Behind the Candelabra

by Scott Thorson

  Late 1982 saw Lee and me locked in battle in the tabloids, a war he won handily. From 1983 on we would be caught up in a series of legal maneuvers. As Lee threatened in his Globe interview, he was prepared to litigate forever if that’s what it took to win. Joel Strote quickly emerged as Lee’s staunch defender, a man who would stop at nothing to protect his boss. Since the most important part of my case was based on conversion of property, Rosenthal soon realized he needed an expert cocounsel, someone with an extensive background in business litigation.

  All my other attorneys had been recommended by friends, but Ernst Lipschutz had been recommended by a prestigious New York law firm. He impressed me favorably during our first meeting. He was a soft-spoken man of medium height, with alert, inquisitive eyes. From day one, he looked, sounded, and acted like a polished professional. Lipschutz specialized in business litigation, focusing on business fraud.

  At our first meeting he made it clear that he didn’t believe in the kind of grandstanding and playing to the media that had resulted in massive tabloid coverage. Lipschutz said if he came on board he would refuse to conduct the case in the hot glare of media attention. There would be no more press conferences, no more exclusive interviews with the tabloids. He was, he informed us, a lawyer—not a circus master.

  I had to agree that the publicity I had received thus far had resulted only in my being branded as a liar and a street hustler. Lipschutz insisted that, from then on, the case would be conducted with as much dignity as we could muster. The first item on his agenda, after agreeing to become cocounsel, was to urge me to drop the ninth cause of action involving the so-called palimony.

  That came as a shock. The ninth cause of action was the one the media had focused on, the one that got all the headlines, the one that hurt Lee the most personally. By then I wanted to embarrass him as much as possible. Rightly or wrongly, I felt he’d ruined my life and I’d made up my mind to make him suffer for it.

  As Lipschutz talked about the proper way to conduct the case I couldn’t help thinking, Who the hell is this guy, coming in here and telling us what to do after one day on the case when Rosenthal had been handling it for months? The ninth cause of action, based on Lee’s promises to adopt me, to care for me forever, was the most important one from a personal standpoint. Sure, money was a consideration; I’d be crazy to say it didn’t matter. But exposing Lee to public ridicule, holding him up to the world as a liar, was even more important. Those promises had been made in front of a number of Lee’s people. They knew the truth and, unless they perjured themselves, the public would know the truth when I had my day in court.

  I also knew Lee would interpret dropping the ninth cause of action as a sign of weakness and I wanted him to know I was prepared to pursue the case as long and as vigorously as he was.

  Lipschutz patiently explained his reasoning, saying that the judge was likely to dismiss the palimony cause on the grounds that a contract for sex couldn’t be enforced; that Liberace, Strote, and Heller (who would be far better witnesses than I) would probably be believed if they said that Lee never made any promises to me about caring for me financially. Lipschutz added that, if a judge ruled against the ninth cause of action in a preliminary hearing, we’d be in the unfortunate position of starting the real trial looking like losers. He said our proof was much stronger in the other areas of the case and he wanted to do everything in his power to get us into court looking like winners.

  Unfortunately, I wasn’t thinking very clearly in those days. Logically, everything Lipschutz said made sense but, emotionally, I couldn’t go along with it. I wanted to punish Lee and the best way to do that was to go right on reminding the public, through the palimony portion of the case, that Lee was gay. It was his Achilles’ heel.

  That proved to be a mistake. Predictably, one of Lee’s attorney’s pretrial activities was to file a summary judgment motion requesting the ninth cause of action be dropped. A hearing on the motion was set for February 1983. Disaster struck when Lipschutz had a heart attack a couple of days before the scheduled hearing. By then I was of the opinion that Lipschutz was better suited to handle some of the aspects of my case. Rosenthal asked for a continuance. But the judge refused to grant one, saying that as long as I had legal representation he saw no reason to delay. Just as Lipschutz had predicted, the judge dismissed the ninth cause of action on the grounds that a contract for sex can’t be enforced.

