Paying Gests
THE Enquirer lingers over the bones of what was once so fleshy a relationship, bringing news from the divorce proceedings of Liza Minnelli and David Gest.
Illustrated by portraits of Liza (smiling broadly like every day is a Cabaret) and David (clad in his customary mask of inscrutability), we return to the wedding.
March 16, 2002, Liza and David married at the Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan. Everyone who was anyone was there. And they brought their friends.
We and 850 guests looked on as multi-faceted Michael Jackson gave Minnelli away and acted as her new husband’s best man.
Fifteen bridesmaids, including Italian film star Gina Lollobrigida, Mia Farrow and Chaka Khan, dressed in black, stood in attendance to a white-clad Liza. Elizabeth Taylor was a matron of honour.
A press release – retrieved from the wall at Anorak Towers – promised the starriest do ever.
As it says: “Talent performing at the wedding includes: Paula Abdul; Amber; Ed Ames; Tony Bennett; Ann Blyth; Bobby Brown; Shirley Caesar; Blu Cantrell; Kevin Ceballo; Petula Clark; Cy Coleman; Deborah Cox; Sacha Distel; The Original Doobie Brothers; Lamont Dozier; Michael Feinstein; Roberta Flack; Gloria Gaynor; Billy Gilman; Robert Goulet; Sam Harris; Whitney Houston; Chaka Khan; Little Anthony & The Imperials; James Ingram; Chuck Jackson; Members of The Jacksons; Brian May of Queen; Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis, Jr.; Michael McDonald; Stephanie Mills; Monica; Mya; Donny Osmond; Pablo Cruise; Elaine Paige; Billy Paul; Freda Payne; The Pointer Sisters: Anita, June and Ruth; Paul Shaffer; Shaggy featuring Ricardo “Rikrok” Ducent and Rayvon; Edwin Starr; B.J. Thomas; Usher; Ben Vereen; Dionne Warick; Deniece Williams and many more to be announced.”
Friends one and all. And so keen was David to have his close showbix chums in attendance that he paid for their airfares.
To the Enquirer this is an oddity. It calls Gest “headline hungry” and says that he paid the airfares because he was “so desperate to have celebrity guests at the wedding”.
The magazine says that until now, guests like the aforementioned mob and Kirk Douglas and Lauren Bacall “were assumed to have paid for their own transportation”.
But now we hear different. And it is a shock to us, but not to Dave, whose face retains it air of mystique…
Posted: 28th, September 2006 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
