VINTAGE LIBERACE SOUVENIR PROGRAM – CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS – CELEBRITIES

Description

FOR  YOUR  CONSIDERATION:
A VINTAGE SOUVENIR PROGRAM
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LIBERACE
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This auction is for a wonderful vintage:
Souvenir program of "Liberace" this program is unique it tell you about him, his brother George, it is filled with candid pictures of him at leisure and enjoying his hobbies, and also with quite a few celebrities. Behind Scenes on TV. VIP's, and reviews. The back cover is signed but it is part of this program.  If you are a fan of Liberace do not let this treasure get away from you, it is a very unique program.
Just a bit of Information on the: Famous Liberace
Władziu Valentino Liberace
(May 16, 1919 – February 4, 1987) was an American pianist, singer, and actor. A child prodigy born in Wisconsin to parents of Italian and Polish origin, Liberace enjoyed a career spanning four decades of concerts, recordings, television, motion pictures, and endorsements. At the height of his fame from the 1950s to 1970s, Liberace was the highest-paid entertainer in the world with established concert residencies in
Las Vegas
and an international touring schedule. Liberace embraced a lifestyle of flamboyant excess both on and off stage, earning the nickname "Mr. Showmanship".
Władziu Valentino Liberace (known as "Lee" to his friends and "Walter" to family) was born in
West Allis, Wisconsin
, on May 16, 1919. His father, Salvatore ("Sam") Liberace (December 9, 1885 – April 1, 1977), was an immigrant from
Formia
in the
Lazio
region of
central Italy
. His mother, Franciszka Zuchowska (August 31, 1892 – November 1, 1980), was
Polish
. Liberace had an identical twin who died at birth. He had three surviving siblings: a brother
George
(who was a violinist), a sister Angelina, and younger brother Rudy (Rudolph Valentino Liberace, named after the
actor
due to his mother's interest in show business
Liberace's father played the
French horn
in bands and cinemas but often worked as a factory worker or labourer. While Sam encouraged music in his family, his wife, Frances (despite having been a concert pianist before her marriage), believed music lessons and a record player to be unaffordable luxuries. This caused family disputes Liberace later stated, "My dad's love and respect for music created in him a deep determination to give as his legacy to the world, a family of musicians dedicated to the advancement of the art."
Liberace began playing the piano at age four. While Sam took his children to concerts to further expose them to music, he was also a taskmaster demanding high standards from the children in both practice and performance. Liberace's prodigious talent was evident from his early years. By age seven, he was capable of memorising difficult pieces. He studied the technique of the Polish pianist
Ignacy Paderewski
. At age eight, he met Paderewski backstage after a concert at the
Pabst Theatre
in
Milwaukee
. "I was intoxicated by the joy I got from the great virtuoso's playing. My dreams were filled with fantasies of following his footsteps…Inspired and fired with ambition, I began to practice with a fervour that made my previous interest in the piano look like neglect." Paderewski later became a family friend. The
Depression
was financially hard on the Liberace family. In childhood, Liberace suffered from a speech impediment, and as a teen, from the taunts of neighbourhood children, who mocked him for his
effeminate
personality, his avoidance of sports, and his fondness for cooking and the piano Liberace concentrated on his piano playing with the help of music teacher Florence Kelly, who oversaw Liberace's musical development for 10 years. He gained experience playing popular music in theaters, on local radio, for dancing classes, for clubs, and for weddings. In 1934, he played jazz piano with a school group called "The Mixers" and later with other groups. Liberace also performed in cabarets and
strip clubs
. Though Sam and Frances did not approve, their son was earning a living during hard times. For a while, Liberace adopted the stage name "Walter Busterkeys". He also showed an interest in draftsmanship, design, and painting, and became a fastidious dresser and follower of fashion. By this time, he was already displaying a penchant for turning eccentricities into attention-getting practices, and earned popularity at school, despite some making him an object of ridicule.
A participant in a formal classical music competition in 1937, Liberace was praised for his "flair and showmanship".
