Liberace, 1919-1987

<p>Władziu Valentino Liberace (May 16, 1919 – February 4, 1987) was an American pianist, singer, and actor. A child prodigy born in Wisconsin to parents of Italian and Polish origin, Liberace enjoyed a career spanning four decades of concerts, recordings, television, motion pictures, and endorsements. At the height of his fame from the 1950s to 1970s, Liberace was the highest-paid entertainer in the world with established concert residencies in Las Vegas and an international touring schedule. Liberace embraced a lifestyle of flamboyant excess both on and off stage, earning the nickname "Mr. Showmanship"</p>

<p>Władziu Valentino Liberace (known as "Lee" to his friends and "Walter" to family) was born in West Allis, Wisconsin, on May 16, 1919. His father, Salvatore ("Sam") Liberace (December 9, 1885 – April 1, 1977), was an immigrant from Formia in the Lazio region of central Italy. His mother, Franciszka Zuchowska (August 31, 1892 – November 1, 1980), was Polish. Liberace had an identical twin who died at birth. He had three surviving siblings: a brother George (who was a violinist), a sister Angelina, and younger brother Rudy (Rudolph Valentino Liberace, named after the actor due to his mother's interest in show business).</p>

<p>Liberace's father played the French horn in bands and cinemas but often worked as a factory worker or labourer. While Sam encouraged music in his family, his wife, Frances (despite having been a concert pianist before her marriage), believed music lessons and a record player to be unaffordable luxuries. This caused family disputes. Liberace later stated, "My dad's love and respect for music created in him a deep determination to give as his legacy to the world, a family of musicians dedicated to the advancement of the art."</p>

<p>erace began playing the piano at age four. While Sam took his children to concerts to further expose them to music, he was also a taskmaster demanding high standards from the children in both practice and performance. Liberace's prodigious talent was evident from his early years. By age seven, he was capable of memorising difficult pieces. He studied the technique of the Polish pianist Ignacy Paderewski. At age eight, he met Paderewski backstage after a concert at the Pabst Theatre in Milwaukee. "I was intoxicated by the joy I got from the great virtuoso's playing. My dreams were filled with fantasies of following his footsteps…Inspired and fired with ambition, I began to practice with a fervour that made my previous interest in the piano look like neglect." Paderewski later became a family friend.</p>

<p>The Depression was financially hard on the Liberace family. In childhood, Liberace suffered from a speech impediment, and as a teen, from the taunts of neighbourhood children, who mocked him for his effeminate personality, his avoidance of sports, and his fondness for cooking and the piano. Liberace concentrated on his piano playing with the help of music teacher Florence Kelly, who oversaw Liberace's musical development for 10 years. He gained experience playing popular music in theaters, on local radio, for dancing classes, for clubs, and for weddings. In 1934, he played jazz piano with a school group called "The Mixers" and later with other groups. Liberace also performed in cabarets and strip clubs. Though Sam and Frances did not approve, their son was earning a living during hard times. For a while, Liberace adopted the stage name "Walter Busterkeys". He also showed an interest in draftsmanship, design, and painting, and became a fastidious dresser and follower of fashion. By this time, he was already displaying a penchant for turning eccentricities into attention-getting practices, and earned popularity at school, despite some making him an object of ridicule.</p>

<p>A participant in a formal classical music competition in 1937, Liberace was praised for his "flair and showmanship". At the end of a traditional classical concert in La Crosse in 1939, Liberace played his first requested encore, the popular comedy song "Three Little Fishies". He later stated that he played the popular tune in the styles of several different classical composers. The 20-year-old played with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on January 15, 1940 at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee, performing Liszt's Second Piano Concerto under the baton of Hans Lange, for which he received strong reviews. He also toured in the Midwest.</p>

<p>Between 1942 and 1944, Liberace moved away from straight classical performance and reinvented his act to one featuring "pop with a bit of classics" or as he also called it "classical music with the boring parts left out". In the early 1940s, he struggled in New York City, but by the mid- and late-1940s, he was performing in night clubs in major cities around the United States and "gained national exposure through his performance contracts with the Statler and Radisson hotel chains", largely abandoning the classical music altogether. He changed from a classical pianist to an entertainer and showman, unpredictably and whimsically mixing the serious with light fare, e.g., Chopin with "Home on the Range". For a while, he played piano along with a phonograph on stage. The gimmick helped gain him attention. He also added interaction with the audience—taking requests, talking with the patrons, making jokes, giving lessons to chosen audience members. He also began to pay greater attention to such details as staging, lighting, and presentation. The transformation to entertainer was driven by Liberace's desire to connect directly with his audiences, and secondarily from the reality of the difficult competition in the classical piano world.</p>

