Quote of the Day (Liberace, Reacting to His Reviews)

"When the reviews are bad I tell my staff that they can join me as I cry all the way to the bank."—Pianist and flamboyant showman Liberace (1919-1987), Liberace: An Autobiography (1973)

From the Fifties through the Seventies, Liberace—born 100 years ago today in West Allis, Wisconsin—endured one critical brickbat after another. But as this quote indicates, he just chuckled and shrugged it off, taking solace in being one of the best-paid entertainers in America.

What he could not shrug off were suggestions that he might be homosexual. In the late 1950s, he brought a lawsuit against someone claiming exactly that. But the protests became more hollow with time, especially by the mid-1980s, when a severe weight loss was attributed to a strict watermelon diet. The coroner’s eventual verdict about his death in 1987—AIDS—merely confirmed growing suspicions about his last illness.

The mocking showman, it turned out, cared more about what people thought than he ever let on. It wasn’t just that he guarded knowledge of his sexual orientation so zealously (a “secret” that really wasn’t a secret), but that he hoped that, by setting up scholarships for deserving young musical students, he would be remembered for contributing something important to music. But most people still know him as a campy showman. 

Donning outrageous outfits like his star-spangled shorts or 200-pound “King Neptune” costume might have won him considerable attention and money, but without them, he might have won more respect for his considerable talent. (He had been a child prodigy growing up.)