HGB Ep. 646 - The Life and Afterlife of John Wayne

Moment in Oddity - Pizza Welfare Check (Suggested by: Chelsea Flowers)

Hurricanes can be devastating storms. In 2016, Hurricane Matthew battered the coast of Florida, leaving large areas without power along the coast. A man named Eric Olsen who lived in Omaha, Nebraska, had been on the phone with his grandmother, Claire Olsen, a Palm Coast, Florida resident, when she lost power. She said, "This is a nightmare". After that contact they did not hear from the grandmother for two days following the storm. Eric tried calling the police department and the sheriff's department but nobody was answering. Emergency services were overwhelmed due to the storm and with communication lines down, the concerned grandson had to get creative. Eric Olsen decided to order his grandmother a Papa John's pizza. The plan he hatched was not just to make sure his loved one had something to eat, however. Eric's pizza order had very specific instructions included. He asked that the delivery person have a cellphone with them and to call Eric's phone if they were able to successfully deliver the pizza. When Papa John's driver Lance Tyler called Eric Olsen, the cellphone was then handed to his grandmother. Eric felt relief hearing his grandmother's voice and the confirmation that she was just fine. Eric Olsen joked, "Police and fire couldn't do it, but Papa John's got there in 30 minutes and put the cellphone to her ear!" Heros can come in all shapes and sizes, but a pizza delivery person performing a welfare check, certainly is odd.

The Life and Afterlife of John Wayne

The actor John Wayne oozed tough. He was a man's man who was not only tough in his movies, but he was rugged in private life. Wayne's acting career began in 1939 and lasted for 40 years with the actor appearing in more than 100 movies. He won an Oscar, fathered seven children, loved multiple women, battled cancer twice and left behind an amazing legacy. The actor may have also left behind his spirit. Join us for the history and hauntings of John Wayne.

There is no doubt that John Wayne had an image that was larger-than-life. His life started rather modestly though, in the state of Iowa. He was born as Marion Robert Morrison on May 26, 1907 in Winterset, which is a small town of rolling farmland, south of Des Moines. There is some confusion as to what his middle name was because he claimed his parents wanted to name their next son Robert, so they changed his middle name to Michael. No legal change was ever made. Obviously, the most interesting thing is that he had what today is used 98% of the time as a female first name. (Johnny Cash's song "A Boy Named Sue" comes to mind.) It was a family name, his grandfather's, who was a Civil War veteran. Marion's ancestry was Scottish and Irish and he would eventually get to visit Ireland in his later years. In 1914, his parents pulled up roots and headed west to California, settling first in Palmdale and then moving to Glendale in 1916. Marion had been a big baby, 13 pounds at birth, so it only seemed natural he would get into sports, especially football. He was well rounded though, not just becoming a sportsman in high school, but he also enjoyed the debate team, writing for the school paper and he was president of the Latin society. 

A constant companion for Marion was his Airedale Terrier that he had named Duke. This pup went everywhere with him, including walking him to school, and a local fireman took to calling Marion "Little Duke" since he always saw him with the dog. The nickname of "Duke" would stick for the rest of his life and that is what we will call him from now on.  

While Duke did well in sports in school, his grades were another matter. When he made the decision to go to the US Naval Academy, he was left disappointed because his grades weren't good enough, claiming later it was one of the “greatest disappointments of his life.” So he opted to attend the University of Southern California (USC) instead. He decided to major in pre-law and the football team snapped him right up with his 6 feet 4+1⁄2 inches tall frame. A future in football looked promising until he broke his collarbone. It wasn't from football, but rather bodysurfing. Not only did this mean he was off the team, but he was paying for school with an athletic scholarship. Without that money, he had to quit the university. Howard Jones was the legendary coach of the USC football team and he really liked Duke. He hated to see him leave the university without any prospects, so he hit up silent Western film star Tom Mix and director John Ford to hire Duke. Ford gave him a job as a prop boy and used him as an extra. Tom Mix had a good friend who would come around on occasion, Wyatt Earp. Earp was a consultant in Hollywood on their Westerns, in his later years. When he died, Mix was one of his pallbearers. 

Duke studied Earp and watched everything he did. He modeled the man's walk and talk and presented that persona later when he started staring in Westerns. Director Ford really liked Duke and started giving him bit parts for which he was credited as "Duke Morrison." 

