Behind the Candelabra

by Scott Thorson

  About the time that Lee and I were looking into adoption I asked Joel Strote, Lee’s attorney and mine, to draw up my will naming Lee as my beneficiary. Lee seemed more like family to me than my half brothers and sisters or my mother and father. I wanted to be sure that in the event of my death all the things I owned as a result of Lee’s extraordinary generosity—my house, my cars, my furniture, my dogs, the things I’d bought with my salary—would be his. Although the will, the proposed adoption, the promises of lifetime support would all loom large in the future when Lee and I broke up, back in 1980 they seemed like nothing more than small pieces of the wonderful future we would share.

  Lee seemed to love the new me even more than he had the old. By the time I recovered from my surgery I’d dropped over twenty pounds, a satisfying weight loss for so short a time. But I had gained more than sixty in the years Lee and I had been together. His favorite foods—pasta, fried chicken, meat loaf, gravies and sauces and breads—had turned me into a tank. Lee wanted me to really slim down and I was only too happy to try. So I stayed on the Hollywood Diet. It proved to be the mistake of a lifetime. Slowly but surely, I became addicted to the drugs Startz prescribed. They helped me lose weight, alleviated my postoperative pain, but, more important, they made me feel relaxed and confident.

  Startz renewed my prescriptions on request. Addicted to drugs himself, he seemed to have no compunctions about prescribing addictive drugs for his patients. Who knows? Maybe misery loves company. There’s certainly no more miserable human being than a doctor like Startz. I blame him for an addiction that would eventually make my life a hell on earth. It is absolutely no consolation that Startz was in that hell with me, and that he ultimately blew his own brains out.

  By the time I’d been on the California Diet for six months and lost fifty pounds I was hooked on pharmaceutical cocaine. At that time Lee began to voice some concern about my health. “You’re getting too thin,” he said, adding that some of his people were saying I was anorexic and emotionally unstable. “I want you off that diet,” he insisted.

  How I wish it had been that easy. I was beginning to realize how dangerous Startz’s drugs were and I wanted to stop taking them. God knows, I tried hard. I could go days, sometimes weeks, without taking anything. But every time I felt unhappy or unsettled, every time Lee and I had a disagreement, every time some of his people made me aware of how much they disliked me, I’d soothe myself, help myself over the rough spots by taking drugs. And Startz didn’t hesitate to go right on supplying them. Since I seldom had the cash to pay for them, I’d buy jewelry on a credit card that Lee and I shared and then turn the jewelry over to the doctor in return for prescription bottles full of pills. Lee, who had an almost uncontrollable passion for jewelry himself, never questioned those purchases the way he would have questioned me if I needed large amounts of cash.

  Taking pharmaceutical cocaine had one other obvious advantage. It was perfectly legal. I could take it with me when we toured and not have to worry. Startz kept me supplied for six months after I formally went off the diet. During that time I made every effort to control my cocaine usage and to gain back a little weight. And, to a great extent, I succeeded. By the time that Startz, fearing discovery, cut me off completely, my small drug need could easily be supplied by casual friends.

  In those days cocaine was the drug of choice in the entertainment industry. I could purchase it from the stagehands or even have some given to me, gratis, at parties where it was used openly. By now most people are familiar with the stars who have admitted to a drug problem. Boy George, Stacy Keach, Richard Pryor, Larry Gatlin, Tony Orlando, Richard Dreyfuss, Liza Minnelli, have all been courageous enough to talk about their addiction. But they are just the tip of the iceberg. Coke was everywhere early in the eighties. Even today, after all the negative publicity, anyone who wants cocaine can find it; and it is cheaper than ever.

