October 08, 2024 | Michail Takach

Liberace: the spark that made Milwaukee spectacular

One can only imagine what the most visible and vocal gay man of the 20th century could have achieved – if only he had been allowed to be himself.

Liberace

"There's no such thing as too much glitter."

Walter Liberace was born May 16, 1919 in West Allis and grew up in nearby West Milwaukee. His mother’s family was Polish; his father’s family was Italian. Growing up, he and his three siblings were surrounded by music.

After suffering childhood pneumonia, Liberace was always a smaller, thinner and “sickly” child. He experienced bullying from the first day of school onward. As he practiced piano, neighborhood children would come to his window and yell “sissy.”

As a teenager, he nearly lost his arm due to blood poisoning. After a specialist called for amputation, Liberace’s mother said “My son is a pianist. You will save his hand.” The specialist said “we’ll be lucky to save his arm.”

She hesitated for a second and said, again, “Let’s go home, son. You will keep your hand.” Through a combination of strong spiritual faith and unidentified Old World recipes, she healed the poisoning completely.

Headlining the "Bed Room"

Formerly a “Pansy Craze” drag bar known as the College Inn, the Red Room Bar opened in 1936 during a moral crackdown on the homosexual liberties of the early 1930s.

This statement can barely be said with a straight face, considering the Red Room was the launch pad for one of the most flamboyant homosexuals ever known in American history, while being known to the local gay community as red-hot and happening pickup joint “The Bed Room.”

The Red Room Bar was part of Plankinton Enterprises’ efforts to create a downtown destination for recreation and relaxation in the Plankinton Arcade.

With 20 renovated bowling alleys, 21 billiard tables, a workingman’s cafeteria, a lobby soda fountain, the air-conditioned Green Room restaurant, and the sophisticated Red Room Bar, they succeeded.

“A rendezvous of long-standing, where men meet to enjoy better drinks, straight or mixed by thoroughly experienced bartenders. Steaks. Chops. Chicken. Served from 5 p.m. until midnight. Live entertainment until 2 a.m. and later,” reads a November 26, 1936 ad.

News stories soon broke about how the “longest bar in the nation” was being extended even longer to support the grand opening.

Once a mere 65 feet in length, the Red Room bar was extended to 83 feet with chromium-accented mahogany. Three cozy booths were added along the south wall for private parties not wanting to sit at the bar.

The Green Room was long advertised as “Wisconsin’s largest and smartest restaurant,” aglow in green neon. There were other Red Rooms in town – at both the Eagles Club and the Pfister – but quickly Milwaukee came to know this one was the best.

The gay community embraced the bar for its aesthetics and its mixology, as well as a very active tearoom trade in the men’s room. Management tried to shut down the red-light scene by charging 25 cents to use the bathroom. This changed nothing.

According to folklore, Liberace got his start playing Milwaukee venues as “Walter Busterkeys,” but that doesn’t seem to be true.

In October 1938, the Red Room began advertising live piano from Walter Liberace, as part of a rotating line-up of performers. By 1940, he was appearing six nights a week at the Red Room’s cocktail hour while performing orchestra shows at Rout’s Bar on Upper Third Street, the Elks Club, and the Pabst Theater. He did a solo number with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the young age of 20.

In 1942, he was promoted to the Green Room at $90 per week.

“I had to earn a living,” Liberace told the Milwaukee Sentinel in July 1954.

“The first job available was at the Red Room. My salary was $35 a week and any passer-by could hear me for the price of one beer. Four years later, I took myself and my ambitions to New York.”

“He was the only musician that people applauded after every number,” said Red Room manager Walter Ludwig. “There were always customers waiting in line for seats or tables.”

During World War II, the Red Room was an ultra-popular spot for visiting sailors from Great Lakes Naval Base – and those who were into them. The bar was routinely in trouble through the 1950s for overcharging sailors and/or selling liquor to minors.

Milwaukee Journal, 1939

Milwaukee Journal, 1940

Milwaukee Journal, 1947

After leaving Milwaukee, Liberace laughed at his bullies – all the way to the bank.

By 1944, he was earning $1,500 per week. In 1952, he played the Hollywood Bowl. In 1954, he and his mother moved into a new $80,000 Hollywood Hills home.

