On Friday, at the crack of dawn, I was on a Delta flight from New York to Las Vegas. The Liberace Museum had just announced it was closing in October, and I was on assignment for the Wall Street Journal. Mind you, I have never been a fan of Liberace's music. I didn't dislike him when he was alive or his brand of classical music "with the boring parts left out," as he used to say. Like you, his music and scene just weren't my bag.
And yet, he was a phenomenon and a overwhelmingly popular entertainer. As I sat on the plane, I realized that for this story to work, I couldn't take a mocking approach, which would be too easy and disrespectful to those who cared. But I also couldn't celebrate music that was kitsch and for most people passe.
Somewhere over Oklahoma, the story's angle became apparent, and the result of my trip a few days ago is on the "Leisure & Arts" page of today's Wall Street Journal and online here.
How could the Liberace Museum be closing?, I thought to myself. Las Vegas is all about hype, self-promotion and marketing. Didn't the people who run the museum understand this? What's more, Liberace was in effect the city's George Washington. His bejeweled outfits, quarter-mile furs and shameless spending sprees all but created Las Vegas' image and penchant for flamboyance and extravagance. Despite teaching Vegas how to survive through serial makeovers, Mr. Showmanship's museum was going down. A sign of the times? Or bad management, shortsighted marketing and dim networking skills?
When I had researched Liberace prior to my flight, I came to realize how remarkable this guy really was—not as a pianist but as a self-promoter and charmer. How often has one person singlehandedly influenced generations of entertainers on the art of filling seats? By the 1950s, Liberace was the highest paid performer in Las Vegas and one of the first one-name national stars. Think about it. Elvis Presley was deeply moved by Liberace as early as 1956—even knocking off the pianist's gold lame suit jacket in 1958 and adapting his spangled jumpsuit look in the 1970s. The same can be said for Elton John, Cher, Wayne Newton, Barry Manilow, Lady Gaga, Cirque de Soleil and all of today's flashy rappers. Liberace was the father of bling.
And then there was the guy's ticklish self-mocking sense of humor. Lines like, "As long as you enjoy seeing them, believe me, I enjoy wearing them," "Well, what do you think? Too much?," and "Do you want to see the rings? Why not, right? After all, you paid for them." Never in the history of show business has someone earned so much ($1 million a year as early as the 1950s) and been so in sync with the tastes of the mass market.
Liberace was a genius for laughing at himself, a quality that we've all but lost today. He also worked tirelessly to do his best and make people happy. Another trait all should live by. And he understood the value of over the top, that people sitting in theater seats deserved to be entertained, excited and wowed.
Make fun of him if you wish. But beyond the capes and Swarovski crystals, drive-on Rolls Royces and feathers, and turning pianos and gooey piano playing was a guy who went to impossible lengths to give audiences their money's worth. And he was funny, to boot.
Perhaps Marian Lockwood, 24, from Portland, Ore., a visitor at the museum, said it best: “You come here and realize that over-the-top starts with this guy. The things here are way cool.”
Let's hope that one of the massive hotels on the Las Vegas Strip has the smarts to make room in a gallery for the amazing Liberace Museum collection. Costumes, cars, jewelry and pianos—all expensive and all part of the city's fabulous history. What a shame if it all were to be ignored and forgotten. Love him or hate him, Liberace's contribution was regal. And delightfully out of control.
JazzWax clips: Here are three clips showing off Liberace's influence, style and humor. Here's Liberace and Elvis in 1956...
Here's Liberace in the 1940s playing Twelfth Street Rag...
And here's a taste of the Liberace humor, which to me remains way more entertaining than his playing...
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last thing I'd expect to see in a jazz blog, but pretty great article in WSJ. Liberace is one of those pop stars who were already out-of-sync with the culture during his fame -- if I recall, he appealed to everyone's grandmother in my youth and had pull in the same group that dug lawrence Welk. Sounds like the museum badly mismanaged itself &, maybe if they had the funds,might have expanded the scope of the operation as Liberace's star dimmed into, perhaps, a museum of vegas performing culture or something along those lines
And thus ends the only remaining reason to go to Vegas. Bummer. The most amazing thing about the Liberace museum to me was seeing in great detail how astonishingly "fabulous" his public persona was, and yet mainstream America unquestioningly accepted the idea of him as "Hollywood's most eligible bachelor" and so on. I mean, c'mon--those American flag hot pants?! That guy had chutzpah for miles.
I went out to Vegas to do a piece about Liberace in the late 1970s or early '80s. Scott Thorson's family -- Mom, Dad, younger brothers and sisters (Scott was an adopted child) -- were there to pay him a visit. They were totally Orange Co., made the Brady Bunch look like hipsters. One wondered what (if anything) they made of Liberace's relationship to their son.
Liberace was exceptionally nice, said some amusingly barbed things about how schlumpy Streisand was when she first played Vegas (he gave her some wardrobe advice), seemed quite at ease inside his own skin. I visited the museum, which was fascinating. I recall, in particular, a life-size replica of a grand piano that a prison inmate had fashioned out of toothpicks and sent to Lee.
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Marc Myers writes frequently on music and the arts for the Wall Street Journal. He is author of "Why Jazz Happened" (University of California Press). In 2012, JazzWax was named the Jazz Journalists Association's "Blog of the Year."
last thing I'd expect to see in a jazz blog, but pretty great article in WSJ. Liberace is one of those pop stars who were already out-of-sync with the culture during his fame -- if I recall, he appealed to everyone's grandmother in my youth and had pull in the same group that dug lawrence Welk. Sounds like the museum badly mismanaged itself &, maybe if they had the funds,might have expanded the scope of the operation as Liberace's star dimmed into, perhaps, a museum of vegas performing culture or something along those lines
Posted by: Joel Lewis | September 21, 2010 at 08:58 AM
The guy was there first, period.
Posted by: Marty Jourard | September 21, 2010 at 12:16 PM
There's a very funny clip of Jack Benny with Liberace here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSj_pxcH5Uw
Jack warms up with a bit of Fritz Kreisler.
Posted by: David | September 21, 2010 at 01:02 PM
And thus ends the only remaining reason to go to Vegas. Bummer. The most amazing thing about the Liberace museum to me was seeing in great detail how astonishingly "fabulous" his public persona was, and yet mainstream America unquestioningly accepted the idea of him as "Hollywood's most eligible bachelor" and so on. I mean, c'mon--those American flag hot pants?! That guy had chutzpah for miles.
Posted by: Ian Carey | September 21, 2010 at 02:04 PM
I went out to Vegas to do a piece about Liberace in the late 1970s or early '80s. Scott Thorson's family -- Mom, Dad, younger brothers and sisters (Scott was an adopted child) -- were there to pay him a visit. They were totally Orange Co., made the Brady Bunch look like hipsters. One wondered what (if anything) they made of Liberace's relationship to their son.
Liberace was exceptionally nice, said some amusingly barbed things about how schlumpy Streisand was when she first played Vegas (he gave her some wardrobe advice), seemed quite at ease inside his own skin. I visited the museum, which was fascinating. I recall, in particular, a life-size replica of a grand piano that a prison inmate had fashioned out of toothpicks and sent to Lee.
Posted by: Larry Kart | September 21, 2010 at 10:46 PM
Sorry -- misspelled Scott Thorson's last name.
Posted by: Larry Kart | September 22, 2010 at 12:07 AM