Goldie wears Bob Mackie, Liza Halston, in Goldie and Liza Together.

Of all the great television mysteries of 1980, the most popular was undoubtedly “Who shot J.R.?” But the most enduring might be “Goldie and Liza Together: Why?” Was there a great public clamoring for this pairing? Did Minnelli and cherished collaborator Fred Ebb, who’d triumphed with the landmark TV concert film Liza with a “Z” eight years earlier, have tax bills to settle? No matter the impetus, here they were, in an hour-long special presentation on CBS directed by Don Mischer and sponsored by Sentry, “a family of insurance companies to meet all your insurance needs!”

Nominated for four Primetime Emmys, including Outstanding Variety or Music Program (which it lost to Baryshnikov on Broadway), its shaky premise is that the stars are old friends finally fulfilling their dream of working together. With Liza supplying the lung power and Goldie the sobriety, we slog through a disjointed first half that includes, most memorably, Hawn performing “Y.M.C.A.” while surrounded by male dancers, a cutesy precursor to the more seductive (and entertaining) “Physical” video Olivia Newton-John released the next year. The number concludes with Hawn joining the boys in the shower, which causes them to flee in a gay panic.

Special moments from the Goldie and Liza musical finale.

Mercifully, Liza follows with a cover of Donna Summer’s “Bad Girls,” her backup dancers dressed as ladies of the evening. (Let us pause to remember Rent-a-Cop, in which Liza plays a merry hooker opposite Burt Reynolds.) Musically, it’s nothing special, but after watching Hawn struggle through her Village People anthem it was a relief to be back in the jazz hands of a seasoned professional. Here I’ll note, from a lesbian perspective—and you’ll remember how I ruined the family wholesomeness of Dolly Parton’s holiday classic A Smoky Mountain Christmas with that—that Goldie and Liza gives us some interesting moments to consider.

Besides their hand-holding, face-nuzzling and some recording studio banter we’ll get to shortly, there’s a scene in which Liza, dressed as Sue Sylvester from Glee, solicits feedback on her “Bad Girls” performance. Hawn replies, “Just one thought: Girls. Why didn’t I think of girls?” before kissing the top of Minnelli’s head. In a dramatic, non-musical vignette, they remember a play they wanted to stage together, and a scene in which their characters, friends and roommates, seem to clash over the Hawn character’s boyfriend. But the melodrama takes an interesting turn as it pivots emotionally from a “Two Hot Girls (On a Hot Summer Night)” scenario (surely I’m not the only Carly Simon fan here) to turgid Lillian Hellman territory.

Goldie Hawn performs “Y.M.C.A.” with a gaggle of gays.

There is, of course, no actual lesbianism in Goldie and Liza Together, and one of their duets, “The Other Woman,” is about the shared romantic custody of a lousy man. It’s no “No More Tears (Enough is Enough”), or even a lesser Streisand duet like “Tell Him.” If we really want to scrape the bottom of the barrel, it’s not even “Till I Loved You.” It is instead a mawkish dirge in which they speculate that their cad enjoyed “two turkey dinners” last Thanksgiving, sentiments that don’t roll easily off the tongue. This interlude is set in a recording studio, where eyebrow-raising banter flares as Liza explains industry jargon to Goldie.

Liza: What happens, they have a 24-track machine in there, right? Now, they’re gonna feed us our track through the headsets, which are also known as cans.

Goldie: (smiling) Right.

Liza: (murmurs) Right. You like that?

Goldie: Yeah.

Liza: So grab your cans and we’ll go.

Images from Liza’s “Bad Girls” performance.

They share another pedestrian number or two, but the 10-minute three-song finale is their best joint sequence, its centerpiece being “All That Jazz.” Hawn comes reasonably close to holding her own with Minnelli (who politely refrains from going full throttle), but her effort is understandably more apparent, and her joy and excitement more palpable when they reach the end.

Goldie and Liza Together closes with an unnecessary “Together (Wherever We Go),” but it’s what comes later, as the actresses prepare to leave the studio, that naturally left an impression on me. Discussing their next career moves—Liza’s off on tour and Goldie has a film to shoot—Goldie softly tells Liza “I don’t want to lose you,” as a saxophone swells. “You never will,” Liza assures her, and off they walk together, leaving at least one mystified lesbian in their wake.

Additional screenshots are available on Instagram.

Note: The mystery of the special’s origins has been solved. A reader sent me a message explaining that Bob Fosse wanted to cast Hawn and Minnelli in a film adaptation of Chicago. This fits with the impression that “All That Jazz” was the main attraction and that Hawn was considerably more concerned about that performance than the rest of her musical numbers. I plan to read Sam Wasson’s Fosse biography later this year and will update the post if it contains additional information about the aborted project.

Streaming and DVD availability

Goldie and Liza Together hasn’t been released on DVD, but the gays of YouTube have us covered. [Lesser quality backup here.]

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