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The Weird, Wild, Wonderful Liberace
by Mike Walsh
I was lucky enough to see Liberace before he died. The concert was a weird, wild, wonderful spectacle, and it left me awestruck. I couldn't believe that a entire performance (not to mention a several decades long career) could be construed from such unrestrained, indulgent superficiality.
The majority of the show consisted of Liberace parading around the stage in outrageous outfits to the "oohs" and "ahhs" of the audience, which was dominated by women over the age of forty.
You can purchase these Liberace books and CDs from Amazon.com:
Liberace by Jocelyn Faris
A 30-page biography is followed by a chronology, and citations of personal appearances, films, radio and television appearances, recordings, awards and honors, sheet music, and works written about him.
Behind the Candelabra: My Life With Liberace by Scott Thorson
A tell-all by a disgruntled houseguest.
The Best of Liberace
24 of his favorite songs
16 Most Requested Songs
Loungin' with Lee (CD)
At one point he appeared in what he claimed was the world's most expensive fur--a Norwegian blue shadow fox cape with a train 12-feet wide and 16-feet long. "There's only two of these in the world," he giggled with child-like glee, "and I've got both."
At another point he pranced around in a pink, glass suit embroidered with silver beads, which lit up during the encore. He was all gooey smiles in dimples, wavy hair, and outlandish rings.
"Well, look me over," he said with a devilish grin. "I don't wear these to go unnoticed." The audience roared with delight. It was a real lovefest. I was stunned by the gleeful absurdity of it all.
His trademark candelabrum with electric lights sat atop a glass-topped piano. A handsome, strapping, young man assisted Mr. Showmanship in changing various coats, robes, and crowns. Liberace made bedroom eyes at him, as did the ladies in the audience.
At least a half dozen times, he left the stage "to go slip into something a little more spectacular." Each time Liberace made another grand entrance in a new outfit, he'd invite a few women on stage to admire the fur and diamonds.
"I'm glad you like it," he cracked, "you paid for it." It was obvious he had used the same jokes countless times before, but the audience ate up every one.
Of course, he played lots of music too, songs like "The Impossible Dream," "Send in the Clowns," "Theme from Love Story," "Close to You," and "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head."
Liberace's piano playing was just like his clothing--showy, sentimental, and absurdly fancy. At every opportunity he ran his nimble fingers up and down the keyboard in endless fills and trills. The audience evidently took this for great skill. Not that the music mattered much. It was just a light diversion to break up the costume party.
At the end of the exhausting two-and-a-half hour show, he cracked, "I've had such a marvelous time I'm ashamed to take the money"--pause, wink, wink--"but I will."
The cheering and smiling and blowing of kisses started all over again. Elderly women filled the aisle in front of the stage to kiss his cheek. Liberace kept grinning like there was no tomorrow. Even his teeth gleamed. Liberace had elevated style over substance until there was no substance left at all.
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Liberace was an international superstar dating back to the early 1950s. He averaged $5 million a year in income for more than 35 years. The 1978 Guinness Book of World Records identified Liberace as the world's highest paid musician.
He was born Wladziu Valentino Liberace in a Milwaukee suburb in 1919 to poor parents. He was classically trained on the piano as a youth and made his concert debut as a soloist at age 11. As a teenager during the depression, he played piano in speakeasies to make money for his family.
In 1940, Liberace moved to New York and scrounged for small-time nightclub gigs. His charm and piano playing paid off, and within seven years he was touring the hotel clubs. Liberace's story might have fizzled right there, but he got in early on two gold mines--Las Vegas and TV.
In the late 1940s he began playing extended runs in Las Vegas, which was just becoming an entertainment and gambling center. He would appear at the casinos in Vegas regularly for the rest of his life. And as Vegas grew, so did Liberace's fame and his paychecks.
It wasn't until Liberace was on the tube that he ascended to superstar status. In the early 1950s, Liberace had a variety show on TV, which was in its infancy. He played his fancy piano, did a little soft shoe, spoke to the audience in his hyper-sincere fashion, incessantly praised his mother Frances, who was always in attendance, and joked with his brother, George, the show's band leader. His television show was wildly successful and was carried by more stations than I Love Lucy.
In 1954 he played to capacity crowds at Carnegie Hall, Madison Square Garden, the Hollywood Bowl, and Soldier Field in Chicago. In 1955 he opened at the Riviera in Las Vegas for $50,000 per week, becoming the city's highest paid entertainer.
This was taken from an autobiography.
Liberace's millions of female fans were outraged in 1953 when he announced his engagement to a starlet. Women all over the country sobbed and wrote letters of protest. The engagement was quickly called off a few weeks later and is generally considered a publicity stunt. After all, Liberace was gay, which wasn't widely known at the time.
In fact, Liberace emphatically denied his homosexuality throughout his career. He evidently thought that coming out of the closet would hurt his popularity, and his female fans belligerently refused to acknowledge the obvious.
But that balloon burst for good when Liberace was sued for palimony in 1983 by a young man named Scott Thorson, who apparently had been shacking up with Mr. Showmanship for years. Liberace had Thorson on the payroll, dressed him up like himself, and paid for plastic surgery to have Thorson look more like himself. But even this bizarre scandal didn't dent Liberace's popularity.
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