Duke continued to work as a prop boy as well and one day when he was moving studio furniture, the director of the 1930 movie The Big Trail, Raoul Walsh, hired him as the leading man. We guess he liked the look and size of him. Duke wasn't sure what name to use for his screen name, so Walsh suggested "Anthony Wayne", after Revolutionary War General "Mad" Anthony Wayne. The head of Fox Studios at the time, Winfield Sheehan, didn't like Anthony because he felt that was an Italian name, so he suggested the first name of John. And so, Duke became John Wayne on screen. He was given a pay raise to $105 a week. The Big Trail was a stunning film for the time. It was filmed in widescreen and the opening scenes were said to be the greatest filmed in Hollywood to that point. The 70mm wide screen process was experimental. The story is about a caravan of settlers traveling on the Oregon Trail with some action and romance thrown in for good measure. Filming was done in seven states and took four months. Timing was bad for this film as the Great Depression made it so movie theaters wouldn't invest in the widescreen technology to play the movie and the film was a box office failure. Critics today herald the film and Rotten Tomatoes has it at 100% and it's listed among his top 25 films. Duke was relegated to poverty row, Z-grade westerns. For those who don't know, Z-grade movies are lower than B-grade movies - very campy.

In 1933 when Duke was 25-years-old, he would marry his first wife, Josephine. Josephine was the daughter of the Consul General of Panama in the U.S. and met Wayne in 1929. They were together until 1944, when they separated, divorcing in 1945. The couple had four children: Michael, Mary Antonia, Patrick and Melinda. Josephine had called it quits because of multiple affairs on Duke's part, one of which was with Marlene Dietrich. 

John Ford really liked Duke and he was determined to cast him as Ringo Kid in his upcoming 1939 film Stagecoach. Studio executives weren't interested in having Duke cast, they wanted Gary Cooper. Ford insisted and wouldn't back down and Duke's film career would never be the same. "Stagecoach" launched the Western genre out of B-grade entertainment into one of the greatest American genres. It was a critical and financial success. Ringo Kid in the film is a wanted murderer who joins a motley group of passengers in a horse-drawn coach. Duke would be launched into superstardom. And John Ford would be a life-long mentor and friend to Duke. Duke was also mentored by stuntmen who taught him how to ride a horse properly, how to rope and how to fight. Duke worked with stuntman Yakima Canutt to develop fighting techniques for the screen that are still used today. He said, "Before I came along, it was standard practice that the hero must always fight clean. The heavy was allowed to hit the hero in the head with a chair or throw a kerosene lamp at him or kick him in the stomach, but the hero could only knock the villain down politely and then wait until he rose. I changed all that. I threw chairs and lamps. I fought hard and I fought dirty. I fought to win".

Duke appealed to audiences because he was an everyman. When World War II started, Duke wanted to enlist, but the studio he was signed to at the time, Republic Studios, didn't want to lose him because he was their only A-list actor under contract. He was threatened with a lawsuit if he walked away from his contract. So he set about touring with the USO. Duke would always feel guilty that he didn't fight. 

Duke would finally get into the technicolor business in 1941 with his film "The Shepherd of the Hills." The next year he made a film with the great Cecil B. DeMille, "Reap the Wild Wind." Duke would do some radio work in the early 1940s as well, even starring in his own radio adventure series, "Three Sheets to the Wind." In 1946, Duke married his second wife Mexican actress Esperanza Baur, whom he called "Chata." The couple had no children and it was a rocky and volatile relationship. They divorced in 1954. In 1949, Duke would get his first Oscar nomination for Best Actor for the film "Sands of Iwo Jima." In 1952, Duke started made ads for Camel cigarettes. Can you image our superstars today doing cigarette ads? Duke loved cigarettes. He would smoke from 3 to 5 packs a day and he it would eventually come back to bite him. That same year he started his own production company named Batjac. The name came from a fictional shipping company in his 1948 movie "Wake of the Red Witch." 

Although he was mainly known for his Westerns, Duke made a bunch of military movies including "Flying Tigers," "Flying Leathernecks," "Island in the Sky," "The Wings of Eagles," and the aforementioned "Sands of Iwo Jima" among others. Duke made nearly two dozen films with of John Ford over 20 years, three of which he starred in with Maureen O'Hara. The two became lifelong friends. 

I loved 1952's "The Quiet Man" with them. Duke played the rugged Sean Thornton and he rides up to the village square where Maureen O’Hara, playing the spirited Mary Kate Danaher, is standing with her hands on her hips and fire in her eyes. “You think you can just waltz back into my life after all these years?” Mary Kate challenged, her voice sharp. Sean tipped his hat, a mischievous smile on his face. “I didn’t come all this way to argue, Mary Kate...just to prove I’m here to stay.” They had real chemistry in this and hours of long takes and the unpredictable Irish weather didn't dampen their professionalism or the fun they had. (Share story about when he is dying.)