  Lee and his attorneys had won the first of the many legal battles. Then Lee, who’d already demonstrated his masterful use of the media, gave an interview to Neil Karlen of Newsweek concerning the results of the hearing. The Newsweek article said, in part: “In 1982 Scott Thorson filed a $113 million palimony suit charging that Liberace had promised to support the Las Vegas dancer in exchange for sexual services.

  “‘It didn’t take the judge long to decide I was being exploited,’ says Liberace of the case, which was thrown out of a Los Angeles court in February.

  “‘I could have stopped the whole thing before it started by paying off,’ he remembers, ‘but that would have been blackmail and blackmail never ends.’

  “Today, the tabloid slander finally behind him, Liberace gratefully acknowledges his fans’ willingness to forgive, forget or not care.”

  The article made marvelous reading for Lee’s loyal admirers. But it was far from accurate. First, I had never ever claimed to be a Las Vegas dancer. Second, the case wasn’t thrown out of court. The other twelve causes of action had yet to be settled and, despite many attempts to get them dismissed too, would still be pending when Lee became ill. Third, if anyone had been guilty of blackmail, it was Lee when he withheld my property. Fourth, there had been enough slander on both sides of the dispute to last a lifetime. As soon as Lipschutz was back on his feet, he filed a libel action on my behalf against Newsweek and Liberace.

  My case spawned a number of corollary cases. The original suit included Schmerin, Schnelker, Strote, and Heller as Liberace’s codefendants. Early in the legal maneuvering, Rosenthal decided to drop Strote from the suit to narrow the case’s focus. But he didn’t obtain a release from Strote. Strote filed a suit for malicious prosecution against Rosenthal and me. Liberace, Heller, and Schmerin filed countercomplaints. We filed a libel action against the Globe, Mike Snow, and Wayne Johansen. Marie Brummet sued the Globe to clear her husband’s name.

  Michael Rosenthal was suing Joel Strote for slander, claiming that Strote, in the presence of Rosenthal’s father and others, said: “How is your love life with Scott Thorson? I understand that love blooms between the two of you. Which one of you is the husband and which is the wife?” It’s an unfortunate fact of life that all my attorneys, none of whom was gay, would be subject to such speculation. Being a lawyer, Rosenthal struck back in court.

  My battle with Lee resulted in two other suits. Tracy Schnelker sued Liberace for the part Schnelker had been caused to play in the whole affair. That case was still pending when Lee died. Last, a criminal case against Dirk Summers had been filed for Summers’s part in promoting and taking money for the bogus golf tournament. By the end of 1983 we were all suit slaphappy. I lost track of the many times I had depositions taken.

  We battled every step of the way. Simple things such as the place Lee would be deposed became major points of conflict. He wanted to be deposed in Las Vegas. Inadvisable, said Lipschutz, in view of the fact that the case would be tried in Los Angeles Superior Court. Then Lee insisted on being deposed in Strote’s office. For psychological reasons, Lipschutz didn’t want Lee questioned on what Lee regarded as friendly turf. After Lipschutz filed a motion to enforce a Los Angeles deposition, Lee agreed to be deposed in the Los Angeles court stenographer’s offices.

  The lawyers wrangled over everything, from permitting me to take cigarette breaks during my depositions to how to guarantee everyone’s safety and privacy during the proceedings. Lee’s people said they feared Rosenthal and I would turn the depositions into a media circus. My lawyers argued that I feared f
or my personal safety because of what I had construed as threats against my life from people associated with Lee.

  Early in the case, Rosenthal and I decided we wanted Joel Strote removed as Lee’s attorney of record because he’d acted as my counsel on a number of occasions in the past. Technically, we were right: it did create a conflict of interest. But Lipschutz argued that Strote, although a competent lawyer, was far from being the best in the business. Lipschutz feared that having Strote dismissed would result in Lee’s hiring a heavy hitter. Again, we overruled Lipschutz’s very sound advice. And Lee did just what Lipschutz predicted; he brought in Marshall Grossman, a senior member of one of the most powerful and prestigious law firms in Los Angeles.

