Liberace: The Rhinestones and the Lawsuit

He performed in a cape of Norwegian blue shadow fox fur and a candelabra made of Swarovski crystal. The audience understood what they were watching. Liberace understood what they understood. The lawsuit was about what no one was supposed to say out loud.

Wladziu Valentino Liberace was, through the nineteen fifties, nineteen sixties, and nineteen seventies, the highest-paid entertainer in the world by several accounts, earning more per year than any other performer in any medium. His Las Vegas residencies were sold out before they were announced. His stage costumes were theatrical to a degree that made theatrical seem insufficient: gold lamé, rhinestones, candelabras, matching automobiles, a white mink that required two assistants to carry. The act was extravagant and campy and enormously popular, and everyone in the audience had their own private understanding of what it meant.

In nineteen fifty-nine, the London Daily Mirror published a column suggesting that Liberace was homosexual. He sued for libel and won. The paper paid damages. Liberace testified that the implication was false. His lawyers argued, successfully, that the column had damaged his reputation and his income. He maintained a carefully constructed public persona of bachelorhood and family devotion for the rest of his life.

He died on February fourth, nineteen eighty-seven, roughly three months after his final stage performance at Radio City Music Hall on November second, nineteen eighty-six. The official cause of death, confirmed after the fact, was AIDS-related complications. He had never publicly acknowledged his sexuality or his diagnosis.

His museum on East Tropicana Avenue, which opened in nineteen seventy-nine and closed in two thousand ten, displayed the costumes, the pianos, the cars, and the candelabras. It did not address the rest. Former companions documented his private life after his death. The record is what the record is.