After a 1954 Milwaukee visit, his former teachers and classmates began writing letters to the editor about his claims of being bullied.

Oddly, they agree that while he was certainly a “affected” boy who was suffering from “Mom-ism,” they couldn’t recall anyone bullying him.

Florence Bettray Kelly, his 10-year piano teacher, offered only the most glowing reviews of her former student.

Two years later, the Daily Mirror strongly implied that Liberace was homosexual, and he sued the paper for libel. Liberace and his attorneys won the case, as well as a similar case against Confidential magazine in 1957.

Even after his former lover filed a palimony lawsuit in 1982, Liberace maintained that he was heterosexual and had never taken part in any homosexual acts.

“I don’t cry all the way to the bank anymore,” he told reporters. “I bought the bank!”

Throughout his life, Liberace clung to female actresses, including Betty White, to serve as “beards” for his reputation. Meanwhile, nearly every blue-haired grandmother in America knew his secret.

He was the perfect mid-century homosexual: charming, talented, sophisticated, handsome, and yet, completely and totally neutered. To them, he was “gay” in the original sense of the world.

“You’d be safe with him,” old women would giggle after his shows, “after all, he is THAT WAY.”

The Plankinton Arcade (photo by Lyle Oberwise)

Red Room, meet Green Room

Red Room matchbook

By 1958, the Plankinton Arcade was again feeling old-fashioned and out of favor.

After World War II, people just weren’t coming downtown for entertainment anymore. Attempts to modernize the Green Room as the “Buffet of Plenty” were ambitious but impractical. The Red Room got a facelift, but it was barely noticed as its former regulars now only came once a month – or less.

Downtown was in real trouble. On January 31, 1960, the Plankinton Arcade declared bankruptcy in federal court, resulting in the closing of the Red Room, Buffet of Plenty, Arcade Driving School, bowling alley, billiards hall, and news shop.

The Plankinton Arcade would spend the next 20 years nearly abandoned until the creation of Grand Avenue Mall in 1982.

In 1963, Liberace reinvented himself as “Mr. Showmanship,” investing heavily in glitz, glamour, furs, feathers, and costumes as he toured London, Las Vegas and the world. While he considered himself a one-man Disneyland, his shows took on the gaudy look and gimmicky feel of a big-budget drag show.

Liberace was the first gay person many Baby Boomers ever saw on TV – and some, like Elton John, immediately idolized him.

In 1976, the Liberace Foundation for Creative and Performing Arts opened in Las Vegas with a $4 million donation from Liberace. Liberace Plaza opened at the intersection of Tropicana and Spencer, containing both the Liberace Museum and Tivoli Gardens (a restaurant designed by Liberace.) Three years later, the museum relocated to a complex in Paradise, Nevada, with his brother George serving as director. With a half-million visitors each year, the museum became the third most-visited attraction in Nevada.

After earning two Emmy Awards, six gold albums, two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, countless TV and movie appearances, and 56 sold-out shows at Radio City Music Hall over an exhausting five decade career, Liberace faced a challenge not even he could glamorize. He was secretly diagnosed as HIV positive in August 1985.

He kept his diagnosis a secret, despite visible symptoms, and refused medical treatment. Even after his death on February 4, 1987, the cause was deliberately obscured, with some sources claiming emphysema, heart disease and/or anemia from a fad diet.

Liberace is entombed at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Los Angeles. Seven years after his death, he received a Star on the Palm Spring Walk of Stars.

Liberace's death sparked tremendous interest in his museum, which tripled in size in 1988 and expanded yet again in 2002. Proceeds from the museum allowed the Liberace Foundation to create over $6 million in music scholarships. From 1993 to 2008, a "Play-A-Like" Competition celebrated Liberace's birthday.

With attendance dwindling, museum leaders announced a move to the Las Vegas Strip. Instead, the museum closed "indefinitely, but not forever" on October 17, 2010. It has never reopened.

The Liberace Foundation is still operating in Las Vegas and still manages the full collection, which has been shown at various exhibits over the years. In 2014, the museum's colorful signage was donated to the Neon Museum. The Liberace Garage opened in 2016, featuring eight Liberace-owned vehicles, a piano, and some of his stage costumes.