Liza Minnelli Was 'Truly Devastated' When She Found First Husband 'In a Compromising Situation with Another Man'

Liza Minnelli has been married and divorced four times, and according to at least one of her closest friends, the first cut — her marriage to the late Australian entertainer Peter Allen — was the deepest.

"The happiest I saw her with somebody in her private life was with Peter Allen," Mia Farrow, 79, says in the new documentary Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story, which premiered in June at the Tribeca Film Festival and opens in select theaters on Jan. 24. Farrow and Minnelli met when they were in preschool and became friends as adolescents at a photo shoot for Seventeen magazine.

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In the film, Minnelli herself weighs in on the appeal of her first husband, to whom she was married from 1967 to 1974. “Peter Allen was so hilarious and so much fun to be with," the Oscar winner, 78, says. "And he was so great on stage.”

Unfortunately, the union was probably doomed from the start, since Allen, who died in 1992 of AIDS complications at age 48, was gay.

"She was truly devastated when she found Peter Allen in a compromising situation with another man," her longtime friend Michael Feinstein, 68, says in the documentary. "And people always say, ‘How could she have not known?’ She didn’t know. I absolutely believe that.”

Minnelli apparently can now look back at her marriage to Allen with a sharp sense of humor. When asked about her love life in the new doc, she breaks into hysterical laughter and quips, "Give me a gay break!"

In all seriousness, though, she later says of Allen, “I think he felt restricted. He needed literally to come out.”

Minnelli's second husband, Jack Haley Jr., to whom she was married from 1974 to 1979, also gets his moment. The director and producer, who died in 2001, was the son of The Wizard of Oz star Jack Haley. Feinstein, for one, thinks they were a perfect match.

“When Liza married Jack Haley Jr., there was all this talk about ‘the daughter of Dorothy marries the son of the Tin Man,' " he says. "And they were a prefect match for each other in the sense that they both grew up in Hollywood, and they had this beautiful shorthand when they were together and had a great deal of fun.”

Adds Minnelli's younger half-sister, Lorna Luft, 72: “He really loved my sister.”

Farrow, alas, wasn't completely sold on Haley and Minnelli as husband and wife. “I loved Jack and all, but I really didn’t think Jack was a good match for her, frankly," she says.

The documentary also covers Minnelli's marriages to Mark Gero (1979–1992) and her much-publicized 2002 wedding and eventual split from fourth husband David Gest, who died in 2016. Of the latter, Farrow has the final word.

“That last husband of hers," she says, not even trying to mask her disbelief. "I was at the wedding. Oh my God!”

Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story is now playing in select theaters.

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