Lorna Luft On 'Songs My Mother Taught Me,' Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland

We opened the show 11 years ago. We are still so grateful that everyone is still loving and standing ovations and all of that. The show was written by Ken and Mitzi Walsh, who wrote all of the Carol Burnett shows. And it took us six months to put the show together, we did it 11 years ago and here we are today, I’m talking to you, still doing the show at Feinstein's [in New York].

You know, all of them, that’s why we did the show. So every single song on the show has a reason, has a meaning, a story, has a — you know, it’s not like we didn’t really really think this out. Every single story in the show tells of how I came to know these songs and how I learned them and all that. It’s got wit and humor and all of that.

You know, I mean I was 16 years old — I’ve got a lot of memories. I don’t have just one. I wrote a book so that when people really really wanted to know what it was like, I can instead of having these long long trying conversations, I can say, “Here, read this.”

No, I don’t find the attention or the fascination with her difficult. It was difficult before I did this show, before I came to peace with everything, before I was 40 years old, because I don’t think you get to really know your parents until you’re in your forties.

It wasn’t really the show — I had written my book and I had done the mini-series already. I had already done, I guess, the groundwork and the footwork and all of the really hard stuff was already done. You know, watching the mini-series, editing it, doing all that — just getting the mini-series produced was an unbelievably difficult endeavor. So by the time this came along, this was a lot of joy. This was great.

Well I was 14 when I was onstage with my mother at the Palace Theater. It was wonderful and scary and all sorts of things. It was everything that you think that being onstage would be. So you have all of that excitement and you have anxiety and you have “am I gonna do well? Is it going to be okay?” And it was, it was really wonderful.

No, there wasn’t pressure. There wasn’t pressure. You know, I got to be out of school for a summer. It was great!

Yeah, it’s like carrying on the family business.

He called me, he was gonna do it and he said, “I would really like you to be a part of this because I’m paying tribute to her.” And it came from the right place. So yes, was it musically right for him? No. It wasn’t, I mean it wasn’t. Having all of her arrangements done in other keys takes sort of the excitement out of the arrangements. So it wasn’t musically — I mean Rufus is fantastic doing the stuff that he does, but he made a real goal of doing this, he made a real goal of doing all of this, and it all came from the right place.

I think he thought it was successful. I know the audience at Carnegie Hall was incredibly excited. But the good news was that my mother’s original album of Carnegie Hall spiked through the roof. Everybody went out and bought it.

She was here at the show last night — it’s great.

One never knows. You know, I don’t know what we’re both doing tomorrow. We’re having lunch on Sunday, you know, that’s as far as I go.

I'm going back home, then I go to Connecticut, then I go to Stowe, Vt. I don’t know what’s going on in February because I gotta get past January. But the most important thing is my husband and I went to a luncheon about a month ago for Guide Dogs of the Desert, because we live in Palm Springs. And you know, guide dogs are the most amazing creatures ever. It’s extraordinary what these dogs do for the seeing-impaired and for the blind. And we found when we went to the luncheon that they needed foster parents for the puppies. So we adopted a 14-week-old white lab, and we keep him until he’s 18 months. And then he will go back to Guide Dogs, and then he will go through his formal training and hopefully he will make it into being a full-fledged guide dog. That’s my priority, is I’m in puppy land.