  For two years following my first meeting with Startz I kept my cocaine habit on a manageable level. Most of the time, I could take it or leave it. Then my drug usage came to the attention of a man I shall call Mr. Y, someone I met through Lee. Y was an easterner from the Boston area. He and Lee went way back; they’d tricked around when Lee was scrounging a living playing small East Coast clubs. Mr. Y was one of the more unsavory characters in Lee’s life. He ran a gay nightclub in Hollywood and openly boasted of his underworld connections. At one time, after a much publicized gangland-style killing, Y even hid out in one of Lee’s properties. One of Mr. Y’s close friends—I’ll call him Joe because it wouldn’t be smart to use his name either—was accused of equally serious crimes. In a totally ironic twist of fate, today Joe has become a sort of mentor to me, and has more than made up for things that happened in the past. But that’s a whole other book.

  Back in the early eighties, Mr. Y and Joe must have thought of me as the perfect mark, a guy with a drug problem and, through Lee, the means to support it. For the next year Y, while pretending to be my friend, served as my supplier. He and Joe systematically stripped me of my savings and some of my cars, and Y introduced me to freebasing, the most dangerous form of cocaine addiction. But I’m getting ahead of my story.

  19

  Lee went to Europe every few years after his first appearance at the Palladium in 1956. He boasted of his enormous popularity abroad, talked of people in England standing in line to buy tickets to see his show. Despite the British critics’ ongoing antipathy toward him, he told me that the Queen Mother could be listed among his most ardent fans. But I didn’t pay too much attention to his bragging. Lee often exaggerated, stretching the truth to make himself look good. It was a harmless fault, one I ignored.

  I can still see him holding up his beringed hands and telling an audience that one of the rings had been a gift from Barron Hilton and one of the others a present from Queen Elizabeth. In fact, no one bought Lee jewelry. It was all custom-made for him by Bob Lindner, a Vegas jeweler who gave Lee a real deal. In exchange for the right to call himself Lee’s exclusive jeweler, Lindner cut prices drastically on everything Lee ordered.

  So much of what Lee said and did was carefully calculated to build up his image that I think even he had trouble separating truth from fiction at times. But when we toured Europe, I learned that Lee had given an accurate description of his popularity abroad. A huge crowd waited for his arrival at Heathrow Airport outside London the day we flew in on the first leg of our journey. I can’t imagine any movie or rock star getting a more tumultuous welcome. Huge banners that read WELCOME LIBERACE decorated the double-decker buses that had brought hundreds of his fans to the airport. The British bobbies were out in force to control the excited crowd.

  A phalanx of security people met us as we deplaned, rushed us through customs and out into the airport itself. Then all hell broke loose. An immense crowd of aggressive fans streamed forward, eager to see Liberace or, better still, to touch him. I’d talked to stars who’d had their hair pulled, their clothing ripped off their backs, when crowds reacted like that. The security force formed a flying wedge around Lee’s body and, in so doing, pushed me aside. Suddenly dozens of people filled the growing space between Lee and me.

  I could see him moving toward the airport exit, his entourage churning their way through a human sea. Seymour Heller and his wife Billy, Ray Arnett, and the three traveling members of Lee’s band were somewhere in the mob, but I didn’t see a single familiar face around me. I’d almost resigned myself to a long, lonely trip into London when the crowd of security people around Lee ground to a sudden stop.

  “Where’s Scott?” I could hear Lee shouting over the sounds of the crowd, and then more frantically, “I’m not going anywhere until I find Scott!”

  Although I could see people urging Lee to leave that madhouse as quickly as possible, I knew he’d be immovable until I joined him.

  “Over here, Lee,” I shouted, jumping up above the heads of the crowd so I’d be seen. A couple of policemen came to my rescue at once. When I caught up with Lee h
e reached for my hand and held it tight. And later, when the tour promoters wanted me to ride in another car so they could ride with Lee, he said, “You fellows can take a cab. Scott goes with me!”

