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28 June 2006
Viva Las Vegas -
Liberace
Pianist Wladziu
Valentino Liberace made his Las Vegas debut in November 1944
at the age of 25. He'd already taken the showbiz step of
changing his name, initially to 'Walter Liberace' and then
'Walter Buster Keys,' and finally dropped his first name
altogether.
On his opening night at
the Hotel Last Frontier he sized up his audience and decided
to delete several of the classical pieces, concentrating on
the boogie woogie and popular tunes. The crowd went wild,
and Liberace signed a 10 year contract with the
hotel.
By 1948 he was headlining
at some of the most prestigious hotels in some of the
largest cities in the nation - plus Las Vegas.
When Las Vegas got its
first official high rise with the opening of the nine story
Riviera in 1955, it was Liberace who struck a chord there;
his salary made him the highest paid entertainer in the
city's history.
Liberace opened at the Las
Vegas Hilton in 1972, lured by a salary of $300,000 per
week. No other Vegas headliner made more. The city became
his legal residence, and he played there about 16 weeks a
year.
An ardent collector of
art, antiques and curios, the singer used his wealth to buy
houses in many of the cities in which he worked, and
incorporated his collections into their startlingly
elaborate interior schemes. His museum, which opened in
1979, houses a sample of his antiques, custom cars and
elaborate costumes and remains a significant Las Vegas
tourist attraction, drawing well over 100,000 a
year.
As flamboyant in his
personal dress as in his taste for unusual collectibles, in
his early years Liberace had appeared clad in the concert
pianist's uniform of black tux and tails. The diamond shirt
studs, multi-coloured tuxes, capes and furs and boas,
rhinestones and sequins, all came later. The pianist was
known for his frequent dashes backstage to change tossing
back the parting quip, "Pardon me while I slip into
something more spectacular."
Las Vegas was the place
where Liberace developed his much copied stage persona, and
he packed Vegas showrooms for most of his life.
In August 1986 Liberace
returned to Caesars Palace for a two week engagement. It was
his final Las Vegas show. He died in February 1987, aged
67.
Return
to Articles index
Also see:
Viva
Las Vegas - Frank Sinatra
More than any other entertainer, Old Blue Eyes gave the city
it's sophisticated edge and glitzy image. The rise of the
singer and the Strip are inseparable.
Las
Vegas History. The Story Of
Vegas
How a tiny desert town turned into the ultimate gambling
Mecca.
Las
Vegas Showgirls
She is a beautiful creature bedecked in sequins, feathers
and always wears only the reddest lipstick. Her image is
synonymous with the glamour of the city's stages. She is the
Las Vegas showgirl and without Donn Arden she may never have
existed.
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