HGB Ep. 605 - The Life and Afterlife of Liberace

This Month in History - Bobbies Hit the Streets

In the month of September, on the 29th, in 1829, uniformed officers of London's Metropolitan Police force began their first street patrols. The police were nicknamed 'Bobbies' or 'Peelers' for Sir Robert Peel. Peel was England's Home Secretary, and was responsible for internal affairs like overseeing law enforcement, shaping criminal and penal law, and managing prison reforms. Sir Peel became known as the 'Father of Modern Policing' as this was the first time that officers were trained to prevent crime, rather than just respond to it after it occurred. Peel wanted the officers' uniforms to be more distinctly differentiated from that of a soldiers' attire. This was achieved by having the bobbies dress in jackets with blue tailcoats and top hats to appear more like civilians. The look was designed to establish trust in the community. Their uniform also included a truncheon, which was a short wooden club as well as a rattle to signal for assistance, although the rattle was later replaced by a whistle. Along with an emphasis of crime prevention, the Bobbies also needed to adhere to a list of principled ethical guidelines. The creation of the Metropolitan Police Bobbies provided a new model for policing that influenced other forces in Britain and around the world. 

The Life and Afterlife of Liberace 

Pianist and singer Liberace was one-of-a-kind with big dimples, pompadour hair, huge rings on his fingers and expensive and flamboyant suits and capes. No one had his flair or style and he had a great dynamic with his audience, proclaiming often that he agreed with Mae West when she said, "Too much of a good thing, is wonderful." He was once the highest paid entertainer in the world. When one thinks of Liberace, the first thing that comes to mind are the costumes. Oh, those costumes! He grew up at a time when being openly gay was frowned upon and even dangerous and thus he denied his homosexuality all the way to his death from AIDS. So much talent and style couldn't possibly just go away with death. His spirit still watches over his collections. Join us for the life and afterlife of Liberace!

Liberace was the kind of performer who would fly onto the stage strapped onto a flying harness suspended 25 feet above the stage with a cape of ostrich feathers fluttering around him. His costumes were everything. He began with humble beginnings. Liberace was born in of all places, Wisconsin. He was born as Wladziu Valentino Liberace on May 16, 1919 to a Polish mother and an Italian father. Like Elvis, Liberace was born a twin, but his twin passed away at birth. Perhaps because Liberace was a big baby at 13 pounds and he was born with a caul around him, which in some cultures is believed to signify that a child will be greatly gifted. Liberace was called Wally as a child and later he would go by the name Lee, which is what we will call him. His father was a musician and wanted all of his children to become musicians, but his mother thought that music lessons were too expensive. She herself had been a concert pianist before getting married. The couple often fought, sometimes physically, over the amount of music in the children's lives. Dad won out and Lee began piano lessons at the age of four and at the age of seven, he won a scholarship at the Wisconsin College of Music, which lasted for seventeen years. That was the longest scholarship that had ever been awarded. Liberace was a prodigy and able to memorize difficult pieces even at the age of seven. 

At the age of eight, Lee would meet Polish pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski and after watching the man play, Liberace knew that this is wanted he wanted to do with his life. Paderewski would become his mentor. Liberace said, "When I was a little boy, about 7 years old, I was greatly inspired by a visit from the famous Polish pianist Paderewski who was a friend of my mother’s. He came to our home and played for us and he asked me to play for him. He greatly encouraged my parents to let me follow music for my livelihood; and also he was the one who suggested that I adopt the use of my one name 'Liberace.' I shall never forget the number I played for him because it was his own composition, Paderewski’s Minuet."

