Liza Minnelli plans fourth marriage

Liza Minnelli today revealed she has put health fears behind her - and was planning her fourth marriage.

The 55-year-old singer said she was ‘‘so happy’’ as she revealed the 3.5 carat diamond ring given to her by fiance David Gest, who produced Michael Jackson’s comeback concert in September.

She said: ‘‘I’m so happy, darling.’’

And the Cabaret star told customers at an expensive beauty salon on New York’s Fifth Avenue that she wanted a ceremony in St Patrick’s Cathedral, according to reports.

One customer said: ‘‘She was just so over-the-moon. She was pulling her robe off her shoulders, showing us how her wedding dress would look.’’

And she told staff and customers she would like her dress to have a train ‘‘a mile long’’, and that she wanted to adopt four children with her husband-to-be.

Minnelli, the daughter of screen legend Judy Garland, has been divorced three times.

Her first marriage, to Australian singer and songwriter Peter Allen, was in 1967, but ended in divorce seven years later, and was immediately followed by her five-year marriage to filmmaker Jack Haley.

After their divorce, she married sculptor Mark Gero, but that union collapsed after 13 years, and since 1992 she has been single.

She battled bad health, undergoing back surgery and two hip replacements, forcing her to cancel 14 concerts in 2000, and putting on two stones in weight, which she has now shed.

But Minnelli made her first public appearance in New York on September 7, at Jackson’s comeback concert and made her own return to showbusiness at the Madison Square Gardens venue, singing You Are Not Alone.