Liberace defined glitz and glamor. In his public life, he never exuded the aloof
attitude typical of so many celebrities. When the stage lights dimmed and the curtain closed,
however, Liberace was a man at war with himself. Here's his story.
Born Władziu Valentino Liberace on May 16, 1919, in West Allis, Wisconsin, in suburban Milwaukee,
Liberace, known as Walter to his family, was the third of four children.
One of a pair of identical twins, Liberace's brother died at birth.
The son of immigrant parents, Liberace was of Italian-Polish descent. His Italian father,
Salvatore Liberace, came from a fishing village near Naples.
A professional musician, Salvatore instilled a love of music in his son. Liberace's mother,
Frances Zuchowska Liberace, hailed from Poland and had been a concert pianist before marriage.
Despite her musical background, Frances discouraged her children's pursuit of
music lessons as an extravagance too expensive for the cash-strapped family.
As documented in Darden Asbury Pyron's 2000 biography, Liberace: All American Boy,
Liberace's parents fought constantly about their finances, but Frances'
main complaint was over the expense of music. Pyron revealed in his book:
"Frances groused bitterly about spending money on luxurious music lessons."
According to the author, Frances felt her children would be better served in life by
learning a, quote, "practical" trade like the family's struggling grocery business.
Nevertheless, the tyrannical Salvatore's
single-minded insistence on his children becoming professional musicians won out.
A fragile child, young Liberace was also plagued with bouts of pneumonia, and his mounting medical
bills worsened the family's precarious financial situation. Despite his illnesses, Liberace's
talents manifested early. At age 4, he was already pecking out popular tunes on the piano by ear.
Nightclub work
Liberace exhibited a talent for music early in life. His first musical idol
was piano virtuoso Ignacy Padereweski. Pouring over Padereswki's recordings,
8-year-old Liberace meticulously studied the musician's interpretations of Bach,
Beethoven, and Mozart until he could execute them flawlessly.
As Liberace grew older, he discovered that his musical ability was a way to gain acceptance
among his peers. As detailed in Liberace: The True Story, by Bob Thomas, the once-alienated Liberace
was constantly invited to liven up birthday parties with the latest tunes. The prodigy
was even allowed to leave grammar school early in the afternoon to play at high school dances.
Classical studies, recitals, and competitions ruled 14 year-old
Liberace's days. His nights belonged to ragtime and honky-tonk music,
which he played at Milwaukee roadhouses and bars. Hiding his lucrative night job from his parents,
he would explain that he and his band were playing church socials. When Frances
and Salvatore Liberace discovered what their underage son was really doing, they were livid.
Caught up in a police raid of a men's fraternal organization party that included stag films and
a stripper, an incensed Salvatore picked up his son at the police station, and told him
that he could no longer play at such unsavory venues. Nevertheless, Salvatore relented when
he saw how much money his son was making. By age 16, Liberace was the family's main breadwinner.
Lambasted by critics
By 1945, Walter Liberace had gone from being a musical prodigy to a
celebrity entertainer known for his pop sensibilities and flair for showmanship.
Dropping his first name, he was billed simply as Liberace. Although classical
music still held a place in his performances, he mixed it with an abundance of popular music.
Liberace's florid style and engaging personality made the pianist perfect for television.
Starring in his own syndicated program called The Liberace Show,
Liberace took to the airwaves in 1953. At the height of the show's popularity,
it was more watched than I Love Lucy and generated 10,000 pieces of fan mail per week.
Despite his popular acclaim, music critics savaged Liberace. Howard Taubman of The New
York Times described Liberace as, quote, "not much more than a parlor pianist."
Although the poor reviews hurt him, Liberace made them part of his act. For instance, during
the second night of a sold-out San Francisco performance, Liberace quipped to the audience,
"Honestly, I felt so terrible when I read
those reviews yesterday that I cried all the way to the bank."
Hiding his sexuality
Perhaps the greatest tragedy of Liberace's life was his lifelong denial of his sexuality.
"We're living in such a permissive world that I don't think anybody really much
cares what anybody does behind closed doors."
As a gay man in the public eye in the mid-20th century, Liberace had little choice but to hide
his private life or lose his career and fanbase to the intolerance of the times. Liberace's
conflicted feelings came with childhood. In an era when being gay was considered a mental illness,
young Liberace obsessed over his sexuality to the point of fearing he was insane.
Wracked with guilt and terrified at the consequences of his family discovering his
sexual orientation, a confused Liberace turned to his Catholic faith in hopes of quelling what he
felt were unnatural urges. Briefly, the musician considered entering the priesthood. Politically
and religiously conservative, Liberace publicly condemned the gay lifestyle throughout much of
his career while keeping his private life under a shield of secrecy. He vehemently and repeatedly
denied being gay in the press and publicly "dated" women to add plausibility to his deception.
"And my favorite girl, the prettiest girl at the mall, my mom."
Near death experience
Liberace was known for his elaborate stage costumes. Multiple wardrobe changes were a
hallmark of his shows beginning early in his career. Ironically, Liberace's clothing nearly
cost him his life on Nov. 23, 1963. While preparing for a show at The Holiday House in
Pittsburgh, the pianist noticed that some of his stage clothes had become soiled. With a blizzard
brewing outside his hotel room, the performer fretted over his wardrobe. His costumer, Bob
Fischer, was busy on an errand, and hotel staff wouldn't have the clothing cleaned by showtime.
With the clock ticking, Liberace made a decision which he called "idiotic" in his autobiography.
After purchasing a gallon of dry cleaning fluid, the star attempted to do the job himself in the
unventilated confines of his hotel room. As detailed in Liberace: An American Boy,
the entertainer, suddenly feeling ill, laid down for a nap. Soon, Liberace was awoken
from his sleep by Fischer, who chided the performer for cleaning his costumes himself.
