'Just glorious': Liza Minnelli's friendship with jewellery designer Elsa Peretti

Liza Minnelli has had a long relationship with the late Italian jewellery designer Elsa Peretti. She still wears jewellery designed by her close friend. Photo: The New York Times

The scene had all the subtlety of a sequined sledgehammer: Liza Minnelli, a performer who has often been measured against her mother, actress Judy Garland, was lounging on a sofa beneath fluorescent Andy Warhol portraits of Garland, Minnelli and her father, director Vincente.

Minnelli, 78, was sitting in the living room of an apartment she uses as an office and studio in West Hollywood, California, on a Monday afternoon in August, with a small entourage that included a manager, a personal photographer and Michael Feinstein, a singer and pianist she has collaborated with for years.