Minnelli party is canceled

Liza Minnelli and husband David Gest have called off a planned first-year anniversary bash, to which 1,200 guests were invited. Though they blame the cancellation on the impending war, insiders tell a different story.

Minnelli entered Philadelphia’s Caron Foundation, a drug-and-alcohol addiction treatment center, last week -- an “odd time for a tune-up” given the fact that Sunday was their anniversary and Wednesday her 57th birthday, noted a piece in Sunday’s New York Daily News. In a story that ran in Monday’s New York Post, Gest denied rumors that Minnelli had overdosed after he had asked for a divorce.

“I married Liza knowing her past history,” he said. “She has this great gift. And she also has this disease.

“Has the year been pressure? Absolutely. To climb a mountain is not always easy. [But] my wife is completely fine, totally in control.”

Minnelli’s publicists Warren Cowan and Richard Hoffman also deny reports of a schism. The singer, said Cowan, routinely goes into rehab eight times a year as part of a commitment to self-help.