<p>In 1943, he began to appear in Soundies (the 1940s precursor to music videos). He recreated two flashy numbers from his nightclub act, the standards "Tiger Rag" and "Twelfth Street Rag". In these films, he was billed as Walter Liberace. Both "Soundies" were later released to the home-movie market by Castle Films. In 1944, he made his first appearances in Las Vegas, which later became his principal venue. He was playing at the best clubs, finally appearing at the Persian Room in 1945, with Variety proclaiming, "Liberace looks like a cross between Cary Grant and Robert Alda. He has an effective manner, attractive hands which he spotlights properly, and with al, rings the bell in the dramatically lighted, well-presented, showmanly routine. He should snowball into box office." The Chicago Times was similarly impressed: He "made like Chopin one minute and then turns on a Chico Marx bit the next".</p>

<p>During this time, Liberace worked to refine his act. He added the candelabrum as his trademark, inspired by a similar prop in the Chopin biopic A Song to Remember (1945). He adopted "Liberace" as his stage name, making a point in press releases that it was pronounced "Liber-Ah-chee". He wore white tie and tails for better visibility in large halls. Besides clubs and occasional work as an accompanist and rehearsal pianist, Liberace played for private parties, including those at the Park Avenue home of millionaire oilman J. Paul Getty. By 1947, he was billing himself as "Liberace—the most amazing piano virtuoso of the present day." He had to have a piano to match his growing presence, so he bought a rare, oversized, gold-leafed Blüthner Grand, which he hyped up in his press kit as a "priceless piano". (Later, he performed with an array of extravagant, custom-decorated pianos, some encrusted with rhinestones and mirrors.) He moved to the Los Angeles neighborhood of North Hollywood in 1947 and was performing at local clubs, such as Ciro's and The Mocambo, for stars such as Rosalind Russell, Clark Gable, Gloria Swanson, and Shirley Temple. He did not always play to packed rooms, and he learned to perform with extra energy to thinner crowds, to maintain his own enthusiasm.</p>

<p>Liberace created a publicity machine which helped to make him a star. Despite his success in the supper-club circuit, where he was often an intermission act, his ambition was to reach larger audiences as a headliner and a television, movie, and recording star. Liberace began to expand his act and made it more extravagant, with more costumes and a larger supporting cast. His large-scale Las Vegas act became his hallmark, expanding his fan base, and making him wealthy.</p>

<p>His New York City performance at Madison Square Garden in 1954, which earned him a record $138,000 (equivalent to $1,330,000 in 2020) for one performance, was more successful than the great triumph his idol Paderewski had made 20 years earlier. He was mentioned as a sex symbol in The Chordettes 1954 No. 1 hit "Mr. Sandman". By 1955, he was making $50,000 per week at the Riviera Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas and had over 200 official fan clubs with a quarter of a million members. He was making over $1 million per year from public appearances, and millions from television. Liberace was frequently covered by the major magazines, and he became a pop-culture superstar, but he also became the butt of jokes by comedians and the public.</p>

<p>Liberace appeared on the March 8, 1956 episode of the TV quiz program You Bet Your Life hosted by Groucho Marx.</p>

<p>Music critics were generally harsh in their assessment of his piano playing. Critic Lewis Funke wrote after the Carnegie Hall concert, Liberace's music "must be served with all the available tricks, as loud as possible, as soft as possible, and as sentimental as possible. It's almost all showmanship topped by whipped cream and cherries." Even worse was his lack of reverence and fealty to the great composers. "Liberace recreates—if that is the word—each composition in his own image. When it is too difficult, he simplifies it. When it is too simple, he complicates it." His sloppy technique included "slackness of rhythms, wrong tempos, distorted phrasing, an excess of prettification and sentimentality, a failure to stick to what the composer has written."</p>

<p>Liberace once stated, "I don't give concerts, I put on a show." Unlike the concerts of classical pianists which normally ended with applause and a retreat off-stage, Liberace's shows ended with the public invited on-stage to touch his clothes, piano, jewelry, and hands. Kisses, handshakes, hugs, and caresses usually followed. A critic summed up his appeal near the end of Liberace's life: "Mr. Showmanship has another more potent, drawing power to his show: the warm and wonderful way he works his audience. Surprisingly enough, behind all the glitz glitter, the corny false modesty, and the shy smile, Liberace exudes a love that is returned to him a thousand-fold."</p>

