![]() ![]() Minnelli was a lonely, awkward, painfully shy boy, more interested in painting than in sports or other games that appeal to most boys his age. Minnelli viewed this episode as the first of his long series of flawed performances at best and stage debacles at worst. Then, as soon as the curtain came down, so did his father's wrath. Smiling broadly, Minnelli turned his head from side to side, while his mom managed to finish her speech. ![]() Of course, the whole audience burst out laughing, and Minnelli's father, who was in the box office, rushed in to see what was wrong. All of a sudden he got out of bed and said in a firm voice, "No, Mom, I'm not dead. ![]() Years later he recalled having read his lines with "great panache." After Little Willie's death, themother has a great hysterical scene in which she throws off the wig and says, "Willie, speak to me, tell me that you're not dead!" Mina's sobs were so heart-wrenching that Minnelli decided to "comfort" her. Minnelli did the reunion scene beautifully. She reminded Vincente time and again, "Just pretend that you're dying." Mina coached Vincente indefatigably until he learned his lines for his big emotional death scene. Realizing that the stage, with two chairs standing in for a bed, was not realistic enough as a setting, Mina decided to rehearse her son at the boardinghouse. Minnelli's mother tried to rehearse Vincente onstage, but already stubborn, he resisted. Pretending to be a nursemaid, she is hired by her former husband and his new wife to take care of the dying boy. In the melodramatic plot the wife elopes with a scoundrel, but upon hearing that her son is fatally ill, she returns, disguised in gray wig and spectacles. His mother played a dual part, Lady Isabel and Madame Vine, and at the age of three Vincente played Little Willie, her son. The whole Minnelli family performed in East Lynne, an old chestnut of a play based on Mrs. This label put tremendous pressures on him to excel and to prove that he deserved to be treated as special. Born when his mother was in her thirties and his father even older, the young Minnelli was always told that he was a special kid. Minnelli's mother was not so much domineering as overprotective after all, he was her only surviving son. But the losses also meant paying much greater attention to their surviving son and having more exacting expectations for him. The Minnellis buried their grief deep inside, seldom talking about their losses in public. After these traumatic tragedies his parents decided not to have any more children. ![]() Another brother, Willie, curiously bearing the same name as the dying son in East Lynne, a play in which Minnelli would later perform, died when he was an infant. Soon after giving birth she returned to the troupe with her infant son in tow.īefore Minnelli was born, his older twin brothers had died from some mysterious childhood disease. When the time to deliver arrived, Mina left the company and went to Chicago, where her mother and sister lived. Mina, who was known to her husband and those who loved her as May, worked until the last moment of her pregnancy, a tough challenge considering she was playing ingénues and had to conceal her growing belly. Mina Mary LaLouche LeBeau, Vincente's mother, was the company'smultitalented leading lady, as she could act, sing, and dance quite well. Among other accomplishments, Minnelli's father wrote Sousa-type marches, and several of his songs, such as "White Tops," were popular with the circus bands. His self-image was validated by the townspeople of Delaware, Ohio, who regarded him as a well-known music conductor and horn player. Minnelli's father viewed his work as a job since his great passion was for music. During the winter the members of the troupe were forced to go their separate ways because engagements for the company were scarce. Minnelli's father, Vincent Charles, and his uncle Frank founded the Minnelli Brothers Tent Theater, a company that toured the summer circuit of small towns in Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana, bringing culture to the provinces. He would change his name to Vincente, a Latinized version of his father's name, in the 1930s while working as an art director at Radio City Music Hall in New York. Lester Anthony Minnelli entered the world on February 28, 1903, in Chicago, Illinois. He was literally born in the trunk, as Judy Garland, his future wife-actress, would famously sing in her 1954 movie, A Star Is Born. VINCENTE MINNELLI'S SHOWBIZ CAREER must have been preordained. ![]()
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