LIBERACE TRIVIA
Q.When did Liberace open the Museum?
A. Liberace opened the Museum on April 15, 1979
Q.Where was Liberace born and when?
A. Liberace was born on May 16, 1919 in West Allis, Wisconsin.
Q.Where did Liberace get the idea for the candelabra on his piano?
A. He saw the candelabra being used on a piano in a 1945 movie, “A Song to Remember”, which was based on the life of Chopin.
Q.How old was Liberace when he began to play the piano?
A. He began to play the piano around the age of four.
Q.What is Liberace’s real name?
A. His full name is Walter (Wladziu in Polish) Valentino Liberace.
Q.What religion was Liberace?
A. He was a Roman Catholic. He also had an aunt who was a Franciscan nun.
Q. Where were Liberace’s parents born?
A. His father, Salvatore, was born in Formia, Italy. His mother, Frances was born in Menasha, Wisconsin.
Q.How many children were in the Liberace family?
A. There were four children; George, the oldest; Angie, Liberace and Rudy.
Q.Who was Liberace’s first idol?
A. He first idolized Paderewski, the Polish pianist, but as a teenager he admired Eddy Duchin.
Q.What nationalities were Liberace’s parents?
A. His father was Italian and his mother was Polish.
Q.When did Liberace begin to use only one name?
A. He began to use the one name in 1942 and legalized it in 1950.
Q.What high school did Liberace graduate from and what year?
A. He graduated in 1937 from West Milwaukee High School.
Q.What book greatly influenced Liberace early in his career?
A. It was called, “The Magic of Believing” by Claude Bristol.
Q.What was Liberace’s early musical training?
A. Liberace had a 17-yr. Scholarship to the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music from the
age of 7.
Q.What was the first recording Liberace ever made?
A. It was the “Ritual Fire Dance” b/w “Begin the Beguine”, on the Signature record label, in 1947.
Q.When and where did Liberace wear his first costume?
A. The first “costume” worn by Liberace was a white tuxedo at the Hollywood Bowl
in 1952.
Q.Did Liberace have various costume designers?
A. He had various designers over the years. They were: Sy Devore (1950’s); Frank Ortiz (early 1960’s); Frank Acuna (mid 1960’s to 1970’s); and Michael Travis (early 1970’s to 1986).
Q.What were some of Liberace’s favorite hobbies?
A. Liberace enjoyed cooking, shopping for antiques, interior decorating, collecting miniature pianos and his dogs.
Q.How many full-size pianos did Liberace own?
A. At one time, Liberace owned 39 full-size pianos.
Q.When did Liberace first add the “Dancing Waters” to his act?
A. He first began to use them in 1974 at the Las Vegas Hilton.
Q.What years did Liberace perform at Radio City Music Hall?
A. They were 1984, 1985 and 1986.
Q.Who designed Liberace’s furs?
A. They were designed by Anna Nateece, fur designer for many famous celebrities.
Q.Where did Liberace get the nickname “Lee”?
A. As a young boy, he was known as “Wally”, but in later years his friends called him “Lee”.
Q.What was the name of Liberace’s themesong?
A. “I’ll Be Seeing You”.
Q.What was Liberace’s approximate weight and height?
A. He weighed approximately 185 lbs. And was 5 ft. 10 in. in height.
Q.When did Liberace begin to play popular songs with the classics?
A. It was in 1938 when Liberace first played the “Three Little Fishes” as an encore to an all classical concert.
Q.Did Liberace ever appear at Carnegie Hall?
A. He performed in concert at Carnegie Hall on September 23, 1953.
Q.Why did Liberace come up with the Plexiglass lid on his piano?
A. The idea came up during the filming of his 1950’s television series, so the view would not be obstructed for the TV cameras.
Q.Does Liberace have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame?
A. Liberace has 2 stars on the Walk of Fame; the first star is for “Outstanding Achievement in Television”, and the second is for “Outstanding Achievement in Recording”.
Q.What is Liberace’s favorite flower?
A. They were lilacs, because they were always in bloom around his birthday – May 16.
Q.Where were Liberace’s final ‘live’ performances?
A. They were at Radio City Music Hall in NYC, October 16 to November 2, 1986.
Q.Which of Liberace’s homes had the famous piano-shaped pool?
A. It was the Sherman Oaks, California home that he owned in the 1950’s.
Q.Who was Liberace’s favorite saint?
A. It was St. Anthony. He also had a shrine in his honor in his Palm Springs home.
Q.When did Liberace make his first television debut?
A. Liberace first appeared on television as a summer replacement for the Dinah Shore Show in 1952. A short time after that, the “Liberace Show” was filmed and syndicated in 217 cities throughout the United States and overseas.
Q.How many hours a day did Liberace practice the piano?
A. In the very early years he would practice 4-5 hours a day; but in later years, he would save all his energy for the performance unless he was learning a new piece of music.
Q.When did Liberace first begin appearing in Las Vegas?
A. Liberace’s first engagement in Las Vegas was in 1944 at the Last Frontier Hotel.
Q.Was Liberace’sfather a musician?
A. His father played the French horn in the John Phillip Sousa band.
Q.Where is the Liberace family crypt?
A. It is located at Forest Lawn Memorial Cemetery in Hollywood Hills, California.
Q.When was Liberace’s famous record-breaking appearance at Madison Square Garden in New York City?
A. It took place on May 26, 1954, with 17,000 people in attendance and grossing a total of $138,000., for one evening’s performance!
Q.When did Liberace first begin to use Baldwin pianos?
A. He first went under contract for the Baldwin Piano Co. in 1948.
Q.Did Liberace ever use a stage name?
A. For a brief time, Liberace went by the name of “Walter BusterKeys”.
Q.How long did it take to create one of Liberace’s costumes?
A. The more elaborate costumes took 6 to 18 months to create.
Q.What type of music did Liberace prefer?
A. Although he like all kinds of music, his favorite composers were Frederic Chopin and George Gershwin.
Q.Did Liberace receive any gold records?
A. He received six; Liberace at the Piano (1952); An Evening With Liberace (1953); Liberace By Candlelight (1953); Concertos For You (1953); The Best of Liberace (1965); The Impossible Dream (1970).
Q.When was Liberace’s final televison appearance?
A. His last appearance was on the “Oprah Winfrey Show”, December 25, 1986.
Q.What elementary school did Liberace attend in Wisconsin?
A. It was Pershing Elementary School.
Q.Where did Liberace acquire all his famous stage jewelry?
A. Most were given to him as gifts by various hotel owners and other heads of government. The piano ring for instance, was a gift from Barron Hilton of the Hilton Hotel chain. The amethyst ring was a gift from Queen Elizabeth II.
Q.When and where did Liberace get deathly ill in the 1960’s?
A. It was in November 1963 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Liberace was diagnosed with uremic poisoning after inhaling carbon tetrachloride fumes used for cleaning his costumes. Although the prognosis was grim, he made a miraculous recovery thanks to a mysterious “white nun” who appeared to him while in a coma in the hospital.
Q.What major hotels did Liberace perform at in Las Vegas?
A. The Last Frontier, The Riviera, The Aladdin, the Sahara, the El Cortez, the original MGM Grand (now Ballys), Caesars Palace and the Las Vegas Hilton.
Q.I understand Liberace opened his Hollywood Hills home as a museum in the 1970’s. Why was it closed?
A. It opened in March 1975 and was closed in May of that same year due to city ordinances.
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