Liberace: An American Boy

by Darden Asbury Pyron

  12. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 68.

  13. Although Liberace dates his parent’s union to 1909 and places it in Menasha, legal documents establish the September 1910 date and the Milwaukee place. See the Liberaces’ divorce, Case No. 173-705, Aug. 8, 1941, Circuit Court, Milwaukee County, Milwaukee County Courthouse, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

  14. For the physical description, see Salvatore Liberace’s naturalization papers at the Liberace Museum, Las Vegas, and also photographs of both him and Frances in that collection, reproduced in this text.

  15. See, for example, her photograph at the Liberace Museum.

  16. Thorson, Behind the Candelabra, 7.

  17. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 53.

  18. Thomas, Liberace, 6.

  19. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 273.

  20. Ibid.

  21. Ibid.

  22. Ibid., 59.

  23. Ibid., 54. Despite Liberace’s testimony about the site of his brother’s birth, George’s obituary in the Los Angeles Times, Oct. 17, 1983, lists his birthplace as Menasha, Wisconsin; see also the bibliographical data on George Liberace in Karl B. Johnson, Liberace: A Collecting Guide to the Recordings of Liberace, and His Brother George (Tucson, Ariz.: John Carlson Press, 1994), 16.

  24. For Valentino as a Liberace family name, see the photographic portrait of Salvatore Liberace’s father at the Liberace Museum.

  25. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 53.

  26. Ibid., 47, 54. See also Liberace, The Wonderful, Private World of Liberace (New York: Harper and Row, 1986), 34, for an illustration of Frances “behind the counter at her (Nina’s) Fruit Shoppe which she expanded into a grocery and deli through her hard work.”

  27. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 47, 54.

  28. See West Allis Directory, (published every other year) 1918, 1921, 1923, and 1925.

  29. “He Dusts Off Stories after Death of ‘Lee,’” Feb. 8, 1987, Liberace File #70, Milwaukee Public Library.

  30. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 63, 64.

  31. Liberace, The Things I Love, ed. Tony Palmer (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1976), 82.

  32. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 160.

  33. Ibid., 48.

  34. Ibid.

  35. Ibid., 54–55.

  36. Liberace, The Things I Love, 51.

  37. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 59.

  38. Ibid.

  39. Ibid., 55, also 54.

  40. Ibid., 55.

  41. Ibid., 56.

  42. Ibid., 56–58.

  43. Thorson, Behind the Candelabra, 169; 8–9; 7; 9–10.

  44. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 59.

  45. Thorson, Behind the Candelabra, 10, 34, and 174.

  46. “Band Leader, Speech Expert Helped Liberace,” Feb. 7, 1987, Liberace File #60, Milwaukee Public Library.

  47. Ibid.

  48. Thorson, Behind the Candelabra, 10–11.

  TWO

  1. The photograph was reprinted in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on February 2, 1987. See copy in the Liberace File, Milwaukee Public Library.

  2. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 62, 71, 63.

  3. “Liberace Out-Glitzed Hometown,” Feb. 7, 1987, Liberace File #71, Milwaukee Public Library.

  4. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 51.

  5. See photographs in the Liberace Museum.

  6. Robin Leach, “Liberace in His Own Words,” Star, Feb. 17, 1987.

  7. See photographs in the Liberace Museum, Las Vegas.

  8. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 52. Why his grandmother should have been speaking in some Germanic rather than in a Polish dialect is interesting in itself. Liberace elsewhere affirms a German connection. While the pianist knew or spoke little of his genealogy, he does relate that his mother’s mother had lived in Berlin, and had supposedly worked there with the Polish virtuoso Paderewski when both were young.

  9. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 51, 52.

  10. Ibid., 68.

  11. N.t., n.d., Liberace File #7, Milwaukee Public Library.

  12. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 68.

  13. Liberace, Wonderful, Private World, 36.

  14. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 68.

  15. Thorson, Behind the Candelabra, 8.

  16. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 69; for other evidence of their employment, see the Milwaukee city directories between 1931 and 1937.

  17. “Liberace: The One and Only,” July 23, 1982, Liberace File #36, Milwaukee Public Library. The end of this article states that when the showman repeated this story to a Milwaukee audience long after, the local supervisor of social services for Milwaukee County checked out the matter and discovered that the family had received formal government assistance in the amount of $100.