  In many ways that European tour was the highlight of our life together. We’d never been closer or happier. Lee was thrilled with my new face, and I was relaxed enough personally to have no need for cocaine. During Lee’s three-week appearance at the Palladium he’d made arrangements to stay at the home of an old friend, the great British female impersonator Danny La Rue. Meanwhile, Danny was appearing in Hollywood and staying at Lee’s penthouse. The arrangement was ideal. We’d have the privacy of a large and comfortable house, complete with a butler and a chauffeured limousine while La Rue enjoyed the luxury and convenience of the penthouse. Danny’s home at Henley-on-Thames was everything we could have wished for, beautifully decorated and well staffed by Danny’s own brother and sister.

  Opening night at the Palladium we did a command performance in front of the Queen Mother. Afterward we were to be presented to her. As we dressed for the show I kept on thinking what a long way I’d come from the foster kid nobody wanted. Lee had met British royalty in the past and knew the protocol, but I had to be coached on the proper etiquette of going through a receiving line and meeting royalty. Above all, I was told not to attempt to shake the Queen Mother’s hand. If she wanted to shake mine she would reach for it.

  I was very nervous about meeting a queen but Lee loved the pomp and circumstance the occasion demanded. He hadn’t exaggerated one iota about how much the Queen Mother liked his performances. She applauded enthusiastically throughout the show and was positively beaming afterward as we came through the receiving line. Greeting Lee like an old friend, she told him how nice it was to see him again. He beamed back, giving her the full-voltage Liberace grin. While they had a brief chat I kept on reminding myself to keep my hands at my side when it was my turn to meet her. Then, there she was standing in front of me, a little chubby woman who looked more like your average grandmother than a member of the royal family. Like any reasonably well-mannered American male, I automatically stuck my hand out to shake hers. As soon as I did it I realized I’d made a mistake. Thorson, you dumb ass, I thought—this lady is not going to be pleased.

  But the Queen Mother looked at me and began to smile, not the pasted-on smile people have going through a receiving line but a genuine grin. “That’s really quite all right, young man,” she said, reaching for my hand and shaking it heartily.

  I guess you call that noblesse oblige.

  Later, after the royal party had gone, we were shown up to the royal box. Luxurious and private, with gilt furniture and heavy velvet portieres, the whole place looked like something out of a fairy tale. This is where the queen and king sit, I thought, trying out their chairs. The one modern touch was a private bathroom, which Lee and I christened. “From now on,” Lee said, “you can tell people you really did sit on a throne!”

  As Lee expected, the British critics were less than enthusiastic about his reappearance in their midst. His weight was at an all-time high, and that, coupled with the silicone implants that smoothed out the lines around his mouth, made him look like a round-faced, over-age cherub. The press called him a “blimp.” But Lee had no trouble ignoring them because he was playing to full houses. Night after night Seymour Heller walked the house to count the size of the crowd and then came in to our dressing room to tell Lee, as Heller always did when attendance was high, “We’re doing great.”

  Conversely, in the past, when Lee played to less than full houses, Heller would walk into the dressing room, gloom written all over his face, and say, “Lee, you’re doing terrible!” Heller’s selective use of pronouns had become a standing joke between Lee and me. Fortunately, Heller had no reason to do anything other than smile during that entire European trip. We were doing great!

  From London we flew to Berlin, where Lee played to a mixed German and American audience. Again, I was surprised at the size of the crowd that waited to welcome Lee. The German audiences didn’t seem to mind that Lee did his show in English. He performed without the benefit of props, using just the piano, the candelabra, and a wild assortment of costumes to entertain them. His patter was all in English except for a few lines in badly accented German that he struggled through. Strangely enough, every time he said anything in German the audience gave him an ovation. But his music proved to be a universal language. His rollicking, bouncing rendition of American classics reached straight to the heart of those Germans.

  The trip certainly proved one thing to me. Lee was a star with international appeal. I’d been thinking of him as a strictly American phenomenon, but they loved him all over the world. While we were in Berlin we took the obligatory trip to see the wall, stopping at checkpoint Charlie. Lee wasn’t at all political; however, this place really seemed to get to him. Freedom lay on one side—the right to be whatever you dreamed you could be—while a life of severely limited possibilities was on the other. Lee, who had dreamed big and seen those dreams come true, shuddered as he looked through that opening in the wall.

