Which casino did liberace perform at

By the age of seven, Liberace was studying the work of legendary Polish pianist Paderewski, and by eight, he was inspired by meeting his idol backstage after a concert in Milwaukee. Bettray-Kelly was able to secure. Liberace a scholarship to the Wisconsin College of Music, ensuring his musical education in spite of the hard-economic times brought on by the Great Depression. At 10 years of age, Liberace performed his first professional paying gig, at the Wisconsin Theater. During the s, Liberace was able to help out his family financially, despite still being in his teens at the time and by , when it was clear that a career in show business was in the cards for Lee, he headed to New York.

The s were at times challenging for Liberace, as they were for any struggling young artist, but they were instrumental in developing his unique onstage persona. At the time, Lee was having difficulty choosing between a career as a classical pianist as opposed to a nightclub entertainer.

Liberace obliged by playing the song in the style of several classical composers including Johann Strauss and Franz Liszt. For the rest of the decade, Liberace honed his act in night clubs across the country, learning how to please crowds with not only his exceptional musical ability, but with his wit, his voice, and his appearance.

Since his high school days, Lee had been a natty dresser, and his onstage outfit at the time usually consisted of a tux and tails, with a personal touch like a top hat or colorful pocket square. After that, nearly every review he received mentioned the item, and along with his ever-flashier outfits, it became his trademark. After the first week, Lewis doubled his salary and extended his run by six extra weeks.

This engagement began the lifelong love affair between Las Vegas and Liberace. As the s introduced television into the homes of American families, fledgling networks looked around for content to offer their audiences. Follow Following. The Liberace Join other followers. Sign me up. Already have a WordPress. Log in now. Loading Comments Email Required Name Required Website. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! However, according to Thomas, it would be many years before they were friends again.

In the early s Liberace hired an year-old named Scott Thorsen as his private, live-in chauffeur, bodyguard and secretary. In , Liberace had Thorsen bodily ejected from his house, ostensibly because of his drug use, and because he had made a death threat against the entertainer.

Later, he would find a more suitable companion in year-old Cary James, who was content to remain quiet. Liberace was perhaps the most ardent collector of art, antiques and curios since William Randolph Hearst. Everywhere he went, he sought out antique stores, junk shops and garage sales. He bought rare pianos, one owned by Chopin, another by George Gershwin. However, unlike Hearst, he wanted to display his goodies — all of them. So he bought houses, and incorporated his collections into their startlingly elaborate interior schemes.

As his fortune grew, so did the number of customized houses he owned. He explained that while his profession required him to travel, he preferred to own homes in the cities where he worked most.

When he was forced to stay in a hotel room, he often re-decorated it. When he appeared at the Hollywood Bowl in the early s, he had been concerned about being visible against the black-suited orchestra and had gone onstage in a white tux.

At the conclusion of the show, someone asked him what he would wear at his next appearance, in Las Vegas. He did. For Liberace, the fact that the audience responded to gay apparel was all he needed to know. Las Vegas, he found, was the perfect venue for his increasingly elaborate productions.

There are only a few places left, like Nevada, where you have places that can handle them. In the other places, I have to simplify things a bit, like cut out some of the cars, or the dancing water, you know. He also noted that he had some competition in the garish costume sweepstakes. Elvis Presley, who had bombed in Las Vegas during his first appearance in , was appearing regularly at the Las Vegas Hilton, and had abandoned his modest slacks and sport coat for garish costumes festooned with, of all things, rhinestones and sequins.

No other Las Vegas headliner made more. Las Vegas became his legal residence, and he played here about 16 weeks a year, four in Reno and Lake Tahoe. He decided to find a suitable Nevada home. He purchased an unremarkable tract home, then the adjacent house, and linked them together into one mansion.

He then set about giving them the Liberace touch. He found a moderately-priced shopping center on East Tropicana Avenue in Las Vegas and opened his museum personally on Easter Sunday in The museum is a significant Las Vegas tourist attraction, drawing well over , visitors a year.

In August of , Liberace returned to Caesars Palace for a two-week engagement. It was his final Las Vegas show. His friends, staff and the Caesars stagehands noticed that the normally ebullient and gregarious Liberace was quiet and spent most of his offstage time in his dressing room.

His obviously deteriorating health prompted many inquiries from the media. But he was recovering nicely, he added. He remained secluded in his Palm Springs home until he died Feb. The rumors that he was dying of AIDS began even before his passing, but were all dismissed by his staff and family.