page_title: Liberace
section_title: Early career
hierarchical_section_title: Liberace / Career / Early career
caption_attribution_description: Photo of Maureen O’Hara and Liberace in 1957 in a Los Angeles court.
context_page_description: Władziu Valentino Liberace 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 the 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, acquiring the nickname "Mr. Showmanship".
context_section_description: 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 withal, 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."
  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 creat
caption: Liberace with actress Maureen O'Hara during a court hearing in 1957
exif: {}