Liberace wouldn't make it through his performance. Rushed to a nearby hospital,
doctors diagnosed him with renal failure brought on by carbon tetrachloride poisoning.
When his kidneys failed to resume normal function, Liberace was told to put his house in order.
"After the doctors told me I was going to die, I had the last rites."
Miraculously, Liberace recovered. His brush with death left him changed,
however. Upon leaving the hospital, he embarked on a spending spree that would last his entire
life. A changed man, Liberace showered his friends and family with money and expensive gifts.
Failed movie career
In the 1950s, Liberace was a hit in concert halls, nightclubs, and on television. However,
there was still one medium the piano man longed to conquer — the movies. Liberace
had appeared in a small role in 1950's South Sea Sinner, starring Shelley Winters, but,
by the middle of the decade, the musician yearned for a shot at movie stardom.
Luckily, studio head Jack Warner caught Liberace's act in San Francisco and thought
his charisma would translate well to the big screen. Although both his fans and management
warned him against the move, Liberace made his film debut in 1955's Sincerely Yours.
In the film, Liberace stars as a fearless pianist who loses his
hearing just before he's scheduled to play his dream gig at Carnegie Hall.
Upon its release, reviews for the movie were mixed. Critics praised Liberace's patented
showmanship and sincerity but noted that the entertainer was, quote, "nobody's Barrymore."
When the film flopped, Warner Brothers placed the blame squarely on Liberace.
To ensure against another loss, the studio bought back Liberace's two picture contract.
In turn, Liberace would blame Sincerely Yours for a downturn in his popularity.
Endless libel lawsuits
Liberace's life off stage was marked by an endless struggle to protect
his privacy. Considering the social and legal ramifications of being a gay man
in the public eye in conjunction with his dedication to his Catholic faith,
Liberace vehemently insisted he was a heterosexual until his death in 1987.
Desperate to keep his secret life hidden, Liberace repeatedly challenged press
accusations questioning his sexuality in court. His first legal battle came
in 1956 when the British tabloid The Daily Mirror characterized the entertainer as gay in its pages.
Liberace fought back hard to deny the paper's accusation that he was homosexual,
while soundly denouncing the gay lifestyle. The musician emerged
victorious after a three-week trial, collecting over $22,000 in damages.
In 1957, the notorious gossip magazine, Hollywood Confidential, published a story
alleging that Liberace made unwanted sexual advances on an unnamed, male press agent.
Liberace filed a $25 million libel suit against Confidential. The magazine finally
settled with Liberace for $40,000, most of which the pianist donated to charity.
Attempted palimony suit
Liberace fought his final legal battle just years before his death when a former
employee and live-in lover attempted to sue the performer for palimony.
In 1977, 18-year-old Scott Thorson met Liberace through dancer Bob Black,
a friend of Liberace's Las Vegas show choreographer Ray Arnett.
As Thorson writes in his 1988 book, Behind the Candelabra: My Life With Liberace,
the two established a when Thorson, a former veterinarian's assistant,
recommended a treatment for Liberace's aging and blind poodle. Later,
the entertainer tearfully confided his loneliness and inability to trust anyone
to him and asked Thorson to work for him as a personal companion and assistant. He would also
appear in Liberace's Vegas show driving the performer on stage in a Rolls Royce.
Thorson alleges that he and Liberace embarked on a five-year romantic relationship that
Thorson assumed was monogamous. Describing the entertainer as both generous and controlling,
he claims that Liberace encouraged him to get plastic surgery in an effort to
mold him into a younger version of himself. According to Thorson, their relationship ended
because of his drug use and Liberace's repeated infidelities. When Liberace fired him in 1982,
Thorson filed a $13 million palimony suit, the first of its kind in United States history.
Despite denying Thorson was his lover in court depositions and repeatedly declaring
his heterosexuality, Liberace settled out of court with his former employee,
awarding Thorson $75,000 in cash, three cars, and two dogs.
Liberace's tragic death
By late 1986, there was no denying that Liberace was not a well man.
Having lost considerable weight, the entertainer allayed the concerns of friends and acquaintances
claiming that he had overdone a watermelon diet. Throughout November of that year,
he played Radio City Music Hall with the Rockettes in what would be his final concert performances.
Although he publicly denied his sickness to the end, his declining health couldn't be ignored.
He called Scott Thorson to enquire about his former lover's health,
stopping short of admitting that he had contracted AIDS. According to Liberace: An All American Boy,
the entertainer discovered he was HIV positive in August of 1985.
His condition worsened steadily over his remaining two years. On Jan. 3, 1987,
Liberace entered Eisenhower Medical Center suffering from pneumonia. Days later he was
discharged to his Palm Springs home. Liberace died on Feb. 4, 1987, at the age of 67.
Continued denials
Sadly, Liberace continued his lifelong denial of his sexuality to the end of his life.
As detailed in Liberace: All American Boy, he considered his AIDS diagnosis a potentially
devastating blow to his public image. When The Las Vegas Sun reported Liberace had AIDS,
the entertainer's PR machine once again went into denial mode by threatening legal action.
Bent on maintaining his wishes, Liberace's management had his death certificate falsified.
On paper, cardiac arrest was the cause of death. The performer's body was rushed to Forest Lawn
Cemetery. Nevertheless, the truth would come out when the L.A. County Coroner's Office seized the
body to perform an autopsy based on suspicions that the performer had a contagious disease.
The post-mortem analysis confirmed what the public had long intimated.
Liberace had indeed died of AIDS. Ironically, Liberace's incessant denials created exactly
the kind of spectacle from which he so fervently hoped to be spared in death.
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