Posted on 10/15/2010 8:39:25 PM PDT by Borges
Before Lady Gaga, before Elton John, there was Liberace. People of a certain age will remember the candelabra on his piano, the flamboyant costumes, even the self-deprecating humor in his distinctive voice.
"My clothes may look funny but they're making me the money," he once said.
At one point, thanks to Las Vegas, Liberace was the highest-paid entertainer in the world. That's where he created the museum that bears his name. It was one of the most-visited attractions in Vegas, but so few people come nowadays that the Liberace Museum is closing Sunday.
Maybe this is just one more story about how Vegas is constantly changing, but maybe not. After all, Sinatra is still Sinatra. Elvis still has impersonators performing here. So what happened to Liberace?
Marion Blank saw him decades ago and still remembers his charisma, personality and showmanship.
"It was really a spectacular show," she recalled. "He came on in a car and all glitzed up as he usually is. It was just a wonderful experience."
She came from Indiana for one last visit to the Liberace Museum to see the outrageous costumes like a black mink cape lined with 40,000 Swarovski crystals; the over-the-top cars, including a Rolls Royce covered in little mirrors; and the piano collection featuring a mirror-encrusted Baldwin grand.
Liberace was a classically trained pianist, but he wanted to please the masses. He said he played classical without the boring parts.
Museum archivist Jerry Goldberg calls it classi-pop. It made Liberace famous.
"The biggest problem was you didn't leave humming or singing his music because he played other people's music," Goldberg said. "His name more or less has died out because there's nothing to associate him with except the bling and showmanship."
Liberace's biggest fans were middle-aged women in the 1950s through the 1970s a shrinking demographic. He might have become a gay icon.
Goldberg says many people, including his own mother, knew Liberace was gay.
"But back then it would have been a catastrophe for his career, so he never admitted it up to the day he died, never came out of the closet," he said.
The biggest problem for the Liberace Museum may be its location. It's more than 2 miles off the Vegas Strip, and visitors just don't want to make the trip.
But now that it's closing, locals like Katie Driscoll are coming.
"My mother watched Liberace all the time when I was growing up, played the piano, so did I," she said. "I moved here, became a showgirl and heard that it was closing and I didn't want to miss it."
Then there's Philip Balian. When he heard the Liberace Museum was closing, he got on a plane to Vegas from London.
"I watched him as a child on television and saw him play, and I said to my parents, 'I want to learn to play the piano. I want to be like that guy with the sparkly jacket.' "
Balian learned to play the piano, but he doesn't wear a sparkly jacket. He's on his first trip to the U.S., and was thrilled that the museum staff let him play Liberace's mirror-encrusted grand piano for some of the final visitors.
After Sunday, the piano and the other artifacts at the museum will go into storage, and Liberace's fame will fade a little further.
You’re absolutely right. I remember Liberace because my mom, a Cuban women younger than middle-aged at the time, never missed seeing him. My mother guessed he was homosexual, too, but Liberace left that in his private life, unlike those soapbox hoggers today who try to force their sexuality on us. He was a talented man with a soft-spoken manner about him who talked lovingly about his mom. Sadly, what you see today is a bunch of marginally talented loudmouths who only talk lovingly about themselves.
“Trelane”
Liberace was gay?....ya think?
In those days, Liberace was the definition of Effeminate.
Alas, all glory is fleeting.
“Everyone, and I mean everyone knew he was gay but no one cared, even then.”
“Even then.” There was no “even then”. Many of the era’s “shortcomings” were deviously ascribed to the decade to serve political ends. Hell, Mark Twan wrote of a thing called a “Boston marrige” way back in the victorian era. No readers head was in any danger of exploding at the time.
Those ideals are important today.
He didn't pass as normal. He passed as an entertainer. Every adult knew he was a homosexual. Nobody made a big deal about in those times. Not even Liberace.
Thanks for the ‘Zippy the pinhead’ ref-! Really took me back...!
I doubt if he would be today. As far as I can remember, there was no homosexual agenda in his day. You know he would be pro-homosexual marriage, and for eliminating Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. What did he die of, was it AIDS?
I have this vague recollection that Liberace was physically a strong man, able to pick up large objects such a piano.
Has the OldPossum’s memory faded completely or is this a fact?
“He passed as an entertainer.”
I guess so. It was way before my time, so I’ll take your word for it.
We knew what he was. But, just like with Elton John, we enjoyed his entertainment so much, we didn’t care. And in those days, we weren’t having the homosexual agenda pushed down our throats.
Well, it’s just too over the top for me. I’ll take Frank Sinatra.
Elton John’s sexuality wasn’t really known was it? When he came out in 1976 it hurt his career.
We have no way of knowing whether Liberace would be conservative or liberal, or what his position would be on homosexual marriage or DADT. Still, there certainly are prominent homosexuals like Elton John who do not favor same-sex marriage. Making assumptions on a person’s politics based on their sexual preferences/perversions, or from what they died, is frivolous.
Excellent point - That's my nomination for the FR "Post of the Day". :=)
Try examining this discussion with some depth.
We're talking about the passing of Liberace. He was a great American entertainer of the 20th century, who was well-loved by the public. He was flamboyant to a fault, and that was his trademark.
He kept his personal life personal. He didn't shove his sexuality in anyone's face. He denied every accusation of homosexuality to the very end. It was a day and time when gays lived their lives "in the closet", and we were all better for it.
Liberace represents the old social compact between gays and mainstream culture. That compact worked, and was much more ethical than the "out, proud, and loud" behavior of gays today.
This is what underlies the kind respect you see being given to Liberace here.
By your comments, I assume that you grew up during the time of "gay liberation". Many of us here grew up in a better America. An America that still had some kind of moral fiber to it. An America that understood that some people are simply born with their wiring crossed, but that those people needed to keep that to themselves. An America that demanded that every person adhere to certain minimum standards of moral conduct.
I don't have to "try living in San Francisco for a month" to know the degradation you're talking about. I've seen that cancer spreading over the last 40 years. I, like most others commenting here, appreciate Liberace for having maintained his end of the social compact that once made this country a better place.
That’s the way I see it.
Another entertainer/actor who everyone knew was a homosexual was Paul Lynde. People still liked him whatever he was. They just though he was funny, sexual orientation didn’t enter into it.
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