<p>berace mostly bypassed radio before trying a television career, thinking radio unsuitable given his act's dependency on the visual. Despite his enthusiasm about the possibilities of television, Liberace was disappointed after his early guest appearances on CBS's The Kate Smith Show, and DuMont's Cavalcade of Stars, with Jackie Gleason (later The Jackie Gleason Show on CBS). Liberace was particularly displeased with the frenetic camera work and his short appearance time. He soon wanted his own show where he could control his presentation as he did with his club shows.</p>

<p>is first show on local television in Los Angeles was a smash hit, earning the highest ratings of any local show, which he parlayed into a sold-out appearance at the Hollywood Bowl. That led to a summer replacement program for Dinah Shore.</p>

<p>The 15-minute network television program, The Liberace Show, began on July 1, 1952, but did not lead to a regular network series. Instead, producer Duke Goldstone mounted a filmed version of Liberace's local show performed before a live audience for syndication in 1953 and sold it to scores of local stations. The widespread exposure of the syndicated series made the pianist more popular and prosperous than ever. His first two years' earnings from television netted him $7 million and on future reruns, he earned up to 80% of the profits.</p>

<p>Liberace learned early on to add "schmaltz" to his television show and to cater to the tastes of the mass audience by joking and chatting to the camera as if performing in the viewer's own living room. He also used dramatic lighting, split images, costume changes, and exaggerated hand movements to create visual interest. His television performances featured enthusiasm and humor.</p>

<p>Liberace also employed "ritualistic domesticity", used by such early TV greats as Jack Benny and Lucille Ball. His brother George often appeared as guest violinist and orchestra director, and his mother was usually in the front row of the audience, with brother Rudy and sister Angelina often mentioned to lend an air of "family". Liberace began each show in the same way, then mixed production numbers with chat, and signed off each broadcast softly singing "I'll Be Seeing You", which he made his theme song. His musical selections were broad, including classics, show tunes, film melodies, Latin rhythms, ethnic songs, and boogie-woogie.</p>

<p>The show was so popular with his mostly female television audience, he drew over 30 million viewers at any one time and received 10,000 fan letters per week. His show was also one of the first to be shown on British commercial television in the 1950s, where it was broadcast on Sunday afternoons by Lew Grade's Associated TeleVision. This exposure gave Liberace a dedicated following in the United Kingdom. Gay men also found him appealing. According to author Darden Asbury Pyron, "Liberace was the first gay person Elton John had ever seen on television; he became his hero."</p>

<p>In 1956, Liberace had his first international engagement, playing successfully in Havana, Cuba. He followed up with a European tour later that year. Always a devout Catholic, Liberace considered his meeting with Pope Pius XII a highlight of his life. In 1960, Liberace performed at the London Palladium with Nat King Cole and Sammy Davis, Jr. (this was the first televised "command performance", now known as the Royal Variety Performance, for Queen Elizabeth II).</p>

<p>On July 19, 1957, hours after Liberace gave a deposition in his $25 million libel suit against Confidential magazine, two masked intruders attacked his mother in the garage of Liberace's home in Sherman Oaks. She was beaten and kicked, but her heavy corset may have protected her from being badly injured. Liberace was not informed about the assault until he finished his midnight show at the Moulin Rouge nightclub. Guards were hired to watch over Liberace's house and the houses of his two brothers.</p>

<p>Despite successful European tours, his career had in fact been slumping since 1957, but Liberace built it back up by appealing directly to his fan base. Through live appearances in small-town supper clubs, and with television and promotional appearances, he began to regain popularity. On November 22, 1963, he suffered kidney failure, reportedly from accidentally inhaling excessive amounts of dry cleaning fumes from his newly cleaned costumes in a Pittsburgh dressing room, and nearly died. He later said that what saved him from further injury was being woken up by his entourage to the news that John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. Told by doctors that his condition was fatal, he began to spend his entire fortune by buying extravagant gifts of furs, jewels, and even a house for friends, but then recovered after a month.</p>

<p>e-energized, Liberace returned to Las Vegas, and upping the glamor and glitz, he took on the sobriquet "Mr. Showmanship". As his act swelled with spectacle, he famously stated, "I'm a one-man Disneyland." The costumes became more exotic (ostrich feathers, mink, capes, and huge rings), entrances and exits more elaborate (chauffeured onstage in a Rolls-Royce or dropped in on a wire like Peter Pan), choreography more complex (involving chorus girls, cars, and animals), and the novelty acts especially talented, with juvenile acts including Australian singer Jamie Redfern and Canadian banjo player Scotty Plummer. Barbra Streisand was the most notable new adult act he introduced, appearing with him early in her career.</p>

