Life was no “Cabaret” for the estranged husband of Liza Minnelli, who is accusing her in a $10 million lawsuit of repeatedly and drunkenly pummeling him during their short, bizarre marriage – leaving him with lingering injuries.
“Liza! Stop it! Stop it!” producer and Shirley Temple memorabilia collector David Gest says he shouted during one alleged beating.
Some allegations in the stunning lawsuit, filed yesterday in Manhattan Supreme Court:
Drunk on vodka, Minnelli threw a lamp at Gest in a London hotel suite before pummeling his face.
Another vodka-fueled whupping came in their E. 69th St. apartment, when she beat Gest “with her hands about the head until he ran into the other room.”
Minnelli also turned against her production manager, Steve Benanav, nearly strangling him.
“She’s stronger than any woman I’ve ever seen. I’m worried about her health and safety. I just can’t believe how strong she is on alcohol,” Benanav allegedly told Gest.
Gest, 50, says he underwent multiple hospitalizations and takes 11 prescription medications to treat the injuries allegedly inflicted on him by Minnelli.
Neither Gest nor Minnelli comes off as a model spouse in the lawsuit. The 57-year-old daughter of screen legend Judy Garland is portrayed as an abusive wife whose boozing made her fists fly with fury.
Court papers paint Minnelli as “an alcoholic, overweight,” award-winning entertainer whose career had been eclipsed by her troubles before she wed Gest on March 16, 2002.
As for Gest, he admits he would cower at the sight of his wife, running from room to room to avoid her wrath.
And when Gest called the Caron Foundation, an alcohol rehabilitation facility, to seek help, Minnelli “flew into a violent rage,” he contends.
The two separated in July but neither has filed for divorce, Gest’s lawyer, Raoul Felder, said.
A lawyer for Minnelli did not return calls, but she seemed to be in good spirits yesterday at the Carlyle Hotel, where she met with executives from MAC cosmetics while drinking a Diet Pepsi with lemon.
The suit charges Gest suffers from “virtually constant, unrelenting pain in his head,” as well as vertigo, nausea, hypertension and insomnia. The injuries are long-term and have forced Gest to hire extra staff to help him put on shows in Hawaii, where he lives, he contends.
Felder said that just yesterday, Gest got 40 injections in his head as part of his treatment.
One alleged beating in Gest’s suit stood out:
On June 10, he says, after downing a bottle of vodka, Minnelli came back to their suite at the Connaught Hotel in London and threw a lamp at him, then “began beating [Gest] about the head and face with her fists without relenting” as he shouted, “Liza! Stop it! Stop it!”
When the couple’s guard, Imad Handi, tried to intervene, according to the suit, Minnelli said to him: “I have no friends. My husband is using me to be star [sic]. I am the star.”