Ensconced in a huge New York hotel suite along with a small retinue and her adorably pesky miniature schnauzer, Liza Minnelli is perky despite a heavy schedule of interviews about the newly remastered Liza with a Z, her 1972 concert special. Directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse and written by John Kander and Fred Ebb (Cabaret), the show, which debuts on Showtime on April 2, won four Emmys. On the cusp of her 60th birthday, the singer-dancer-actress reminisces about the making of the show, how it looks today and how her mother Judy Garland helped her conquer her stage fright.

TVGuide.com: It's great to meet you. I go way back with you.
Liza Minnelli: So you remember [my professional stage debut] Best Foot Forward?

TVGuide.com: I remember when you were a kid and visited your mom's TV show!
Minnelli: [Laughs] That's wonderful.

TVGuide.com: I hear you got a standing O when Liza with a Z played at the Toronto Film Festival.
Minnelli: Yeah! They applauded after every number as if they were at the theater. [At a Showtime shindig a few days later, the Radio City Music Hall audience did the same.] We all worked so hard to do it. The original, shot in 16 mm, was shown three times on television. I was lucky enough to have a lawyer smart enough to make sure that I owned it. We only did the show once, and I fell in love with Bob Fosse's edit. I even forgot that he had to take out "Mein Herr." We put it back in the new DVD [which arrives in stores April 4].

TVGuide.com: So how did the remastered version come about?
Minnelli: Seven years ago, my friend Michael Arick, the great editor and film restorer, called and asked if he could work on the show a little. I said "Sure." Six years later, he called and said, "You gotta look at it now." Fosse's applauding in heaven because now you can see what he shot, you can see what every brilliant dancer is doing, the way he staged everything. This is the finest stage work and film direction that I've ever seen. And it was the first one-woman filmed special ever done.

TVGuide.com: What came back to you when you saw the special after so many years?
Minnelli: I remember doing it! We rehearsed for five or six weeks. We were all so nervous. I remember thinking that all these wonderful people have done all this wonderful work and now it's my turn to come through. I was standing backstage all by myself when that curtain went up. I never told this to anybody, but I remember that my knee started to tremble a little bit. Then when I heard "Ladies and gentlemen, Liza Minnelli!" I started to walk forward and I was scared! So I got a mental picture that at either shoulder was my father [Vincent Minnelli] and my mother, and in back of them, Fred, John, Bobby [and musical arranger] Marvin Hamlisch, and in back of them, my godfather Ira Gershwin and my godmother Kay Thompson [author of the Eloise books]. I felt like I was in a flying wedge and I wasn't alone. I was bred for that evening! If I wasn't going to be good that night, I might as well stay home. [Laughs]