  18. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 161, 259.

  19. In addition to the city directories for this period, see also Liberace, Wonderful, Private World, 39.

  20. This information is drawn from the city directories of this period, and also from “Elder Liberace Dead,” Apr. 28, 1977, Liberace File #28, Milwaukee Public Library.

  21. Thorson, Behind the Candelabra, 8.

  22. “Band Leader, Speech Expert Helped Liberace,” Feb. 5, 1987, Liberace File #60, Milwaukee Public Library.

  23. “He Dusts Off Stories,” Feb. 6, 1987, Liberace File #70, Milwaukee Public Library.

  24. See the divorce proceedings, Milwaukee County Court.

  25. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 271, 272.

  26. Ibid.

  27. Ibid., 275, 271, 272.

  28. Ibid., 272. As noted above, here is another manifestation of Liberace’s sense of deprivation. The reality is harder to calculate, most specifically with respect to his little brother. One of the younger sibling’s friends, John Romanos, remembered Rudy’s great model-railroad layout. “He had Lionels and American Flyers. The attic was all set up with trains.” “Liberace Out-Glitzed Hometown,” July 23, 1982, Liberace File #71, Milwaukee Public Library.

  29. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 75. See also the Angie interview, in “Liberace: The One And Only,” July 23, 1982, Liberace File #36, Milwaukee Public Library.

  30. “Band Leader Helped Liberace,” Feb. 5, 1987, Liberace File #60, Milwaukee Public Library.

  31. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 72, 286. See also Thomas, Liberace, 7–8.

  32. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 71.

  33. Thorson, Behind the Candelabra, 10.

  34. N.t., n.d., Liberace File #7, Milwaukee Public Library.

  35. Thorson, Behind the Candelabra, 10.

  36. See the Parish records among the files of the Church of the Latter Day Saints in Greenfield, Wisconsin.

  37. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 156. In differentiating between the “aesthetic” and the “theological” attractions of the church, I have profited enormously from discussions with my son-in-law, Alex Martinez.

  38. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 53.

  39. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990), 140.

  40. John Rechy, The Sexual Outlaw: A Documentary (New York: Grove Press 1984; originally published 1977), 66–67.

  41. Thorson, Behind the Candelabra, 14, 10.

  42. N.t., n.d, Liberace File #7, Milwaukee Public Library.

  43. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography 54–55.

  44. N.t., n.d., Liberace File #7, Milwaukee Public Library.

  45. Ibid.

  46. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 55, 67.

  47. Ibid., 62.

  48. Ibid., 63.

  49. Adam Zamoyski, Paderewski (New York: Athenaeum, 1982).

  50. Ibid.

  51. “Liberace Coming Home for Show; Will Make His Third Movie Soon,” Mar. 29, 1951, Liberace File #2, Milwaukee Public Library.

  52. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiog
raphy, 66.

  53. Ibid.

  54. Ibid.

  55. Ibid., 67.

  56. Wisconsin College of Music Bulletin, Season of 1930–1. Milwaukee Public Library. She is also listed in the bulletin for 1932, but for no other years before or after. See also n.t., n.d., Liberace File #17, Milwaukee Public Library; “Band Leader Helped Liberace,” Feb. 5, 1987, Liberace File #60, Milwaukee Public Library.

  57. Kevin Kopelson’s treatment of Bettray-Kelly deserves attention. His discussion of Liberace’s background ignores the exigencies of the time—like the necessity to work and eat: thus, he identifies Bettray-Kelly “as somewhat middlebrow herself,” offering the proof that “after all, they both played popular music on the same Milwaukee radio station, and at more or less the same time.” Kopelson, Beethoven’s Kiss: Pianism, Perversion, and the Mastery of Desire (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1996), 160.

  58. “Band Leader Helped Liberace,” Feb. 5, 1987, Liberace File #60, Milwaukee Public Library.

  59. If he scants the social reality of the Great Depression as they affected these characters, Kopelson is much better on the psychological meaning of Florence Kelly in her student’s life. He calls her “another mother figure” but adds, immediately, “or father figure.” He extends the trope a little later: “Liszt and Chopin, father and mother, are one woman to Liberace—Bettray-Kelly.” Kopelson, Beethoven’s Kiss, 160.

