Christopher Walken danced with Judy Garland for Liza Minnelli’s 16th birthday

Christopher Walken talks to some of Hollywood’s most legendary stars about his past.

On January 16th, Walken and the rest of the Severance pay The cast appeared on SiriusXM’s Town Hall, hosted by Andy Cohen, and Cohen, 56, told Walken: “I read that you danced with a young Liza Minnelli. Do you remember that?”

The 81-year-old actor confirmed this. “We did an off-Broadway musical called Best foot forward. 1962. Well, she was 16 years old, I remember.”

Cohen asked, “Then could you see she had it?”

“Oh, absolutely,” he said Dune: Part Two Star said. Cohen then asked if he interacted with Minnelli’s mother, Judy Garland, at all.

“Her mom threw her a sweet 16 birthday party,” Walken said, and the actor confirmed he was there. “I remember dancing with Judy Garland,” he added. He confirmed that she was a good dancer and “very good looking.”

Walken’s acting career began in the 1950s when he first began working as a child actor under his birth name Ronnie Walken. In the 1960s he adopted the stage name Christopher. His seven-decade career took him from Broadway to Hollywood, from musical films like Hairspray to television shows like Severance pay. He also won an Oscar in 2003 for Catch me if you can.

Minnelli, 78, said The Hollywood Reporter In 2014, she realized that she still saw Walken as a musical actor in his heart. “I can see the sparkle in his eye every time he has the opportunity to dance on screen,” she said. He told the outlet: “I’m kind of an actor as far as musical comedy goes. That’s really my training, musicals.”

Back in 1986, the Queens native told PEOPLE how he landed such a wide range of roles. “I just put one foot in front of the other and take what comes next,” he said. “What the hell, a part is a part.”

Looking back on his long career in 2022, he said The New York Times“I don’t play golf or tennis. I have no children. I’ve been married for 53 years,” referring to his wife Georgianne. “I sometimes think about writing something, but I don’t have much talent for it. You know, all actors have a suitcase full of scripts. Lots of people do it. Even my dentist once, while treating my teeth, told me about a script he had written. I wrote things. They’re just not good enough. I start with two people sitting in a room talking, and it inevitably becomes disjointed. I can’t be anything other than an actor.”

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And his acting, he said, always involved a bit of fun. “Sometimes I do things just to have fun,” he told the outlet. “I did scenes where I pretended to be Elvis, Bugs Bunny or a submarine commander. I just don’t tell anyone.”

“Acting is one of those things, you can do it for as long as anyone asks you to,” he said The Wrap in 2015. “They say you don’t retire from acting – they retire you. And I don’t want to be retired because what would I do?”