  From that day on, it was to be an uphill battle for my side. Grossman was tops and he had unlimited funds at his disposal. Lipschutz was tops, but hampered by my inability to supply him with funds and by a sometimes obstructive client. My continued use of cocaine didn’t help me or my case. During my depositions, Grossman, who’d been thoroughly briefed on all my weaknesses, did everything in his power to upset me, to keep me off balance. And he succeeded. I didn’t make a very good impression as a witness on my own behalf. To my surprise, neither did Lee. He tried to impress the court reporter by telling her how much money he made an hour and, in general, he seemed unprepared. I hadn’t seen him for months and it was hard to control my emotions while I listened to him giving his version of how our relationship had ended. Looking back, the whole experience has a nightmarish quality.

  Month after month and year after year, Lee used his money, his power, and his popularity to hammer away at us. I don’t know why we didn’t give up. I had no money to pay my attorneys, no money to hire investigators, no money to pay for depositions. The money from the original settlement had been quickly spent on lawyers’ fees and cocaine. Getting a job wasn’t easy because everyone in Hollywood knew, thanks to the tabloids, that I had a drug problem. I’d finally gone to work at United Postal Centers in West Hollywood, and worked there until I began this book, thanks to a very understanding employer named Carole Rosen. But I had no skills and it wasn’t a high-paying job. I made barely enough to support myself, let alone fight a prolonged legal battle. Lipschutz covered almost all of the case’s costs out of his own pocket. By 1985 I think he’d invested more than $10,000 in my suit. It had become a matter of principle for him, a David and Goliath battle.

  There were occasional good days. In particular, one day before Strote’s dismissal from the case, he was making an attempt to get the presiding judge to dismiss my entire suit. Strote asserted that once I had signed the original April 22, 1982, agreement—which stated I was not forced to sign it—I had no further right to sue.

  The judge looked at him long and hard before commenting, “Are you saying you believe I could force you to sign an agreement not to sue by pointing a gun at your head—and you couldn’t void the agreement by proving you weren’t forced to sign it?”

  Strote replied confidently, “Yes, your honor.” The judge grimaced and said Strote could not convince him that that was the law of California. Lipschutz broke into a contented smile. But he seldom had much to smile about. I think he was probably the only man in the country who believed I’d told the truth about my past and my life with Lee. On his own, at his own expense, Lipschutz had traveled around California investigating my background, talking to people who’d known me when I was growing up. During his travels Lipschutz had come to know a very different man from the spoiled, drug-addicted, emotional mess who emerged from a five-year relationship with Liberace. Lipschutz had come to know the independent self-starter I’d been. More than anyone else, he’d learned how much I’d lost by loving Lee. Not money. Not cars. Not my home. What I’d lost was myself. Lipschutz knew it and I think that’s why he fought so hard on my behalf. His motivation sure as hell wasn’t the money.

  While I slogged through each day, trying to get my head straight and usually failing, Lee had embarked on a relationship with Cary James similar to the relationship he and I had shared. Like me, James went everywhere with Lee. I occasionally saw them pictured together in some periodical and it hurt like hell at first. Gradually, the pain faded as I filled my life with other things. But it was never easy.

  Early in 1986 Lee embarked on a powerful public-relations ploy. He began a book that would reinforce the bogus life history he’d been selling the public for so long. It would be published by Harper & Row in late 1986, and titled The Wonderful Private World of Liberace.

  After all the scandal, all the gossip, Lee said he wanted to set the record straight. The second paragraph of the book states: “This latest effort deals with my private life, the offstage person few people know about.” The text was classic Liberace: a mixture of truth, half-truth, and outright lies. On the first page Lee detailed the type of questions he faced when interviewed by the media.

  To the query, “Have you had a face-lift?” he replied, “Not yet. But if you think I’ve already had one, it means I can still wait until my friend and authority on the subject, Phyllis Diller, tells me it’s necessary.”

