UK Theatre Network

Lorna Luft, daughter of Judy Garland and sister of Liza Minnelli, is currently touring the country in the mystery thriller Pack of Lies, before the production goes into London’s West End. Clare Brotherwood talks to her about her first real part in a straight play.

Lorna Luft is every inch a Broadway star.

So what is the all-singing, all-dancing American performer doing playing a housewife living in a suburban semi?

She was in the middle of The Wizard of Oz in Manchester, playing the Wicked Witch, when her friend Stephanie Powers had to pull out and she was asked to step in.

She explained: “I was supposed to be going back to California, but I sandblasted off the green make-up and read the script on the train on my way to London. I finished The Wizard of Oz one day and started rehearsing for Pack of Lies the next.”

Hugh Whitemore’s play is based on a true story in which a stranger comes into the lives of a happy but dull suburban couple whose friendship with a vivacious Canadian neighbour (Luft) drags them into a nightmare world of treachery and deception during which they are forced to choose between loyalty to their friend and their country.

But it wasn’t all plain sailing.

“I felt a little bit out of my comfort zone because I am really musical comedy, so the first week I was in turmoil,” said Lorna. “I had nowhere to live, but then I got a fantastic flat in Notting Hill and although it was scary, I was incredibly lucky with the cast.”

The problems didn’t stop there, however.

With less than a week to curtain up, co-star Roy Marsden was taken ill.

“That really, really set us off kilter,” she said. “All we were thinking of was Roy’s health. The entire cast were emotional. We were in shock.”

It was a difficult time, not least for Daniel Hill, who stepped in to play Roy’s part just three days before opening night at Windsor.

“Jenny (Seagrove) and Simon (Shepherd) had had this play for months. I had it for four weeks but Danny only had it for three days,” Lorna said. And then, on the opening night, the cast and the audience had to deal with the biggest snow fall for 20 years!

But that’s all behind them now. As Lorna says: “It was a roller coaster. But what a ride!” And when the tour ends in April they will have a West End run to look forward to.

Despite her ‘other life’, as the star of innumerable musicals, concerts, television shows and films, the subject of the BBC documentary Somebody’s Daughter Somebody’s Son, and her own tributes to her mother - she has a one woman show, Songs My Mother Taught Me, and became a best-selling author with her memoir Me and My Shadows, which was later made into the five Emmy Award-winning mini-series - she says she is grateful for the role.

“It’s a terribly different time right now in the States with unemployment and the money situation; not that it’s fantastic here, but I don’t think it’s hit here as hard because your country isn’t as big. So to have a job as an actor….”

Of course, you can’t talk to Lorna without mentioning her mother. So what was it like living with a legend?

“I don’t have anything to compare with it,” Lorna said. “She was my mom. She was everyone else’s legend, and people have preconceived ideas.

“There have been 30, 40, 50 books written about her but not one of the writers have been in our home. That’s why I wrote my book - to tell the story of a human being and not a legend.”

For details of the Pack of Lies tour see www.lornaluft.com