Liberace

Liberace
Liberace in 1969
Born	Władziu Valentino Liberace May 16, 1919 West Allis, Wisconsin, U.S.
Died	February 4, 1987 (aged 67) Palm Springs, California, U.S.
Cause of death	Pneumonia as a complication of AIDS
Resting place	Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery
Other names	Walter Busterkeys Walter Liberace Lee The Glitter Man Mr. Showmanship
Occupation	Pianist singer entertainer actor
Musical career
Genres	Traditional pop easy listening big band swing jazz classical
Instruments	Piano, vocals
Years active	1936–1986
Labels	Columbia Dot
Associated acts	George Liberace, Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Władziu Valentino Liberace^{[nb 1]} (May 16, 1919 – February 4, 1987) was an American pianist, singer and actor.^[2] 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 the 1970s, Liberace was the highest-paid entertainer in the world,^[3] with established concert residencies in Las Vegas, and an international touring schedule. Liberace embraced a lifestyle of flamboyant excess both on and off stage, acquiring the nickname "Mr. Showmanship".

Early television work and The Liberace Show[edit]

Liberace performing in 1983

Liberace mostly bypassed radio before trying a television career, thinking radio unsuitable given his act's dependency on the visual.^[34] 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.^[35]

His 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.^[36] That led to a summer replacement program for Dinah Shore.

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.^[24]

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.

Liberace also employed "ritualistic domesticity", used by such early TV greats as Jack Benny and Lucille Ball.^[37] 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.^[38]

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.^[39] 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. Homosexual 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."^[40]

After The Liberace Show[edit]

Liberace Museum, Las Vegas, 2003

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.^[41] 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).

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.

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.^[42]

Re-energized, Liberace returned to Las Vegas, and upping the glamor and glitz, he took on the sobriquet "Mr. Showmanship."^[43] As his act swelled with spectacle, he famously stated, "I'm a one-man Disneyland."^[44] 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.^[45] Barbra Streisand was the most notable new adult act he introduced, appearing with him early in her career.^[46]

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).

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.

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.^[47] 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.^[48]

Later television work[edit]

Liberace also made significant appearances on other shows such as The Ed Sullivan Show, The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford, Edward R. Murrow's Person to Person, and on the shows of Jack Benny and Red Skelton, on which he often parodied his own persona. A new Liberace Show premiered on ABC's daytime schedule in 1958, featuring a less flamboyant, less glamorous persona, but it failed in six months, as his popularity began slumping.^[49] Liberace received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 for his contributions to the television industry. He continued to appear on television as a frequent and welcomed guest on The Tonight Show with Jack Paar in the 1960s, with memorable exchanges with Zsa Zsa Gabor and Muhammad Ali, and later with Johnny Carson. He was also Red Skelton's 1969 CBS summer replacement with his own variety hour, taped in London. Skelton and Lew Grade's production companies co-produced this program. In a cameo on The Monkees, he appeared at an avant garde art gallery as himself, gleefully smashing a grand piano with a sledgehammer as Mike Nesmith looked on and cringed in mock agony.

In the Batman television series in 1966 with Adam West and Burt Ward, Liberace played a dual role as concert pianist Chandell and his gangster-like twin Harry, who was extorting Chandell into a life of crime as "Fingers", in the episodes "The Devil's Fingers" and "The Dead Ringers", both written by Lorenzo Semple Jr., who had developed Batman for television. The episodes of this two-part story were, according to Joel Eisner's The Official Batman Batbook, the highest-rated of all the show's episodes. His subsequent television appearances included episodes of Here's Lucy (1970), Kojak, and The Muppet Show (both 1978), all as himself. His performances in the last of these included a "Concerto for the Birds", "Misty", "Five Foot Two", and a rendition of "Chopsticks." Television specials were made from Liberace's show at the Las Vegas Hilton in 1978-79 which were broadcast on CBS.

In the 1980s, he guest-starred on television shows such as Saturday Night Live (on a 10th season episode hosted by Hulk Hogan and Mr. T), and the 1984 film Special People. In 1985, he appeared at the first WrestleMania as the guest timekeeper for the main event.^[50]

Films[edit]

Liberace in 1968

Even before his arrival in Hollywood in 1947, Liberace wanted to add acting to his list of accomplishments. His exposure to the Hollywood crowd through his club performances led to his first movie appearance in Universal's South Sea Sinner (1950), a tropical island drama starring Macdonald Carey and Shelley Winters, in which he was 14th-billed as "a Hoagy Carmichael sort of character with long hair."^[51] Liberace also appeared as a guest star in two compilation features for RKO Radio Pictures. Footlight Varieties (1951) is an imitation-vaudeville hour and a little-known sequel, Merry Mirthquakes (1953), featured Liberace as master of ceremonies.

In 1955, Liberace was at the height of his career when tapped by Warner Bros. for his first starring motion picture, Sincerely Yours (1955), a remake of The Man Who Played God (1932), as a concert pianist who turns his efforts toward helping others when his career is cut short by deafness. In April 1955, Modern Screen magazine claimed Doris Day had been most often mentioned as Liberace's leading lady, "but it is doubtful that Doris will play the role. Liberace’s name alone will pack theatres and generous Liberace would like to give a newcomer a break." (Joanne Dru, an established movie actress, was the leading lady.) When Sincerely Yours was released in November, the studio mounted an ad and poster campaign with Liberace's name in huge, eccentric, building-block letters above and much larger than the title. "Fabulously yours in his first starring motion picture!" was a tag line. The other players and staff were smallish at the bottom. The film was a critical and commercial failure since Liberace proved unable to translate his eccentric on-stage persona to that of a movie leading man. Warner quickly issued a pressbook ad supplement with new "Starring" billing below the title, in equal plain letters: "Liberace, Joanne Dru, Dorothy Malone". TCM's Robert Osborne recalls a more dramatic demotion: When Sincerely Yours played first run at the Orpheum in Seattle, the billing was altered even more: Joanne Dru, Dorothy Malone, and Alex Nicol above the title (with big head shots of all three) and below the title in much smaller letters: "with Liberace at the piano". Originally, Sincerely Yours was meant to be the first of a two-picture movie contract, but it proved a massive box-office flop. The studio then bought back the contract, effectively paying Liberace not to make a second movie.

The experience left Liberace so shaken that he largely abandoned his movie aspirations. He made two more big-screen appearances, but only in cameo roles. These were When the Boys Meet the Girls (1965), starring Connie Francis, where Liberace essentially played himself. He received kudos for his brief appearance as a casket salesman in The Loved One (1965), based on Evelyn Waugh's satire of the funeral business and movie industry in Southern California.

Recordings[edit]

The massive success of Liberace's syndicated television show was the main impetus behind his record sales. From 1947–51, he recorded 10 discs. By 1954, it jumped to nearly 70.^[52] He released several recordings through Columbia Records including Liberace by Candlelight (later on Dot and through direct television advertising) and sold over 400,000 albums by 1954. His most popular single was "Ave Maria", selling over 300,000 copies.^[53]

His albums included pop standards of the time, such as "Hello, Dolly!", and also included his interpretations of the classical piano repertoire such as Chopin and Liszt, although many fans of classical music widely criticized them (as well as Liberace's skills as a pianist in general) for being "pure fluff with minimal musicianship". In his life, he received six gold records.