<p>Liberace's energy and commercial ambitions took him in many directions. He owned an antiques store in Beverly Hills, California, and a restaurant in Las Vegas for many years. He even published cookbooks, the most famous of these being Liberace Cooks, co-authored by cookbook guru Carol Truax, which included "Liberace Lasagna" and "Liberace Sticky Buns". The book features recipes "from his seven dining rooms" (of his Hollywood home).</p>

<p>Liberace's live shows during the 1970s–80s remained major box-office attractions at the Las Vegas Hilton and Lake Tahoe, where he earned $300,000 a week.</p>

<p>In 1970, Liberace competed against Irish actor Richard Harris for the purchase of the Tower House, in Holland Park, west London. Harris eventually bought the house after discovering that Liberace had agreed to buy it, but had not yet put down a deposit. British entertainer Danny La Rue visited The Tower House with Liberace and later recounted in his autobiography a paranormal experience that he had there with him.</p>

<p>Liberace was a conservative in his politics and faith, eschewing dissidents and rebels. He believed fervently in capitalism and was also fascinated with royalty, ceremony, and luxury. He loved to hobnob with the rich and famous, acting as starstruck with presidents and kings as his fans behaved with him. Yet to his fans, he was still one of them, a Midwesterner who had earned his success through hard work, and who invited them to enjoy it with him.</p>

<p>In the next phase of his life, having earned sudden wealth, Liberace spent lavishly, incorporating materialism into his life and his act. In 1953, he designed and built his first celebrity house in Sherman Oaks, California on Valley Vista Blvd., located in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles. The house with its piano theme appearing throughout, included a piano-shaped swimming pool which remains today. His dream home, with its lavish furnishings, elaborate bath, and antiques throughout, added to his appeal. He leveraged his fame through hundreds of promotional tie-ins with banks, insurance companies, automobile companies, food companies, and even morticians. Liberace was considered a perfect pitchman, given his folksy connection with his vast audience of housewives. Sponsors sent him complimentary products, including his white Cadillac limousine, and he reciprocated enthusiastically: "If I am selling tuna fish, I believe in tuna fish."</p>

<p>e critics had a field day with his gimmicky act, his showy but careful piano playing, his non-stop promotions, and his gaudy display of success, but he remained largely unaffected, as preserved by the famous quotation, first recorded in a letter to a critic, "Thank you for your very amusing review. After reading it, in fact, my brother George and I laughed all the way to the bank." He used a similar response to subsequent poor reviews, famously modifying it to "I cried all the way to the bank." In an appearance on The Tonight Show some years later, Liberace reran the anecdote to Johnny Carson, and finished it by saying, "I don't cry all the way to the bank any more – I bought the bank!"</p>

<p>iberace was secretly diagnosed HIV positive in August 1985 by his private physician in Las Vegas, 18 months before his death. Cary James Wyman, his alleged lover of seven years, was also infected and died in 1997 at age 33. Another alleged lover, named Chris Adler, came forward after Liberace's death and claimed that Liberace infected him with HIV; Adler died in 1990 at age 30. Aside from his long-term manager, Seymour Heller, and a few family members and associates, Liberace kept his terminal illness a secret until the day he died and did not seek any medical treatment. In August 1986, during one of his last interviews, which was with the TV news program Good Morning America, Liberace hinted of his failing health when he remarked, "How can you enjoy life if you don't have your health?" He was hospitalized for pneumonia from January 23 to 27, 1987, at the Palm Springs county hospital.</p>

<p>Liberace died of pneumonia as a result of AIDS on the late morning of February 4, 1987, at his retreat home in Palm Springs, California, at the age of 67.</p>

<p> devout Roman Catholic to the end, he had a priest administer the last rites to him the day before his death. His death was initially attributed variously to anemia (due to a diet of watermelon), emphysema, and heart disease, the last of which was attested to by Liberace's personal physician, Dr. Ronald Daniels. However, the Riverside County coroner – against the advice of Dr. Daniels – performed an autopsy and later stated that "a deliberate attempt" had been made to hide the actual cause of Liberace's death by his doctors, his manager, and Liberace's entire immediate family. The post mortem discovered that Liberace had emphysema and coronary artery disease from years of chain smoking, but the real cause was pneumonia due to complications from AIDS. Author Darden Asbury Pyron writes that Liberace had been "HIV-positive and symptomatic" from 1985 until his death two years later.</p>

<p>Liberace's body is entombed with those of his mother and brother at Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. In 1994, the Palm Springs Walk of Stars dedicated a Golden Palm Star to him.</p>