Christopher Walken recalls his night dancing with Judy Garland at Liza Minnelli’s 16th birthday bash

Christopher Walken relived a moment from his past where he got to dance with Judy Garland.

During an interview on SiriusXM’s Town Hall hosted by Andy Cohen, 56, with the cast of Severance, Cohen said, ‘I read you danced with a young Liza Minnelli. Do you remember that?’ 

‘We did an Off-Broadway musical called Best Foot Forward. 1962. Well, she was 16 years old, I remember,’ the 81-year-old actor said.

Cohen asked, ‘Could you see it then that she had it?’

‘Oh, absolutely,’ the Deer Hunter star said. Cohen then asked if he interacted with Minnelli’s mom, Judy Garland, at all.

‘Her mom gave a sweet 16th birthday party for her,’ Walken said, adding that he attended.

‘I remember I danced with Judy Garland,’ he added. He confirmed that she was a good dancer and ‘very good-looking.’

Walken began his acting career as a teenager and he has seven decades of film, television and Broadway under his belt.

He won and Academy Award in 1979 for his role in The Deer Hunter and was nominated in 2003 for his role in Catch Me If You Can. 

Minnelli, 78, told The Hollywood Reporter in 2014 that Walken was a music man at heart.

‘I can see the glint in his eye every time he has the opportunity to dance onscreen,’ she said. 

He told the outlet, ‘I’m kind of an actor by way of musical comedy. That’s really my education, musicals.’

Another moment from his past that he looks a little less fondly on is the iconic More Cowbell sketch from Saturday Night Live when he hosted the show on April 5, 2000.

In the documentary SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night  Will Ferrell, 57, recalled how Walker reacted to that sketch 

Ferrell plays an overzealous cowbell player in a fictional version of Blue Oyster Cult on the day they recorded their hit song (Don’t) Fear the Reaper. 

Ferrell went to see Walken in a play a few weeks after the SNL episode aired.  

‘You know, you’ve ruined my life … every show, people bring cowbells for the curtain call and bang them. It’s quite disconcerting,’ Walken said to him. 

The band was played by then SNL cast members Chris Parnell, Jimmy Fallon, Chris Kattan and Horatio Sanz.

The band was annoyed at Ferrell’s cowbell, but fictional record exec Bruce Dickinson played by Walken encourages him to play the instrument harder.

Walken’s character says, ‘I’ve got a fever – and the only prescription is more cowbell.’ 

In 2022, he reflected on his long and successful career in an interview with the New York Times. 

‘I don’t golf or play tennis. I have no kids. I’ve been married for 53 years. I sometimes think about writing something, but I don’t have much talent for that. 

‘You know, all actors have a trunk full of scripts. A lot of people do. Even my dentist at one point, when he was doing my teeth, told me about a script he’d written. 

‘I’ve written things. They’re just not good enough. I start with two people sitting in a room talking and invariably it becomes incoherent. 

‘There’s nothing I can be other than an actor,’ he said.