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Liberace was born in West Allis, Wisconsin in a musical family.
He was a classically trained pianist with wide experience playing popular music as a young man. As his classical career developed, he found that his whimsical encores, playing pop songs and marches, were going over better than his renditions of the classical repertoire, so he changed his act from classics with a bit of pop, to pop with a bit of classics. The great pianist, Paderewski, a family friend, advised him to follow his own example and bill himself under his last name only.
He had a network television program in the 1950s. His brother George led the band backing up Liberace on the program.
Later in life he performed regularly in Las Vegas, Nevada.
He was known for his extravagant costumes, his highly-coloured style of piano-playing, and his personal charm and self-deprecating wit.
In 1957 he sued the Daily Mirror for an article by veteran columnist Cassandra (William Connor). The article included the words "fruit-flavoured". Liberace claimed libel, as fruit was an American euphemism for homosexual. Liberace committed perjury, won the suit and was awarded damages. The article was vitriolic, the homophobic aspect was a result of Liberace's desire to present a "straight" image to the public. Years later, Liberace died of AIDS.
For years Liberace had joked "I don't mind the bad reviews, but George his manager cries all the way to the bank.". The £8000 ($22,400) damages he received led Liberace to coin his now famous catchphrase "I cried all the way to the bank!"
There is now a Liberace Museum in Las Vegas, containing many of his stage costumes, cars and lavishly-decorated pianos, along with numerous citations for philanthropic acts.
Article licensed under the GNU FDL. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Liberace"