  60. N.t., n.d., Liberace File #17, Milwaukee Public Library.

  61. N.t., n.d., Liberace File #7, Milwaukee Public Library.

  62. N.t., n.d., Liberace File #17, Milwaukee Public Library.

  63. Ibid.

  64. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 76.

  65. N.t., n.d., Liberace File #7, Milwaukee Public Library.

  66. Although Kelly remembered the date as 1931, a dated photograph in the Liberace Museum places the year as 1930.

  67. N.t., n.d., Liberace File #17, Milwaukee Public Library.

  68. Ibid.

  69. N.t., n.d., Liberace File #10, Milwaukee Public Library.

  70. Ibid.

  71. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 79.

  72. N.t., n.d., Liberace File #17, Milwaukee Public Library.

  73. Ibid.

  74. N.t., n.d., Liberace File #10, Milwaukee Public Library.

  THREE

  1. “Liberace Coming Home,” Mar. 29, 1951, Liberace File #2, Milwaukee Public Library.

  2. “He Dusts Off Stories,” Feb. 6, 1987, Liberace File #70, Milwaukee Public Library.

  3. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 75, 73.

  4. Ibid., 75.

  5. N.t., n.d., Liberace File #7, Milwaukee Public Library; “Liberace Coming Home,” Mar. 29, 1951, Liberace File #2, Milwaukee Public Library, confirms Angie Liberace’s version of events, placing the “Fanchon and Marco revue” at the Wisconsin Theater and making the boy’s age thirteen, not ten.

  6. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 75.

  7. “Class of ’37 Remembers Liberace,” Feb. 10, 1987, Liberace File #77, Milwaukee Public Library.

  8. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 75, 72; Del Krause, interview with the author.

  9. Ibid.

  10. Ibid.

  11. “Play It Again, Wally,” Apr. 25, 1987, Liberace File #51, Milwaukee Public Library.

  12. Ibid.

  13. Del Krause interview.

  14. Thorson, Behind the Candelabra, 11.

  15. “Play It Again, Wally,” Apr, 25, 1987, Liberace File #51, Milwaukee Public Library.

  16. Del Krause interview.

  17. “Class of ’37 Remembers,” Liberace File #77, Milwaukee Public Library. Liberace himself deals with this period on page 77 of his autobiography. He refers only to the Mixers. He also dates his association to 1937 or 1938. External evidence in newspaper interviews confirms his errors in this regard. He conflated the Mixers and the Rhythm Makers, and perhaps other groups, too, and he remembered their personnel wrong, as well.

  18. Liberace, Wonderful, Private World, 39.

  19. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 78.

  20. “No Place for Liberace in His High School Band,” Detroit News, Feb. 5, 1987, cited in Jocelyn Faris, Liberace: A Bio-Bibliography (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press), 235.

  21. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 73–75.

  22. “He Dusts Off Stories,” Feb. 6, 1987, Liberace File #70, Milwaukee Public Library.

  23. “Play It Again, Wally,” Apr 25, 1987, Liberace File #51, Milwaukee Public Library.

  24. Del Krause interview.

  25. Ibid.

  26. Thorson, Behind the Candelabra, 20, 11.

  27. “Band Leader Helped Liberace,” Feb. 5, 1987, Liberace File #60. Milwaukee Public Library.

  28. Del Krause interview.

  29. “Class of ’37 Remembers,” Feb. 10, 1987, Liberace File #77, Milwaukee Public Library.

  30. Ibid.

  31. N.t., n.d., Liberace File #7, Milwaukee Public Library.

  32. “Class of ’37 Remembers,” Feb. 10, 1987, Liberace File #77, Milwaukee Public Library.

  33. N.t., n.d., Liberace File #7, Milwaukee Public Library.

  34. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 71.

  35. “Class of ’37 Remembers,” Feb. 10, 1987, Liberace File #77, Milwaukee Public Library.

  36. N.t., n.d., Liberace File #7, Milwaukee Public Library.

  37. “Liberace Whips Up Music, Muffins at His Old School,” n.d., Liberace File #3, Milwaukee Public Library.

  38. “Class of ’37 Remembers,” Feb. 10, 1987, Liberace File #77, Milwaukee Public Library.

  39. Del Krause interview.

  40. “Class of ’37 Remembers,” Feb. 10, 1987, Liberace File #77, Milwaukee Public Library.