Now, while Lee's fingers would float gracefully above the piano keys, his tongue did not do so inside his mouth. He developed a speech impediment that he would overcome with correction classes. As a child he gravitated to cooking and obviously liked music and he resisted playing sports, so the boys in the neighborhood teased him ruthlessly. Lee's older brother George suggested that he take some of his ragtime pieces to the theater and perform. Before long, he was playing on the local radio and for weddings, cabarets and even strip clubs. This is all before the age of 20. And a little fun fact, Diane had no idea where Bugs Bunny got his catch phrase, "I wish my brother George was here." It's something she says all the time. As she researched and listened to Liberace talking and read that his brother's name was George, the light bulb went off. Bugs Bunny was mimicking something Liberace used to say when his brother didn't appear on a show he will do later. The 1940s had early music videos that were called Soundies and Liberace started appearing in some of them. His big break came when he was 24 and played Las Vegas. At this point, Lee had pulled away from classical piano performances and started adding pop into the classical music. He said it was "classical music with the boring parts left out." A piece might run from Chopin into "Home on the Range." During this time, to separate his fun music from serious concert music he performed with the symphony, he went by the stage name Walter Busterkeys. The women loved him! He was handsome and charming and was a magnetic performer. It gave the ladies something to do while their husbands gambled. The casinos took notice that Liberace was drawing crowds and they started paying him a lot of money. Lee was a really funny and enchanting man and he quickly took to interacting with the audience. He would make jokes, ask for requests and even let audience members play the piano as he taught them.

By the mid-1940s. Liberace had made the candelabrum a part of his trademark setup. These would factor heavily into the decor in his future homes as well. And he officially took on Liberace as his stage name at this time as well. He wore white suits with tails to be better seen on the stage. Liberace purchased a rare gold-leafed Bluthner Grand piano to make his stage presence even bigger and he called the piano "priceless." More pianos would follow with various decor from rhinestones to mirrors to paintings. After his run in Las Vegas, he moved to North Hollywood and played in local clubs there, particularly supper clubs.

But Liberace had bigger dreams. He wasn't satisfied playing in these smaller clubs. Lee wanted to be really famous. He wanted to be on television and wanted to be an actor. He returned to Vegas with a bigger act and extravagant costumes. This big act would become his hallmark and he became very wealthy and famous with it. In 1954, Liberace performed at Madison Square Garden and he made what would be over $1.6 million in today's dollars. He had a deal with the Riviera shortly after this and was making $586,000 a week in today's dollars. Lee's affinity for putting on a show, rather than a concert, earned him a lot of criticism. Music critics didn't like that he changed up the compositions of great composers making them easier to play or sometimes, more complex. They said he had sloppy technique. But the crowds loved what he did and he earned the nickname "Mr. Showmanship." A critic wrote, "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."

Lee would then get into television with The Liberace Show, which ran from 1950 to 1954 and 1969. The general manager of Los Angeles station KLAC-TV, Don Fedderson, saw Liberace perform at the Hotel del Coronado in 1950 and he got the idea that Liberace would be great for TV. The show started as a summer replacement for the Dinah Shore Show that was live, but went syndicated in 1953 as a filmed show. This was a smash hit and it hit the sweet spot of being both folksy and campy. The show had more viewers than I Love Lucy and won two Emmies. His brother George would join him often, playing his violin and doing orchestral arrangements. The show always signed off with Liberace singing "I'll Be Seeing You." There would also be sold out shows at Carnegie Hall, the Hollywood Bowl and other venues. 

His career begun to slump from overexposure on TV, so he returned to supper clubs and performing around the world. In 1955, he opened at the Riviera in Las Vegas for $50,000 per week, becoming the city's highest paid entertainer. He referred to himself as a one-man Disneyland. Lee was struck with acute kidney failure in 1963 and spent five days in the hospital. The doctors found that the cause was carbon tetrachloride, which was a compound used as a solvent and in fire extinguishers before being mostly banned. Liberace had been using it to clean his own costumes when hotel staff refused to send them out because a blizzard was raging outside in Pittsburgh. He took to the stage after cleaning the costumes and became dizzy and he rushed offstage. Lee was rushed to the hospital. Doctors told Liberace to get his affairs in place because he was probably going to die. A priest administered last rites. The doctors did try a new form of treatment at the time, hemodialysis - dialysis. This seemed to do the trick, but Lee actually thought that he had experienced a miracle and that it came in the form of a spectral nun. Liberace said, "A nun I’d never seen before came into my room and sat next to my bed and said softly, ‘St. Anthony has performed many miracles. Pray to him.’" And she informed him that everybody in the hospital was praying for him. Lee prayed earnestly himself and he began to recover. Later, he wanted to thank the nun and asked hospital staff about her and nobody recognized the description, particularly the fact that she was wearing a white habit. A staff member said, "But we have no sisters with white habits at St. Francis." Liberace believed that the spectral nun was a visiting angel and he later built a shrine to St. Anthony in his Palm Springs home. He wrote, "Maybe I was heavily sedated. Perhaps I was hallucinating in the fever of crisis. Whatever it was, that sister will always live in my heart. She was the herald of what I choose to believe was another miracle of St. Anthony." 