  In fact, Lee had had two face-lifts and a deep skin peel.

  To the query, “Is that your real hair?” he replied, “The hair is real—but the color only my hairdresser knows.”

  In fact, the hair was real but it had grown on someone else’s head.

  The fiction continued. Lee, who’d always refused to discuss his sex life prior to my suit, titled chapter 16, “How I Lost My Virginity.” In it he claimed to have been seduced at the age of sixteen by a blues singer named Bea Haven. Then he wrote, “The thrill of making it with an older woman diminished as I grew older. Younger girls started to represent more of a challenge, probably because of their innocence.”

  I was disgusted by Lee’s lies. The text bore no resemblance to the things he’d told me, unless you substituted football player for blues singer, men for women, and boys for girls. Then and only then does it come near the truth. The book is larded with pictures, including one of Cary James, Lee, and Kenny Rogers, all standing with their arms around each other. James is simply labeled as “my friend.” In other publications he’d been called a chauffeur, a secretary, a companion—all Lee’s usual euphemisms.

  Looking through the lavishly illustrated text brings back a lot of memories of the houses we bought and decorated together, the dogs we both loved, the Liberace family—and most especially Frances, who I had come to care for. Those photographs fill me with nostalgia. But the misrepresentations in the text are so blatant that I get angry every time I read it. The one that upsets me the most deals with Liberace’s health.

  By 1986 rumors about Lee’s health were circulating throughout the entertainment industry and the gay community. I don’t know for certain if he knew he had AIDS when he wrote the following words, but he certainly had to know he was a very sick man. For the first time in his life, Lee no longer had a weight problem.

  He wrote: “He [meaning Lee’s physician, Dr. Elias Ghanem] was concerned over reports that I’d lost thirty pounds on a—would you believe—watermelon diet? In subsequent testing, he discovered I’d robbed my system of essential nutrients, which was causing me to experience a letdown in my normal high energy level.

  “Some of his testing required special equipment and had to be performed in a local hospital. As a result, false rumors started to circulate about my health. According to the gossips, you name it, and I had it.

  “Let me assure you, I’ve never felt better in my life!”

  These words ring with pathetic bravado now. They were written by a man who, in less than a year, would be dead of AIDS.

  27

  By the beginning of 1986 the legal battle was so acrimonious that my attorney, Ernst Lipschutz, and Lee’s attorney, Marshall Grossman, had developed a bitter, adversarial relationship. Twelve of my suit’s original causes of action had yet to be settled despite the fact that Grossman had done everything in his power, using every weapon in his va
st legal arsenal, to get the rest of my case dismissed. Everyone involved, from principals to witnesses to counsel, had been sucked into the mud-slinging, name-calling mire of accusation and counteraccusation. I’d never anticipated that so much time, energy, and talent would be consumed by what had started out to be nothing more than a lover’s quarrel.

  There seemed to be no way to turn back. As Lee said in one of his depositions, he was caught in a “war he never made.” There were times when I too wished I could forget the whole thing. But we’d long since passed the point of no return. The suit had developed a life of its own. By then our attorneys had an interest in winning that was so consuming that at times it seemed as if they were the injured parties.

  I sat in on the first of Lee’s depositions, feeling completely miserable every time I looked at him. Over the years it became easier to remember our relationship. I could look at him, even say a civil hello, without feeling torn by the desire to hit him or hug him. But we hadn’t spoken in private and I didn’t think we ever would. Cary James was still with him and, so far, Lee showed no signs of tiring of his new companion.

  It came as a bolt out of the blue when Lee called me early in 1986. His voice sounded unchanged—still as familiar to me as my own. I remember thinking my imagination was playing tricks on me when I heard Lee say, “Scott, is that you?”

  We’d been at war so long that I’d long ago given up any hope of reconciliation. But suddenly the four years since our last conversation disappeared. I felt as if we had talked just yesterday, as if all the bitterness, the anger had happened between two other men.