  41. N.t., n.d., Liberace File #7, Milwaukee Public Library.

  42. Susan Sontag’s seminal essay, “Notes on Camp,” republished in Against Interpretation (New York: Dell, 1967), introduces a casual connection between camp and homosexuality. Later critics have reasserted the relationship in the strongest terms. While Sontag, with some ambivalence, discusses camp as an unpolitical or apolitical strategy in “Notes,” later critics, in the wake of political activism after Stonewall, have tended to make camp, even drag (which is camp at its height) a political activity that asserts Gay Power, challenges the social order, and attacks what is referred to as the Heterosexual Dictatorship, or Compulsory Heterosexuality. Others, however—especially radical feminists—attack the gay/camp connection—and drag, in particular—from a political perspective, on the grounds that it represents a collusion with the patriarchal order and an affirmation rather than a criticism of dominant cultural values. Against all this, Lypsinka protests that a girl just wants to have fun. For a full discussion of these ideas, see, in particular, Moe Meyer, ed, The Politics and Poetics of Camp (New York: Routledge, 1994), and David Bergman, ed., Camp Grounds: Style and Homosexuality (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press), 1993, especially Meyer’s own essay, “Under the Sign of Wilde,” in the former.

  43. For a particularly compelling treatment of popular antipathy to homosexuality, see Guy Hocquenghem, Homosexual Desire, (Durham N.C.: Duke University Press, 1993; originally published 1972), 55–61, especially. Hocquenghem takes standard Freudian definitions of homosexual paranoia and inverts them as a means of explaining societal opposition: “So it is society as a whole that defends itself against the sexualisation of its investments,” he writes, “and struggles with all its might against homosexual desublimation” (60).

  44. This response recalls the popular reaction to black troops in battle in the Civil War. After virtually every battle, sympathetic white officers protested that now no one could attack the sable troops for their want of courage or valor. The very protests tended to affirm that the normal expectation was of cowardice. Two generations after Walter Liberace pranced through the halls at West Milwaukee High School, this response remains an interesting benchmark of the community’s latent skepticism abou
t sexual deviance, particularly among the self-consciously tolerant, who seemed to think that acceptance of a homosexual or of homosexuality requires justification.

  45. Thorson, Behind the Candelabra, 16, 14.

  46. Ibid., 14.

  47. Experimentation, play, and fluidity—including the ultimate play of camp—come very close to defining essentials within the homosexual experience. In truth, in the practice or even the physics of homosexuality, it raises innumerable problems and secondary issues within and without the gay community among both adherents and detractors. Is anything normal for homosexuality? Is anything, everything up for grabs? What does this mean? Is, thus, this characteristic (or style) a manifestation of individuals’ arrested development and irresponsibility, or does it offer a positive, open model for an otherwise constricted, hidebound social order? There are other issues and problems. “Homosexual sensibility” touches upon the very nature of homosexuality itself and raises still thornier problems of the sources of gender deviancy and, by extension, of the sources and meaning of sexuality in general. Are queers born or made? Is homoeroticism a social construction? Is sexuality itself equally artificial? The academic tomes on the theme proliferate. Theorists might answer such questions one way; more often than not, even the most abstract back and fill when it comes to dealing with practical immediate concerns. These issues tangle almost every contemporary discussion of gender and gender deviation. To cite one example, Michael Bronski generally hews to a constructivist position yet has made significant forays into defining a gay sensibility: See his Culture Clash: The Making of a Gay Sensibility (Boston, Mass.: South End Press, 1984).

  48. “Class of ’37 Remembers,” Feb. 10, 1987, Liberace File #77, Milwaukee Public Library.

  49. Thorson, Behind the Candelabra, 13.

  50. N.t., n.d., Liberace File #7, Milwaukee Public Library.

  51. “Mr. Showmanship’s Stage Fashions Hard to Beat,” n.d., Liberace File #68, Milwaukee Public Library.

  52. Liberace, Liberace: An Autobiography, 79.

  53. See photograph in the collection of the Liberace Museum.

  54. The poster and the publicity shots are preserved at the Liberace Museum.

  55. “Liberace Coming Home,” Mar. 29, 1951, Liberace File #2, Milwaukee Public Library.

  56. “Our Liberace is Going Strong after 25 Years of Candlelight,” Liberace File #14, July 21, 1965, Milwaukee Public Library.