Later on, Lee returned to TV for lots of guest appearances on shows hosted by Red Skelton and Jack Benny, Batman and Saturday Night Live (on a tenth-season episode hosted by Hulk Hogan and Mr. T). He even managed to get on a WrestleMania in 1985 and served as a guest timekeeper. There were a few movies he made appearances in as well. His popularity brought about 200 fan clubs and he received 25,000 Valentines each year and even had 12 marriage proposals. Lee received six gold records in his lifetime. 

In Liberace's personal life, he surrounded himself with friends and his family. As we shared, he worked with his brother in television. His sister was also a big part of his life, serving as his personal secretary. Lee's mother and father had divorced in 1941 and he took on the care of his mother until her death in 1980. Apparently, he had spotted his father with another woman who would become his step-mother and he kept it a secret from his mother to spare her pain. The 2000 BBC documentary Reputations: Liberace: Too Much of a Good Thing is Wonderful shared that Liberace's mother would occasionally help herself to things in stores without paying. And Lee would get a phone call that the store didn't want to make a public deal of it and he would go get her and take care of making it up to the store. 

He owned six homes (one of which had a piano-shaped swimming pool), 100 pianos, 30 cars, and his one home had a wardrobe with sliding glass doors and contained 200 suits, 400 sport shirts and pants, and 100 pairs of shoes. All of his clothes he bought in three sizes because he liked to eat: thin, fat and impossible. He would say, "My clothes may look funny but they're making me the money." His costumes would run anywhere from $150,000 to the most expensive that was $300,000.  

The World of Liberace is free on Pluto and its so much fun because it's like Liberace is giving you a tour of his two mansions and his piano collection and talking a bit about his life and he cooks! Just getting to see the antiques that he collected is worth the watch - how we wish this was filmed in HD or 4K. At the Cloisters mansion in Palm Springs, Lee had his most expensive antique and that was a Louis the 15th desk, which was presented to Czar Nicolas II of Russia and upon which the Franco-Russian Alliance was signed. And we loved this one part where he opens a cabinet in the dining room and it has a bunch of glassware in it and he says that the glasses were made in Czechoslovakia, but that he actually bought them from Walt Disney World in Orlando. Liberace grew up during a time when being openly gay could utterly destroy a career. And women loved him so much, he surely worried that he would lose his biggest fan base. When he was publicly accused of being gay in tabloids, he would sue. One such lawsuit took place after Liberace went to London and performed for the Queen and this was against London Daily Mirror columnist "Cassandra" (William Neil Connor. Lee won. Another lawsuit was against the infamous scandal magazine Confidential. Despite claiming in court multiple times that he wasn't gay, it wasn't the truth. Liberace would never admit it and it wouldn't be until his death from AIDS at the age of 67 on February 4, 1987, that the truth was revealed. One of his partners was Scott Thorson and the two were together for five years, starting in 1977. When the couple broke up, Thorson sued Liberace for palimony in the first gay suit of its kind and wrote a tell-all book called Behind the Candelabra. That was eventually made into the movie of the same name starring Michael Douglas. According to Thorson, Liberace paid for plastic surgery that made him look more like Lee and that he helped to get him hooked on drugs and that Lee was very promiscuous during their relationship. Thorson had his chin implant removed in 2002. Liberace settled with Thorson for $95,000 and three cars and three dogs. Thorson had a rough life after spending time in jail for theft and eventually dying from cancer and heart disease in 2024 at the age of 65. *Fun Fact: Betty White claimed to serve as his beard to squelch rumors of him being gay*

The final stage performance for Liberace was on November 2, 1986 at New York's Radio City Music Hall. His final television appearance was on Christmas Day on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1986. The official story claims that he never sought any treatment for his AIDS, almost as though he thought ignoring it would make it go away. (Diane talks about her friend Steve who did the same thing.) Lee dealt with pneumonia in January of 1987 and was hospitalized and went home where he fell into a coma shortly thereafter and was administered last rites. He died at the Cloisters on February 4, 1987.Liberace was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Los Angeles.  

