11-19-07: Schipo writes:
How about Peter Allen and Liza Minelli? She is in my opinion not even a shadow of her mothers talent.
Separately, or together?
The late Peter Allen wrote some wonderful songs, from "Tenterfield Saddler" (good Oz imagery), "I Still Call Australia Home", "Don't Cry Out Loud" (how can you not love that song?), "I Honestly Love You", "I Go To Rio" and co-wrote "Arthur's Theme". He was a monster on stage, a great performer, with boundless energy and enormous presence. When Australia won the America's Cup, he sang in front of 100,000 people in Perth. They made a show of his life - "The Boy from Oz" - and it was a Broadway success.
Liza has less appeal to me personally, but "Cabaret" was a huge hit movie and Minelli won an Oscar for that show. I just love her performance in that movie and like the soundtrack a lot. "Liza with a Z" was a pretty important TV special, a landmark for performance; and then she had the good fortune to latch onto the Kander-Ebb song "Theme from New York, New York" and made it her signature song (of course, Frank Sinatra usurped it).
Liza has had her ups and downs (as did her mum) and while she lived in her mother's shadow, I think she can hold her head up. She's given quite a lot to the entertainment world.
There are a lot of poseurs being mentioned in this thread - but I claim that Peter Allen and Liza Minelli were fine entertainers and performers.
Regards,