 Right after Duke's second divorce was official in 1954, he married his third wife Pilar Pallette. The couple married in Kona, Hawaii and they had three children together. They would remain married until Duke passed away, but they separated twice and the second time, in 1973, was long term. 

The best film of his career was also with John Ford and that was 1956's "The Searchers." This film was when he called someone "Pilgrim." He also repeatedly said, "That'll be the day," which inspired the Buddy Holly song of the same name. "The Searchers" is said to be the best Western movie of all time. Duke played Ethan Edwards, an angry Civil War veteran who hated Native Americans. Natalie Wood played his niece who was kidnapped by a band of Comanches and he sets out to find her. He doesn't want to rescue her, but rather to kill her because she has become "contaminated" by the Native Americans. A hero's journey with questionable morals. Martin Scorsese said it inspired his movie "Taxi Driver." In the end, Ethan finds his niece and takes her home where the family reunites, leaving Ethan outside. There is a profound isolation in the final shot and Duke played it perfectly. Duke also made an unscripted tribute in that final shot as he grabbed his right elbow with his left hand. This was for one of his acting idols, Harry Carey. It was a move Carey did often.

And then there was "The Conqueror," also in 1956. Duke wasn't great with money and had to continuously work to pay bills and he started taking roles he never should have. In "The Conqueror," Duke plays Genghis Khan. That was pretty ridiculous and critics panned the portrayal and the movie. Outside of that, the location where it was filmed, Snow Canyon, was downwind of a nuclear weapon testing ground and was radioactive. The crew and actors were exposed to fallout and many ended up with cancer, including Duke, Susan Hayward and Agnes Moorehead. 

Duke made his directorial debut in 1960 with the movie "The Alamo." Duke portrayed Davy Crockett in it. The movie was so expensive to make that even though it did well in theaters, it barely made enough for Duke's production company to make its money back. It did, however, cement his legacy as a producer and director. He was nominated for an Oscar as the producer in the Best Picture category. Another great John Ford movie was 1962's "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance." Duke co-starred with James Stewart and both men give brilliant performances. All the cigarette smoking would catch up with Duke in 1964 when a hacking cough turned out to be lung cancer. It was decided to perform a massive operation that entailed removing his entire left lung and several ribs. The surgery was successful and he was declared cancer free five years later. He would live another 15 years, pretty amazing considering that lung cancer is usually an automatic death sentence. And he had that radical surgery back in the 1960s! Duke would direct again as a co-director with Ray Kellogg in 1968's "The Green Berets." This film was heavily criticized as it was a film made in support of the Vietnam War. Roger Ebert called it "cruel and dishonest." The depiction of the war was said to be unrealistic. The Degar people of Vietnam's Central Highlands were fierce fighters against communism and they gave Duke a brass bracelet that he wore in the film and pretty much wore the rest of his life. 

The year 1969 would get Duke his Oscar. He starred in the movie "True Grit" playing the character US Marshal Rooster Cogburn. Cogburn is joined by Texas Ranger La Boeuf (lah BUFF), played by Glen Campbell, in an effort to capture the man who killed the father of a young girl who has hired them. 

Cogburn is rough and an alcoholic who wears an eye patch and he and the Ranger get into a gunfight with an outlaw gang and eventually manage to kill the guy they are pursuing. The movie did well in the theaters, making almost $12 million in its first year and has an 88% on Rotten Tomatoes. The film won a variety of awards, including Duke's Best Actor Oscar. He said when accepting the Oscar, ""Wow! If I'd known that, I'd have put that patch on 35 years earlier." This was an award he had wanted for a long time. He was a perfectionist in his acting and expected a lot from his directors and fellow actors. Many directors didn't like working with him because of his demands and critiques. Duke wasn't a fan of Method Acting either. He frequently criticizing its introspective and emotional nature and blamed Marlon Brando for inspiring a wave of inferior imitators he called "T-Shirt Actors." The irony is that some would say that the persona of John Wayne was Duke Method acting his public life. Immersing oneself for so long in a character that fact and fiction get blurred, seems to be the definition of John Wayne. 

And now we come to the place of our 6-degrees-of-separation with Duke. Kelly's dad, Larry, had moved from California to Louisiana to do some micro-processing for a company he worked for in California. When he first got there, one of the manager's at the company asked a woman at the company to give Kelly's dad a tour of the city. This woman was Pat Stacy, the woman who would be by Duke's side as he died. The last woman Duke would love. 

