The time it took designer Jonathan Adler to create this pair of needlepoint (!) pillows of Liza Minnelli and her (now ex-) husband David Gest was probably twice as long as the life of their travesty marriage. Let’s hope David had a couple of these handy to use as shields when Liza (allegedly) went on the warpath and (allegedly) engaged in woman-on-man domestic violence. My friends Annette and Craig Wyrick-Solari own the pricey Liza pillow above. When I went crazy over it, Annette showed me Adler’s website in which he offers the companion pillow, David Gest which, for my money, is even higher on the kitsch-o-meter.
Facebook
Twitter
Press
Contact
Allee Willis
Fantastic! Though even higher on the kitsch-o-meter than these stupendous pillows for me personally is the fact that along with my Color Purple collaborators, Brenda Russell and Stephen Bray, I wrote the theme song to what was never to be Liza Minnelli and David Gest’s reality show on VH1 that was canceled just days before the first episode was supposed to air because they suddenly broke up. The cherry on the Kitsch sundae was getting a call from Brenda at 4 AM when she was up watching Don Imus on TV as he got a call while on air that they split. That’s how we knew the gig went south. We lost about a month of working on Color Purple when we diverted to do this theme. The one consolation prize was David Gest singing us some Michael Jackson song over the phone the first conference call we had with him. Though I can’t remember which song… possibly because of the rendition.
I especially like these pillows because Liza looks more like Twiggy and David Gest looks like I don’t know who, maybe Rudi Gernreich.
Douglas Wood
I love that this submission has so much personal resonance for you– it’s always the icing on the cake. Thankfully your sub-conscious wisely decided to block your disturbing aural memory (like a bad acid-flashback) of Gest doing MJ. Any chance you can post the sound file of the VH1 theme song on AWMoK (or are the rights owned by VH-1)? I can’t even begin to imagine what it consisted of, but I KNOW it will be entertaining.
Allee Willis
Wow, I just listened to the theme for the first time since we wrote it in 2003. Wayyyy funky for them. Altho Wade Robson, Michael Jackson choreographer at the time, was choreographing the opening titles which is why we made it so rhythmic. Now let me see what I can do about posting it…
Allee Willis
ONLY FOR YOU, DOUG! (Well, maybe Denny too): https://www.alleewillis.com/audio/Liza_theme.html
Douglas Wood
Ok, first of all– as an instrumental this song is stellar. Like the lyrics themselves, it really “makes you wanna dance.” It’s both retro and totally hip/fresh at the same time. Really love the rhythm and percussion.
Lyrically, it’s amazing– such an eloquent yet fun expression of finding true love late in life. Love the “haystack” and “two hearts diving for a pearl,” lyrics and “time to take one more chance.”
It’s so sad that the show got cancelled before it could even begin, if only for the fact that no one got to hear this theme. There’s great irony in the fact that the couple this was written for totally contradicts the heart and soul of these lyrics.
Too bad theme songs have to be so short– I would love to hear this as a much longer dance song because it’s totally universal and resonant for so many of us– it deserves to be heard and danced to by lots of people in clubs– it deserves a life beyond the Liza/David fiasco.
Thanks for sharing!
Oh, one more thing: did you ever see the visuals for the title sequence? If so– were they animated? (For some reason that’s what popped into my head. Or maybe cut-out Lizas and Davids…)
denny
I agree with Doug! Would love to hear a much longer version of this. This is hoppin’ and it’s a shame the show was cancelled. They could have at least waited until this opening sequence song was heard by all! Thanks for sharing!!