]
At the end of a traditional classical concert in
La Crosse
in 1939, Liberace played his first requested encore, the popular comedy song "
Three Little Fishies
". He later stated that he played the popular tune in the styles of several different classical composers. The 20-year-old played with the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
on January 15, 1940 at the
Pabst Theater
in
Milwaukee
, performing
Liszt
's
Second Piano Concerto
under the baton of
Hans Lange
, for which he received strong reviews. He also toured in the Midwest.
Between 1942 and 1944, Liberace moved away from straight
classical
performance and reinvented his act to one featuring "
pop
with a bit of classics" or as he also called it "
classical music
with the boring parts left out". In the early 1940s, he struggled in New York City, but by the mid- and late-1940s, he was performing in night clubs in major cities around the United States and "gained national exposure through his performance contracts with the
Statler
and
Radisson
hotel chains", largely abandoning the classical music altogether. He changed from a classical pianist to an entertainer and showman, unpredictably and whimsically mixing the serious with light fare, e.g.,
Chopin
with "
Home on the Range
".For a while, he played piano along with a
phonograph
on stage. The gimmick helped gain him attention. He also added interaction with the audience—taking requests, talking with the patrons, making jokes, giving lessons to chosen audience members. He also began to pay greater attention to such details as staging, lighting, and presentation. The transformation to entertainer was driven by Liberace's desire to connect directly with his audiences, and secondarily from the reality of the difficult competition in the classical piano world.
In 1943, he began to appear in
Soundies
(the 1940s precursor to music videos). He recreated two flashy numbers from his nightclub act, the standards "
Tiger Rag
" and "
Twelfth Street Rag
". In these films, he was billed as Walter Liberace. Both "Soundies" were later released to the home-movie market by
Castle Films
. In 1944, he made his first appearances in Las Vegas, which later became his principal venue. He was playing at the best clubs, finally appearing at the Persian Room in 1945, with
Variety
proclaiming, "Liberace looks like a cross between
Cary Grant
and
Robert Alda
. He has an effective manner, attractive hands which he spotlights properly, and with al, rings the bell in the dramatically lighted, well-presented, showmanly routine. He should snowball into box office."
The Chicago Times
was similarly impressed: He "made like Chopin one minute and then turns on a
Chico Marx
bit the next.
Liberace with actress
Maureen O'Hara
during a court hearing in 1957
During this time, Liberace worked to refine his act. He added the
candelabrum
as his trademark, inspired by a similar prop in the Chopin biopic
A Song to Remember
(1945). He adopted "Liberace" as his
stage name
, making a point in press releases that it was pronounced "Liber-Ah-chee". He wore white tie and tails for better visibility in large halls. Besides clubs and occasional work as an accompanist and rehearsal pianist, Liberace played for private parties, including those at the
Park Avenue
home of millionaire oilman
J. Paul Getty
. By 1947, he was billing himself as "Liberace—the most amazing piano virtuoso of the present day." He had to have a piano to match his growing presence, so he bought a rare, oversized, gold-leafed
Blüthner
Grand, which he hyped up in his press kit as a "priceless piano” (Later, he performed with an array of extravagant, custom-decorated pianos, some encrusted with rhinestones and mirrors.) He moved to the Los Angeles neighborhood of
North Hollywood
in 1947 and was performing at local clubs, such as
Ciro's
and
The Mocambo
, for stars such as
Rosalind Russell
,
Clark Gable
,
Gloria Swanson
, and
Shirley Temple
. He did not always play to packed rooms, and he learned to perform with extra energy to thinner crowds, to maintain his own enthusiasm.
Liberace created a publicity machine which helped to make him a star. Despite his success in the supper-club circuit, where he was often an intermission act, his ambition was to reach larger audiences as a headliner and a television, movie, and recording star. Liberace began to expand his act and made it more extravagant, with more costumes and a larger supporting cast. His large-scale Las Vegas act became his hallmark, expanding his fan base, and making him wealthy.
His New York City performance at
Madison Square Garden
in 1954, which earned him a record 8,000 (equivalent to ,310,000 in 2019) for one performance, was more successful than the great triumph his idol Paderewski had made 20 years earlier.
