Liberace

Too much a showman. But I loved his personality and the old LV museum. Too bad it's gone.

He was very flamboyant and loved the finer things, as we all do. It’s too bad that ungrateful houseboy wrote that awful book about him.

Looking back at the 50s you have to give him credit for his showmanship and skills at the piano, but he was incredibly creepy.

Listening to him sing "Come on-a my House" makes me think the police should dig up his basement for missing kids.

Come on-a my house, my house, I'm gonna give you candy, Come on-a my house, my house, I'm gonna give a you, Apple a plum and apricot-a too eh"

start at 21:50 for that number, or scroll back a little bit to see the shirtless Indian war-dance by shirtless Chief Little Bare.

[quote]Besides, he had many relationships with women, as most homosexuals used to.

Yes, this will all be revealed in the upcoming film "I, Sonja."

R4 how old are you?

Oops, I meant to ask how old OP is.

Well, it’s true, R4. Until the 1980s, women were so beautiful and well made-up that they could sometimes lure even the most homosexual of men over the line into a heterosexual affair!

How old you think, R6?

Well if you aren't trolling us, and this is a sincere post, I'd say mid to late 70s at least.

I won’t reveal my exact age, but I won’t dispute your conjecture.

The movie wasn't unkind to Liberace. Maybe I saw it through rose tinted crystal champagne coupes.

Does no one protect his closeted legacy? Executers? There is something fishy about what happened to ALL his money. I dont believe the foundation was completely wiped out in the crash. I bet it was mostly stolen.

executors

Yes, Liberace dated many women, including Mae West and Betty White.

I watched that "salacious film" about him last night.

Please help me understand him, DL. How could he be both so obviously flaming and also deeply homophobic? How could the public not know he was gay? Did he even consider himself gay? I was born in the early 80s, so I don't have any memories of Liberace himself.

They didn't talk about homosexuality back then.

Was he good pianist? That is what I wonder .

He would've made a great "husband" on House Hunters had that show been on back in the day.

I know nothing of his music, only his flamboyance.

I thought the movie was pretty good. Michael Douglas and Matt Damon nailed it.

R16 He was a very good pianist when he wasn't hamming it up for his blue haired audience.

At the piano

I liked the TV movie.

Behind the Candelabra trivia - it was filmed at Zsa Zsa's Bel Air mansion which was once owned by Howard Hughes. Featured prominently in the movie was the gilded Steinway piano previously owned by Gabor’s third husband, actor George Sanders. It was hand painted with gold leaf after he won the Academy Award in 1951 for “All About Eve”. It sold this past April at her Estate auction for $23,750.

Is Betty White a lesbian?

His music was flamboyant like his character. I guess good for old house Fraus but by musical standers he was not exceptional in any way. It didn't stand the test of time. Only his sexual proclivity and oddities did. But woman were pretty oblivious to even the most flamboyant queens back then. Much like the OP it seems.

r23 = Lois Nettleton

I loved the movie, it was GREAT! Rarely do you get a glimpse of the real bat shit crazy stuff that goes on with entertainers, especially closeted ones.

Omg ... his face!

He looks like a proto-human-Ken-doll ...

Is she is she??

All the house Fraus made him very, very rich.

I really have no respect for him because when he got AIDS in the middle of the crisis, he could have stepped up, he could have been a voice for change, he could have saved lives but instead he chose to hide and told everyone the reason he was losing weight was because he was on a watermelon diet.

He also wrote a shitty cook book most people didn't know about. I wonder why it didn't do so well?

Recipes included:

PIEROGI

BRAISED OXTAILS

BRAINS IN BLACK BUTTER

SQUID CASSEROLE

GAZPACHO

Why is this not a surprise?

Was he really as narcissistic as the film portrayed? It made him seem like a kind of horrible human being who went through life using people.

His boy toy from the movie in real life is now in Nevada Prison. 8 - 20 years! Meth addict.

Two over the top reality stars before their time.

EVeryone should have a Piano shaped pool in a middle class neighborhood.

A lot of people didnt catch that his mother in the movie was played by Debbie Reynolds. Apparently she knew his real mother very well and wanted to do the part.

After seeing this movie when it first came out, I felt I understood all there was to know about Justin Timberlake.

[quote] homosexual men kept all their hairpins in place, as we used to say

No one, ever, at any time used to say that.

OP sounds like a 79 year old Babushka from Russia.

I was in 5th grade when he died and I remember distinctly the explanation of a watermelon diet. I totally believed it. Well, I was in 5th grade. Then I remember the made for TV movie that came out shortly after, the one opening with a hearse speeding down a desert road saying that Liberace's body was inside.

I went to the Liberace museum 20 years ago. In the gift shop an elderly couple asked the Museum employee , what did he die of ? The employee said Pnemounia , I uttered AIDS . She canceled my taxi and told Me to leave. That someone could so Delusional spoke volumes to me On the Man and his closet.

I used to know a Madame in Boston. When he was in town he would call looking for "young boys" and she would arrange it through calls to a bar called Jaques. (Sp?) this was in the 1970's. He was a drug user as well.

Which drugs, r45?

He was incredibly wealthy and he was both very generous and a user (of men, drugs, medical procedures). This was the 70s, folks, hello?

His museum was the best thing in Vegas. I was dragged to it the first time I went there, but I ended up spending HOURS there.

What makes it so good r48?

The line I remember from the movie was when Scott said, after going to his mothers funeral, “You must be really hurting” and Liberace said “I’m finally free”. I have a feeling that will be me when my mother dies.

I feel that about my father, r50. And I feel guilty about it too

This is ... frightening.

Mr. Lib-er-rach-ay.

Gluing rhinestones to a beaten up old Rolls Royce does not seem to be “a love of fine things.”

He was predatory and revolting.

He was actually a brilliant musician but his genuine talent was eclipsed by the glitz.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Bette White admitted that she bearded for him and knew he was gay.

"Until the 1980s, women were so beautiful and well made-up that they could sometimes lure even the most homosexual of men over the line into a heterosexual affair!"

Busted, troll! You posted this same misogynist, homophobic shit in the Karen Carpenter thread! No one "lured" Liberace into a heterosexual affair, his "girlfriends" were beards

I remember when he died, and the cause was given as the watermelon diet. I believed it - I was in HS, but what did I know? I do remember my mother and her lady friends would always go see him when he played Radio City (was it yearly?), and after it was all about “what a showman!”

A few years after he died there was a TV movie made - I remember Rue McClanahan played his mother - and it seemed to me he was petrified of his mother knowing. Something at that time (college) I totally related to.