Younger generations might not know much about Liberace, who reigned as the world’s highest-paid performer for more than two decades. Jonathan Warren, chairman of the Liberace Foundation for Performing and Creative Arts, says they’re missing a huge piece of Las Vegas’ lexicon.
Władziu Valentino Liberace first arrived in Las Vegas in 1944, working as a pianist. His rise to fame, which included TV and several films, predated the Rat Pack and the French showgirl productions that made early Las Vegas an entertainment destination. It has even been posited that he invented the Vegas residency with his shows at the Riviera during the 1950s. (He later performed at the Las Vegas Hilton—now the Westgate—in the ’70s.)
“This guy creates the genre. He’s the first showman on the Las Vegas Strip,” Warren says. “He creates that whole over-the-top lifestyle, that luxury for the fun of it, that, We’re not taking it so seriously. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. That all generates from Liberace.”
‘Liberace: Real and Beyond’
Liberace: Real & Beyond, a new exhibit at the Nevada State Museum co-produced with the Liberace Foundation, reframes Mr. Showmanship using photographs and artifacts to highlight the more intimate dimensions of his life and his immense impact on pop culture. It takes viewers through six decades, from his upbringing in the Midwest through the peaks and valleys of his career and behind the candelabra into his love of cooking for friends and views on civil rights.
“He’s been enjoying quite the renaissance at the moment,” Warren says.
Celebrating Liberace has proven controversial in the past. Throughout his life, Liberace hid his sexuality from the public eye, and his career suffered at times from accusations and rumors that he was gay. When the artist died of AIDS-related pneumonia at age 67 in 1987, “It was very politicized and tied to gay rights movements,” Warren says.
“We had congressmen saying, ‘If we didn’t have guys like Liberace, we wouldn’t have AIDS. … He got what he bargained for,’ and that kind of thing. That’s how ugly it was. And that’s what turned a society against him, that would have [otherwise] memorialized him, in large part.”
In lieu of fan gatherings, memorials or tributes, Las Vegas officials and the public largely moved on without giving one of the world’s greatest performers a proper sendoff.
‘Liberace: Real and Beyond’
But 36 years after Liberace’s death, the museum at the Springs Preserve will shine a light on his life and career through the end of the year. Clark County also honored the showman in 2022, by renaming Karen Avenue, in East Las Vegas’ Winchester neighborhood, Liberace Avenue.
Additionally, a local restaurateur has revived Liberace’s shuttered restaurant, Tivoli Gardens, which opened in 1983 and operated until just before the end of his life. “He would love to cook for people, [and] this was the ideal place to be able to do it on a big scale,” Warren says. “The last three years of his life, [that] was his passion project.”
For financial reasons, the foundation sold the restaurant’s building in 2013. The space, which features an indoor garden restaurant, English pub-style bar and mirror-covered piano bar, has hosted many tenants since.
“Then, finally [it] gets turned over to Sacbe Meling of Pancho’s Vegan Tacos. And he turns out to be the most unlikely Liberace fan you ever saw,” Warren says.
The new Tivoli Gardens had a soft opening in May and continues hosting events, reflecting a transforming and ever-growing legacy.
“I think the subject matter surrounding him has changed. Nobody’s as interested in the sex as they used to be. It used to be that they were very much focused on anything salacious,” Warren says. “And so that has allowed people to focus on other things about the man … [and they’re] pretty fascinating.”
LIBERACE: REAL & BEYOND Through December 31, Thursday-Monday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m., $10-$19. Nevada State Museum, lasvegasnvmuseum.org.
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