He was mentioned as a sex symbol in
The Chordettes
1954 No. 1 hit "
Mr. Sandman
". By 1955, he was making ,000 per week at the
Riviera Hotel and Casino
in
Las Vegas
and had over 200 official fan clubs with a quarter of a million members. He was making over  million per year from public appearances, and millions from television. Liberace was frequently covered by the major magazines, and he became a pop-culture
superstar
, but he also became the butt of jokes by comedians and the public.
Liberace appeared on the March 8, 1956 episode of the TV quiz program
You Bet Your Life
hosted by
Groucho Marx
.
Music critics were generally harsh in their assessment of his piano playing. Critic Lewis Funke wrote after the Carnegie Hall concert, Liberace's music "must be served with all the available tricks, as loud as possible, as soft as possible, and as sentimental as possible. It's almost all showmanship topped by whipped cream and cherries." Even worse was his lack of reverence and fealty to the great composers. "Liberace recreates—if that is the word—each composition in his own image. When it is too difficult, he simplifies it. When it is too simple, he complicates it." His sloppy technique included "slackness of rhythms, wrong tempos, distorted
phrasing
, an excess of prettification and sentimentality, a failure to stick to what the composer has written."
Liberace once stated, "I don't give concerts, I put on a show." Unlike the concerts of classical pianists which normally ended with applause and a retreat off-stage, Liberace's shows ended with the public invited on-stage to touch his clothes, piano, jewelry, and hands. Kisses, handshakes, hugs, and caresses usually followed. A critic summed up his appeal near the end of Liberace's life: "Mr. Showmanship has another more potent, drawing power to his show: the warm and wonderful way he works his audience. Surprisingly enough, behind all the glitz glitter, the corny false modesty, and the shy smile, Liberace exudes a love that is returned to him a thousand-fold."
Liberace mostly bypassed radio before trying a television career, thinking radio unsuitable given his act's dependency on the visual. Despite his enthusiasm about the possibilities of television, Liberace was disappointed after his early guest appearances on
CBS
's
The Kate Smith Show
, and
DuMont
's
Cavalcade of Stars
, with
Jackie Gleason
(later
The Jackie Gleason Show
on CBS). Liberace was particularly displeased with the frenetic camera work and his short appearance time. He soon wanted his own show where he could control his presentation as he did with his club shows.
His first show on local television in Los Angeles was a smash hit, earning the highest ratings of any local show, which he parlayed into a sold-out appearance at the
Hollywood Bowl
.  That led to a summer replacement program for
Dinah Shore
.
The 15-minute network television program,
The Liberace Show
, began on July 1, 1952, but did not lead to a regular network series. Instead, producer Duke Goldstone mounted a filmed version of Liberace's local show performed before a live audience for
syndication
in 1953 and sold it to scores of local stations. The widespread exposure of the syndicated series made the pianist more popular and prosperous than ever. His first two years' earnings from television netted him million and on future reruns, he earned up to 80% of the profits
Liberace learned early on to add "
schmaltz
" to his television show and to cater to the tastes of the mass audience by joking and chatting to the camera as if performing in the viewer's own living room. He also used dramatic lighting, split images, costume changes, and exaggerated hand movements to create visual interest. His television performances featured enthusiasm and humor.
Liberace also employed "ritualistic domesticity", used by such early TV greats as
Jack Benny
and
Lucille Ball
. His brother George often appeared as guest violinist and orchestra director, and his mother was usually in the front row of the audience, with brother Rudy and sister Angelina often mentioned to lend an air of "family". Liberace began each show in the same way, then mixed production numbers with chat, and signed off each broadcast softly singing "
I'll Be Seeing You
", which he made his theme song. His musical selections were broad, including classics,
show tunes
, film melodies, Latin rhythms, ethnic songs, and
boogie-woogie
.
The show was so popular with his mostly female television audience, he drew over 30 million viewers at any one time and received 10,000 fan letters per week.  His show was also one of the first to be shown on British commercial television in the 1950s, where it was broadcast on Sunday afternoons by
Lew Grade
's
Associated TeleVision
. This exposure gave Liberace a dedicated following in the United Kingdom.