  After leaving Berlin we played tourist for a while, going to Munich to sample the beer and then out into the countryside to look at castles. Lee really turned on to Neuschwanstein, the fairytale castle of mad King Ludwig II. That castle, with its fantastic turreted architecture, was the classic example of Lee’s favorite saying, “Too much of a good thing is wonderful.” He claimed to feel a deep psychic connection with Ludwig, just as he claimed to feel a deep psychic connection to Liszt. Lee had an interest in the occult, in the possibility that he’d lived past lives, that the trip stimulated. Old things, houses, antiques, castles, turned him on. But there was another aspect of German life that turned him on even more.

  We’d been told that Hamburg had the most outrageous nightlife—porno palaces—and Lee was determined to see them for himself. Hamburg more than lived up to his expectations. One night Lee and I, accompanied by Ray Arnett and Seymour and Billy Heller, went to a nightclub where the entertainment consisted of a variety of sex acts performed onstage. As a visiting celebrity, Lee was given a large, front-row table. He sat, riveted by the action, as a series of acts—homosexual and heterosexual—unfolded in front of us. It was the one sour note of the entire trip, the only time when Lee and I weren’t on the same wavelength. I was embarrassed, especially with Billy Heller and other ladies sitting nearby. But Lee seemed oblivious of everything except the entwined bodies. He watched with an eagerness that was as unpleasant to me as the performances themselves.

  By then Lee’s fascination with pornography had become a major issue between us. I became furious when the maître d’ approached to suggest that Lee could enjoy the sexual favors of any of the performers who interested him, in the privacy of the small rooms that ringed the club. Lee refused, but I suspect he would have accepted at once if he’d been on his own. Sex fascinated him, the kinkier the better. When we left for Paris a day or two later I was happy to leave “Hamburg after dark” far behind.

  Although Paris is justifiably proud of its nightlife there would be no repeats of what we had seen in Germany. Lee was relatively unknown in France and had no performances scheduled. He took a suite at the Paris Hilton and spent the next few days playing tourist instead of piano. We went to places like the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, and Versailles, where the Hall of Mirrors reminded Lee of his own hall of mirrors in the glittering Vegas house. Again, he talked of feeling connected to the past and the man who had built Versailles.

  Lee loved the French restaurants but detested the rude French waiters who didn’t seem to realize he was a star. Although he claimed to enjoy going out in public without being approached for his autograph, it was soon apparent that Lee could go only so long without public recognition. After a few days in France his anonymity began to annoy him. He’d smile expectantly at passing strangers, trying to elicit a response, and then frown angrily when he failed to get one. Lee was one of the few stars I e
ver met who liked being hassled by autograph seekers. I think it reassured him.

  Next, we went to Monte Carlo, where there are always lots of Americans and Lee was treated like visiting royalty. He taped an appearance on a variety show hosted by Patrick Wayne, John Wayne’s son. The made-for-television series was supposed to showcase international stars but we later learned that it failed in the ratings. Kris Kristofferson and Anne Murray appeared with Lee but we saw very little of them socially. Lee and I spent our time on gambling in the casino and getting a little sun.

  From there it was on to Holland and more performances in front of large and enthusiastic crowds. After one of the shows the fans actually tried to break down the dressing-room doors to get at Lee. Our last stop was Oslo, Norway, and Lee was as popular there as he had been in London. When we returned home after eight weeks of traveling, I had a new understanding of the size and scope of Lee’s fame, and a new respect for his talent. He’d reached across the barriers of language and culture to make people smile and give them pleasure.

  That year we also went to Mexico, where El Presidente actually went to the trouble of meeting us at the airport. The welcoming ceremony began with a walk down a red carpet past an honor guard. Lee had earned Mexico’s gratitude by featuring the Ballet Folklórico in his act and as a consequence he was treated more like a visiting head of state than a nightclub performer. We stayed at the Mexican White House, an incredible palace with the world’s best-trained servants.