Pat had just gotten divorced and the marriage had been volatile. Larry was a single, good-looking man. The two toured the city and hit it off, so Pat suggested they get some drinks and do some dancing at a local bar. Shortly after they arrived, Pat noticed that her ex-husband was there and he was giving the two of them the evil eye from across the bar. Larry suggested the two do some close dancing and so they did. Pat's ex-husband slammed down on his table hard enough to get the notice of the bar and stormed out. Larry and Pat got a good chuckle. They decided to start dating. Larry eventually came back to California and Pat decided to come with him. They had separate apartments, but still spent a lot of time together until Pat decided she would rather date an upper management guy at their work. She left for a trip to Hawaii with that guy and asked Larry to watch her Mustang car because she didn't trust leaving it on the street. And it was in that car that Larry picked up Kelly's mom for their first date. Her name was also Pat. As they say, the rest is history, but had Larry not brought Pat Stacy to California, Duke would not have had his final love. (Pat's Book)  

In 1973, Duke took on the role of a detective in John Sturges's crime drama McQ. Shortly before this, Pat had been hired by Duke's secretary to take over her position that she had held for over 25 years. In the first few months of working together, Pat fell in love with Duke and started sleeping with him while they were in Seattle for the shooting of McQ. Duke was still living with Pilar at the time, but they would eventually separate for good. 

Pat and Duke had an interesting relationship as they were completely professional in public and even behind the scenes, it took some time before they officially declared their love and became a couple, although Pat would live in a trailer on Duke's property to quiet the wagging tongues. They would eventually go public after it was obvious to everyone around them that they had feelings for each other. There was a 34 year age difference between them. Pat shared many things about Duke that people may not have known. He wore a toupee in public, but generally left it off in private, choosing to wear a cap instead. He was a man who loved the sea and while he had a cattle ranch and horses, he rarely rode the horses. He was more boat captain than cowboy, in other words. Duke had to carry oxygen when they traveled because some climates taxed his one lung too much. He was a classical liberal. Many people think he was conservative because he supported Republicans, but he supported things that would be more liberal too. His second wife, Esperanza, was in a drunken rage one night shortly before their divorce and she attempted to shoot him as he walked through the front door. He and Katharine Hepburn adored each other and she would often say he reminded her of Spencer Tracy. Duke loved to play chess and he loved literature. He had a wicked sense of humor. 

In 1976, Phil Donahue interviewed Duke and we about died when Donahue asked him about posing in male nudie magazines and Duke said it wouldn't be a good idea because of "too many callouses." Duke made an appearance on there to promote his final film, The Shootist. The film also starred Lauren Bacall, Ron Howard, James Stewart and John Carradine. 

The Shootist was one of his best performances. Duke played something pretty close to life as a cancer-ridden gunfighter hoping to die with dignity. The opening montage comprised a bunch of clips from some of his earlier westerns. The film grossed $13,406,138 domestically and it was named one of the Ten Best Films of 1976 by the National Board of Review. The film was nominated for an Oscar, a Golden Globe, a BAFTA film award, and a Writers Guild of America award. It was Duke's final film. In late 1978,Duke went to the hospital for gallbladder surgery and his stomach was discovered to be riddled with cancer. While he was on the table, the surgeon went to his family and told them that he needed to remove the entire stomach, which the family agreed to. A later pathology test revealed that the cancer had spread to nearby lymph nodes. Radiation was started, but it was no use. Duke was going to die. Duke made his final public appearance at the 51st Academy Awards on April 9, 1979. He presented the Oscar for Best Picture. It was clear that he was very sick and frail, even though he wore a wet suit under his tuxedo to make him look beefier. He had lost a lot of weight. A standing ovation was given to him as everyone knew that the end was probably close. (Wayne Oscars) He would only live for two more months. Duke was angry and frustrated as his life wound down. The pain was so bad, that several times he asked his son Patrick and Pat Stacy to bring one of his guns to the hospital so he could end it all. Duke died on June 11, 1979 at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles from complications of stomach cancer. He was 72-years-old and was laid to rest at Pacific View Memorial Park in Corona Del Mar, California. 

Such a big personality and legend couldn't possibly go to the grave quietly. It isn't surprising that there are stories of Duke's spirit haunting various locations.  

Back on the Halloween Special in 2014, a friend of mine named Colleen joined me to tell a story about a possible sighting of Duke's spirit at a house she lived at. (Colleen John Wayne) Duke did indeed live in several homes in Glendale as that is where he grew up. The possibility of him visiting a childhood home, in spirit, on the day he died seems real.