Gay men
also found him appealing. According to author Darden Asbury Pyron, "Liberace was the first gay person
Elton John
had ever seen on television; he became his hero."
Liberace Museum, Las Vegas, 2003
In 1956, Liberace had his first international engagement, playing successfully in
Havana
,
Cuba
. He followed up with a European tour later that year. Always a devout
Catholic
, Liberace considered his meeting with Pope
Pius XII
a highlight of his life.
[37]
In 1960, Liberace performed at the
London Palladium
with
Nat King Cole
and
Sammy Davis, Jr.
(this was the first televised "
command performance
", now known as the
Royal Variety Performance
, for
Queen Elizabeth II
).
On July 19, 1957, hours after Liberace gave a deposition in his million
libel
suit against
Confidential
magazine, two masked intruders attacked his mother in the garage of Liberace's home in
Sherman Oaks
. She was beaten and kicked, but her heavy
corset
may have protected her from being badly injured. Liberace was not informed about the assault until he finished his midnight show at the
Moulin Rouge
nightclub. Guards were hired to watch over Liberace's house and the houses of his two brothers.
Despite successful European tours, his career had in fact been slumping since 1957, but Liberace built it back up by appealing directly to his fan base. Through live appearances in small-town
supper clubs
, and with television and promotional appearances, he began to regain popularity. On November 22, 1963, he suffered
kidney failure
, reportedly from accidentally inhaling excessive amounts of
dry cleaning
fumes from his newly cleaned costumes in a
Pittsburgh
dressing room, and nearly died. He later said that what saved him from further injury was being woken up by his entourage to the news that
John F. Kennedy
had been
assassinated
. Told by doctors that his condition was fatal, he began to spend his entire fortune by buying extravagant gifts of furs, jewels, and even a house for friends, but then recovered after a month.
Re-energized, Liberace returned to Las Vegas, and upping the glamor and glitz, he took on the sobriquet "Mr. Showmanship". As his act swelled with spectacle, he famously stated, "I'm a one-man
Disneyland
."
]
The costumes became more exotic (ostrich feathers, mink, capes, and huge rings), entrances and exits more elaborate (chauffeured onstage in a Rolls-Royce or dropped in on a wire like
Peter Pan
), choreography more complex (involving chorus girls, cars, and animals), and the novelty acts especially talented, with juvenile acts including Australian singer
Jamie Redfern
and Canadian banjo player
Scotty Plummer
.
]
Barbra Streisand
was the most notable new adult act he introduced, appearing with him early in her career.
Liberace's energy and commercial ambitions took him in many directions. He owned an antiques store in
Beverly Hills, California
, and a restaurant in Las Vegas for many years. He even published cookbooks, the most famous of these being
Liberace Cooks
, co-authored by cookbook guru
Carol Truax
, which included "Liberace Lasagna" and "Liberace Sticky Buns". The book features recipes "from his seven dining rooms" (of his Hollywood home).
Liberace's live shows during the 1970s–80s remained major box-office attractions at the
Las Vegas Hilton
and
Lake Tahoe
, where he earned 0,000 a week.
In 1970, Liberace competed against Irish actor
Richard Harris
for the purchase of
the Tower House
, in
Holland Park
, west London. Harris eventually bought the house after discovering that Liberace had agreed to buy it, but had not yet put down a deposit. British entertainer
Danny La Rue
visited The Tower House with Liberace and later recounted in his autobiography a paranormal experience that he had there with him.
Liberace's final stage performance was at New York's
Radio City Music Hall
on November 2, 1986; it was his 18th show over a tour of 21 days (from October 16), and the concert series grossed just over .5 million at the theater box office. His final television appearance was on Christmas Day that same year on
The Oprah Winfrey Show
, which had actually been videotaped in Chicago over one month earlier.
Condition is as follows:  This wonderful program is in nice condition Displays well, Lightly touched/bent corners, light age related toning. Does have an edge tear to the front and back cover.
Approximate measurements are as follows: 9
"
X 12
"
PLEASE READ
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