betsy Arakawa were found lifeless inside their New Mexico home.
Final autopsy results concluded that Arakawa lost her life to hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a rare rodent-borne disease, and Hackman passed away days later.
Their bodies were found by a maintenance worker on February 26, 2025.
In her memoir, Minnelli spoke about her marriage to her first of four husbands, Peter Allen.
They got engaged in 1965 and tied the knot two years later. Even with steamy affairs on the side, the infidelity “didn’t break” them.
Minnelli wrote about catching her first husband Peter Allen having “passionate s*x” with another man in their bed
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Minnelli said there was a “betrayal of [their] marital intimacy” when she caught Allen having “passionate s*x” with another man in their bed.
“It was impossible for my heart to absorb what my eyes had seen,” she wrote.
“After the other gentleman quickly dressed and disappeared,” the actress stood frozen while her husband walked over towards her. She recalled him holding her tightly as they wept together.
“He felt terrible and told me for the first time, ‘Liza, I love you more than anyone in the world and I’m gay,’” she wrote.
Image credits: IMP Awards
Minnelli said they had an “active and very fulfilling s*xual life,” and Allen “had tried desperately to be monogamous.”
“But his feelings for men would not go away,” she recalled. “It was a fact of his life and now mine.”
The Arthur actress said even after the “moment of discovery,” they still felt “enormous love for each other” and didn’t want “the marriage to end.”
They stayed married and had romances with others until their 1974 divorce. They continued to cary love for each other in the subsequent years.
Image credits: 20th Century Fox/Getty Images
Minnelli’s memoir also shared details about her passionate 1976 affair with Martin Scorsese while starring in his film New York, New York.
She described their passionate affair as one that had “more layers than lasagna.”
“He was a diabolically handsome man who shared my love for film,” she wrote. “I was a director’s daughter who respected Marty’s role and authority. Even though I now realize I didn’t understand him.”
Years later, the EGOT winner said she was snubbed by The Irishman director at the 2014 Oscars.
“[I] walked up to say hello. Unfortunately, he turned away from me,” she wrote. “Very sad.”
Image credits: IMDB
The offspring of Hollywood royalty said her decades-long dependence on substances was the “final gift” and “genetic inheritance” she received from her mother.
She was a 23-year-old, living in New York, when the Wizard of Oz star passed away from an accidental overd*se in London at age 47 in 1969.
“Crushed” and “overwhelmed” by the loss, Minnelli said she had to “organize a complicated public funeral” for her mother.
Image credits: 20th Century Fox/Getty Images
To help her handle the “stress and tension,” she said a doctor prescribed Valium, and that was like a “match igniting a fire.”
“It was the first time I took any such drug, and I marveled at how quickly it took the edge off,” she wrote in her memoir.
She admitted the “one-day blessing” spiralled into a “habit,” and then a “full-blown case of add*ction in the years ahead.”
The Cabaret star has gone to rehab multiple times over the years and became sober in 2015.
“Tasteless and classless,” one said about Minnelli’s revelations about Hackman
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What do you think ?
CP 1 hour ago
I still don't understand our society's weird rule about speaking ill about the dead. How does being dead change things they did while alive?
pebs 44 minutes ago
I believe it's the legacy of a superstition passed down for millennia, according to which it's best not to offend the dead because their spirits might take revenge. Generally, in many ancient societies, the dead were feared, and their souls had to be appeased if offended. A sense of "pietas" for deceased human beings may also play a role.
Load More Replies...
Janelle Collard 45 minutes ago
That movie was awful - zero chemistry between Hackman + Liza. He was phoning it in.
CP 1 hour ago
I still don't understand our society's weird rule about speaking ill about the dead. How does being dead change things they did while alive?
pebs 44 minutes ago
I believe it's the legacy of a superstition passed down for millennia, according to which it's best not to offend the dead because their spirits might take revenge. Generally, in many ancient societies, the dead were feared, and their souls had to be appeased if offended. A sense of "pietas" for deceased human beings may also play a role.
Load More Replies... Janelle Collard 45 minutes ago
That movie was awful - zero chemistry between Hackman + Liza. He was phoning it in.
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