One of the main locations that Duke is said to haunt is his beloved yacht, The Wild Goose. The actor purchased The Wild Goose, a 136-foot converted minesweeper in 1962 for $116,000, which is over a million dollars today. 

The ship had served as a Navy mind sweeper during World War II. She was originally put into service in 1943 and served in the Aleutian Islands and then was decommissioned in 1946. Harold Jones bought the ship and named her La Beverie in 1948 and held onto it until his death in 1956. A millionaire named Max Wyman bought it at that time and he renamed it the Wild Goose II. When Duke acquired the yacht, he changed the name to just Wild Goose and did major renovations to it. He loved the military heritage of the ship and kept some original elements like the old-fashioned swivel wall fans, the bell, and the brass wheel in the wheelhouse, which the captain wasn't allowed to touch because it smudged easily. The captain had to use the inner spokes. An article described the changes Duke made as, "A master stateroom, which wrapped around the ship’s funnel, was added just aft of the wheelhouse; interior bulkheads were removed to give the yacht a more spacious feel, and overheads were raised to accommodate Duke’s height. A wood-burning fireplace, poker table, and built-in wet bar were added to the saloon to make the boat a comfortable, family-friendly cruiser." Duke took his yacht to Catalina Island most often, but he also cruised the Mexican Riviera in the winter and Alaska in the summer. He loved to fish from the yacht. He would entertain three presidents on it and numerous movie stars. The yacht itself made an appearance in the 1968 movie Skidoo, starring Groucho Marx. 

Duke had the yacht for 16 years and may still be hanging out on it. The next owner of the yacht was attorney Lynn Hutchin and to claimed to have interactions with Duke's ghost several times. The first time, he was walking from his master bathroom back into the bedroom and when he got tot he bedroom, he saw the shadowy figure of a cowboy perched near the wall with his head hung low. Hutchins approached the figure and it disappeared. 

On another occasion, Lynn was sleeping in his bed when he was awoken by a noise. He blinked his eyes several times and realized he was looking at the shadowy cowboy again. He called out to it and it disappeared again. The next day, Lynn mentioned to the Captain that he thought he had seen the ghost of John Wayne a couple times on board the yacht. The Captain nodded his head and told Lynn that he had seen him too. He said that he was on one side of the boat and saw John Wayne walking on the other side of the boat, clear as day. Some time later, Lynn was sitting at the bar and reading a book when he got the feeling that someone was in the room with him. he turned around and saw that no one was there, but then he suddenly felt a gust of wind so strong that it clanked together Duke's old drinking glasses. At that moment, Lynn glanced into the mirror behind the bar and there he saw John Wayne, no doubt about it. He spun around again and nobody was there. Lynn eventually sold the yacht, which gets chartered for special events. People have been locked into bathrooms - this usually happens to women. A captain of another boat reported a light being on in the itself even though no one was supposed to be on it. He called out the deck crew to make sure there wasn't anybody on board who shouldn't be and they found the ship locked and empty. Another time, several lights in the yacht turned themselves on and off repeatedly and the crew again found the ship was empty. The crew claims to hear the distinctive sound of an old ice machine, even though the ice machine was removed years ago. A man who sometimes captained the ship thought he would go ahead and sleep in Duke's room one night. he was awakened in the middle of the night when he was tossed off the bed by something he couldn't see. But by far, the strangest story is that the yacht sailed itself one night to the dock close to Duke's old home.

And finally, a couple who had rented a home near Duke's final home in Newport Beach were taking a walk and as they walked past the tall iron gates, they swore they saw the faint outline of a man standing in the window who was very tall and had broad shoulders. Then they felt a sudden chill and smelled the scent of cigarette smoke. Duke lived at the Newport Beach house for 16 years. We found an Architectural Digest article about it from 1977 with photos of the interior. Here you can see the 1970s decorating by the Duke himself. There's a picture of his awards and Oscar. He called it the "50 Years of Hard Work Wall." The house sat empty from 1980 to 1988 when new owners moved in and remodeled. Duke's beloved waterfront home was demolished in 2002. 

John Wayne found fame, success and love in California. He lived most of his life there and he died there. It took 20 years before there was a headstone on his grave because of privacy concerns. It's a bronze plaque embossed with Duke on a horse with scenes of Monument Valley and The Alamo in the background. It has his stage name of John Wayne and is inscribed with "Tomorrow is the most Important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." Is the ghost of John Wayne still hanging around? That is for you to decide!

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!