A Couple Goodbye's: The Bling Museum and Beaver's Mother

This past Sunday the Liberace Museum in Las Vegas closed its doors.

Displaying the showman’s rare pianos, candelabras, rhinestone studded minks, sequined costumes, and thousands of other unique possessions, the keepers of the two worn and weary warehouses located a couple miles from the glittering strip padlocked its doors due to its aging fan base and poor economy.

The museum was Liberace’s dream to raise scholarship money needed for students in the performing arts.  I visited there about ten years ago and gaped at the man's possessions.  One costume weighed 200 pounds!  Outlandish! Ridiculous!  But I stared.  The place was another Liberace show.



The performer died in 1987 of AIDS.  He was 67 and wanted to give something back to a world that had been so generous to him.  Raised in dire poverty, he never forgot.  He was that kind of a man.                              

‘Course growing up, I never thought about that.  When I was a kid I couldn’t stand him.

I didn’t know about gay people back then or maybe I'd have understood.   I just knew he wasn’t cool like Frankie Avalon, Fabian, or Motown, and besides, the old ladies drooled to his music.  That was enough to get me running in the opposite direction.

Whenever he appeared on TV, I groaned and changed the channel, but not before checking out his latest outfit.  One was a mink cape with the fur along the edges cut out like piano keys!

I saw it in the museum.  Years later, it was still something to see.

To date the Liberace Foundation has raised closed to six million dollars to aid struggling performers.    Though the museum is now history, some of the entertainer's possessions will tour the U.S. to continue raising money for this cause.

If it reaches your city, you can view the wardrobe and props of a truly over-the-top entertainer who tried to make a difference.  Liberace, a man with a sparkling soul.

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And goodbye to Barbara Billingsley.  Tall, thin, always impeccably dressed in a shirtwaist and double strand of pearls, she was Beaver’s and Wally’s mom, and Ward’s wife.



Barbara Billingsley

 You know I never met a real Ward until this year.  I mean, how many Wards does anybody get to know in a lifetime?

Hey, but that’s another column.
See you next week.