Such a spirited person would just have to haunt some place and it would seem that Lee haunts several locations. Liberace himself claimed that the spirit of Franz Liszt (List) haunted him and inspired him because he owned the classical composers piano. Whenever Liberace sat at the piano, he felt the presence of Liszt and as though the composer was moving his hands. Michael Jackson comes up twice with these hauntings. First, The Liberace Museum in Las Vegas is hosted in one of Jackson's former homes, Thriller Villa. The Liberace Museum at Thriller Villa has never been open to the public and can only be seen through private bookings. Tickets run $179.00 in 2025. The Liberace Garage and Hollywood Cars Museum is much affordable at $17.95. This is a Mexican Hacienda-style home built in 1993. Jackson lived there from 2007 until his death in 2009. The Liberace Foundation bought the property and moved the Liberace Museum Collection in there from its original location that Liberace opened himself in 1979, mainly to have somewhere to store all his stuff. This closed in 2010 because attendance had dropped from 450,000 a year to less than 50,000. The car part of the collection is now stored at the Liberace Garage, with the rest at the Thriller Villa where it was moved in 2015. Some other pieces, like the jewelry have been put on display around the world. The ghost of Liberace has been attached to his collection. Wherever the collection goes, the ghost follows. Pianos play by themselves. A shadow figure is seen moving between rooms.

The second paranormal thing connected to Jackson was a story he told about Liberace's ghost. He claimed that Liberace appeared to him at Neverland Ranch a few times. The two men had been close friends before Liberace died. Jackson would communicate with the spirit of Liberace in a closed off room that was filled with mirrors and he would listen for Lee's voice. Jackson said that during one of these conversations, he was given permission to record "I'll Be Seeing You." He didn't get the chance before he too died. 

The Liberace Mansion is located at 4982 Shirley Street in Las Vegas and started off as two homes that Liberace combined. He lived here from the 1970s until his death in 1987. Like all of his homes, this one had opulent fixtures and mirrors. Some of the columns were imported from Greece. The ceilings were painted to look like the Palace of Versailles. Today, it is owned by Martyn Ravenhill. He bought it in 2013 and restored it. Private events and tours are offered.Some of the unique architectural features include:
    Entry door that once greeted guests at the New York governor’s mansion
    Front living room surrounded by decoratively etched mirrors in the style of Aubrey Beardsley
    21 chandeliers
    Decorative mirrored bar with etchings of Liberace’s name and music notes
    Eight marble pillars imported from Greece
    Staircase imported from a can-can bar in Paris
    The “Eternal Hall of mirrors” lit by ornamental sconces
    Master bedroom featuring a ceiling mural depicting the Sistine Chapel and painted by a descendant of Michelangelo
    The Moroccan Room, the second-floor atrium named for its Tangier-inspired design and imported copper tiles directly from Morocco.
     Memorabilia, pictures and items once owned by Liberace placed throughout.

Lee's spirit is said to be here. In 2017, in the early morning hours of September 23rd, in the area that had been Liberace’s dining room, a french door opened all on its own when no one was there. No one was in the house at the time and all doors were locked and secured. In 2018, a security camera inside the foyer showed the front doors opening and no one was on the other side and according to the owner, the home was empty at the time of the incident. And the front door was double bolted and the gate outside was locked and bolted. The lights are said to flicker on their own. 

Liberace's Tivoli Gardens was designed and owned by Liberace. The Liberace Museum was right next door to it. The inspiration behind the restaurant was the Tivoli Gardens Amusement Park in Copenhagen, Denmark. Lee had visited it on his last international tour in 1983. This amusement park had also inspired Walt Disney. The restaurant served international gourmet cuisine and was a key meeting place for show business royalty. The interior had tiny little lights all over and there was an elaborate English pub-style bar along with a piano bar, a room completely surrounded with mirrored walls and he had the the music and lyrics to the song I’ll Be  Seeing You encircling the room at the crown.It was incredibly successful, but Liberace had to sell it in 1986 as he got progressively sicker. A series of owners have operated it and it has fallen into disrepair. By 2023, the place was vacant with roof damaged. Vegan restaurateur Sacbe Meling bought it a restored the interior and got permission to use the name Liberace's Tivoli Garden. It reopened on May 16, 2023, Liberace’s 104th anniversary serving vegan food. It changed again and is now called Hacienda El Conejo. The interior looked completely changed. Liberace haunts the place, maybe because it has changed so much. 

