Mark Griffin (64 page)

An Emmy-winning 2001 television movie adapted from Luft’s memoir,
Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows
, seemed to diverge from its source material where Vincente Minnelli was concerned. In one scene, Garland (Judy Davis) confides to MGM arranger Roger Edens (John Benjamin Hickey) that she expects Minnelli (Hugh Laurie) to propose to her. Edens is visibly surprised and attempts to warn his protégé about the director: “I don’t think he’s marrying material.” (Quotation from Lorna Luft’s book
Me and My Shadows: A Family Memoir
[New York: Pocket Books, 1998].)

One of V. C. Minnelli’s tunes, “The White Tops,” a Sousa-like “march and two-step,” was a popular selection in the repertoires of circus bands across the country. Lester Minnelli’s mother, Mina Gennell, penned the rarely heard lyrics.

In Vincente Minnelli’s 1974 autobiography, he refers to his mother’s family “emigrating from France.” (Vincente Minnelli, with Hector Arce,
I Remember It Well
[Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974].) Mina Le Beau (born Marie Emelie Odile LeBeau) was actually of French-Canadian descent. Her father, Flavian Le Beau, was born near Montreal. There is a strong probability that Mina’s maternal lineage includes Native American ancestors.

A medical certificate entitled “Inquest of Lunacy, Epilepsy or Feeble-Mindedness” from July 22, 1920, describes Paul Minnelli’s behavior as “childlike” and determined that as a feeble-minded person, Paul was “incapable of receiving instruction in the common schools.” Even so, surviving classmates in Delaware, Ohio, recall Paul Minnelli attending school—though he was usually in a lower grade.

In 1978, while Vincente Minnelli was being honored at the Athens International Film Festival, journalist Peter Lehman asked the Oscar-winning director, “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” Between puffs on his ever-present cigarette, the seventy-five-year-old auteur responded, “No. We had twins who died when they were infants.” No mention was made of Paul Minnelli. (Peter Lehman, Marilyn Campbell, and Grant Munro, “Two Weeks in Another Town: An Interview with Vincente Minnelli,”
Wide Angle
3, no. 1 [1979]: 65.) In 1994, Delaware historian Brent Carson met Liza Minnelli after she performed at the Polaris Amphitheater: “I mentioned Paul Minnelli to her and she said, ‘I never knew that he had a brother.’” (Brent Carson, interview with author, 2007.)

At one point, V.C. and family moved in with Lester’s grandparents. Their home at the corner of N. Washington Street and Fountain Avenue in Delaware came complete with a rolling front yard and a spacious front porch. The house is a dead ringer for the Smith residence in
Meet Me in St. Louis
.