Lee's apparition has been seen peeking into the banquet room in the back of the restaurant from outside through the windows. Years ago, all the power in the building turned off suddenly. Electricity was still working in adjacent buildings, so one of the waitresses commented that it was Liberace's birthday and maybe they should sing to him. So the staff sang Happy Birthday and the power came back on. An electrician was called in the next day and he could fins nothing wrong with the system. On another night, someone said something offensive about Liberace and a tree in a pot near the bar fell over. It took five men to get the tree righted, so it took some power to knock it down. 

So apparently the singer Debbie Gibson - who was popular back in the 1980s - idolized Liberace. When she was seven-years-old, her grandparents gave her the gift of going to see Liberace in concert. She would later purchase one of his pianos that was all mirrors and glass. When she heard that Liberace passed away, she was really sad and decided that she wanted to try to contact him through a seance  when she hosted a slumber party. They used a Ouija board and she told Liberace she was a big fan and that she would love a sign from him. It was quiet for a minute and then all of a sudden a few keys on the piano in her bedroom made noise, as if something had dropped down on them. Debbie had been asked to make an appearance on the celebrity psychic John Edwards show. She shares what happened on Celebrity Ghost Stories. "I got this call to do a TV show with a psychic medium that would contact people from the afterlife. I was like I don't know who he's going to contact but sure okay. As I was walking out the door to go tape the show, I hear this [plink] on the floor and a mirror had broken off my Liberace piano and I was a little bit spooked and went over to the mirror and picked it up. I put it in my purse and I headed to the TV studio. I was a mystery guest and the psychic couldn't see me because our backs were to each other. So I'm getting my reading done and he asks if I'm from the East Coast and I say 'yes' and he asks if I'm from New York and I say 'yes' and he starts to ask something else and then stops abruptly and says 'Surely, you couldn't have brought a piano with you. I answered that I did kind of have a piano with me. That I brought a piece of a very sentimental piano. He says, 'I'm feeling a very strong artistic male presence. A musical presence' and then he proceeded to nail that it was Liberace and that he did want to come through and communicate with me that day. I could not believe that this random medium who I had never met, pulled this out of thin air. The medium then said 'He's here, he's around you, he's watching over you and that piano.' I definitely felt that he was around me." When she first brought the piano into her house, her cat seemed to have reactions to it. She also wrote this mysterious composition that was like nothing she had ever created before and she said that those close to her have said that it sounds very different from her other compositions and she jokingly referred to it as "more sophisticated than anything [she’d] ever written!" Furthermore, Debbie also alluded to not being familiar with those chords.

She continued that the most extraordinary experience she had came when she went to Salt Lake City to do a couple of concerts. Debbie asked a concierge if there was anything nearby she could do and the concierge suggested a used book store. She grabbed a pile of books and headed for the cash register. And I heard a thump. I knew that that thump was for me. She heard a thump behind her. She said, "And I looked over my shoulder and lo and behold, there was a book that had fallen off the shelf. I looked down and staring up at me is Mr. Showmanship himself, a picture of Liberace on the cover. It was an autobiography. And I was like, OK, this is weird. And I opened the book to start thumbing through it and out falls a piece of mail, an envelope. And I could not believe it. The return address said 'George Liberace Orchestrations.' Now, George was his brother. And I opened it up. It was an original Western Union Telegram. And it was dated April, 1957. And in my state of feeling anxious and wondering if I am doing the right things in my career, and all-- all my worry, I looked down and remember that I have a concert that night. And the telegram says, 'Good luck on your concert tonight.' And it's from Liberace himself. And I was like, oh my God. So spooked beyond belief. I put the letter back in the envelope. I could not believe that this original piece of mail found its way to me. I really just felt like that was his way of letting me know it was all gonna be OK. And you know what? It was. The concert went great that night and every other night. I think, overall, Liberace is like a guardian angel to me, because he has come to me at times when I've needed something beyond myself to get me through a certain time. And he's been there." 

Liberace was an extraordinary performer and an eccentric man. Those two things lend credence to the idea that his spirit would continue on and make itself known. He loved all of his clothes and pianos and other treasures. We're sure he would want to watch over his old stuff. Is Liberace's ghost haunting his collection? That is for you to decide!