Las Vegas -- Museum Catalogs Liberace's Fascination With The Bizarre

LAS VEGAS - Wanted: museum curator. Looking for someone to catalog and maintain vast collection of artifacts that is anything but dusty and stuffy. Ideal candidate must have an eye for the garish and an appreciation of the campy and decadent. An affinity for candelabras is not required, but considered a plus.

Indeed, the job doesn't involve working with masterpiece paintings or dinosaur bones but with 150-pound stage costumes made of ostrich feathers and rhinestones, mirror-tiled Rolls Royces, candelabra-shaped diamond rings and antique pianos at the Liberace Museum.

"We're looking for someone who has the technical skills to organize the collection but who also can tell the stories behind the items," said Sandra Harris, the museum's executive director.

Located in a shopping plaza off the Vegas Strip, the museum was established 20 years ago as a showcase for the man who was as famous for his flamboyant stage garb as for his fabulous piano playing. Liberace, who died at age 67 in 1987, opened the museum to help finance his foundation, which still awards scholarships to students interested in music, drama, fashion and other arts.

Liberace's brother George and other family members ran the museum for years. But after they died, the museum's board decided to put professionally-trained executives in charge. Harris, the first employee with a museum background, was hired away from a State of Arizona museum last fall.

Depending on your perspective, Liberace either was an avid collector of the unusual or a pack rat who couldn't bring himself to throw away anything. So many of Liberace's personal effects were stored away in boxes tucked away here and there.

One of the curator's first jobs will be to sort through the boxes, catalog the items, research their history and properly display or store them.

"We have to put everything in acid-free boxes so they won't deteriorate," Harris said.

Liberace's collection encompasses two buildings in the shopping plaza.

The first building contains his pianos: a nickelodeon, mirror-covered one; one manufactured in 1860; one owned by composer Chopin, made in the early 1800s; and a rhinestone one with a plexiglass top.

A space has been set side for his collection of cars, some of which he used to make grand entrances on stage. There is a 1957 white English taxi, a red replica of a 1931 Ford Model A and several Rolls Royces, including a red-white-and-blue one and a mirror-tiled one.

Part of Liberace's intent was to show his fans "what they paid for." More than 200,000 of them show up here every year.

Like many fans, Frances Relzda refuses to stop referring to him in the present tense.

"His costumes are fabulous. He's a good-looking guy with a nice personality," said Relzda, 74, of Bradenton, Fla.

"I went to a Shirley MacLaine show once and he was in the audience. He had on a velvet jacket and a beautiful shirt."

In a storage area off limits to visitors, there were numerous other items: small pianos, gifts from fans; "Great Composers of Germany" and other biographies of classical musicians; gold wine goblets, fine China; his prayer books; a painting of him kneeling and kissing the ring of the pope; gaudy purple rosary beads; and a gold cast of his hands.

The room also includes dozens of photos of his famous piano-shaped pool, of performances in Las Vegas, and of Liberace with celebrities such as Jimmy Durante and George Foreman.

Pauline Lachance, the museum's archivist, who served 17 years as president of the Liberace fan club, explained his appeal.

"He could have been performing for 10,000 people, but you always felt he was performing just for you. He really knew how to create a feeling of intimacy," Lachance said. "He loved the fans. He always came out after the performance and signed autographs and posed for pictures. He never lost sight of the fact that it was the public who made him who he was."

Across the parking lot on the other side of the plaza was the clothing exhibit. On display were Liberace's lavender and pink cape with long ostrich feathers at the neck line; a black-mink cape with sequins and bugle beeds; and a 1976 bicentennial red-white-and-blue military style tuxedo with matching hot pants and high boots.

The jewelry collection includes a diamond-studded watch in the shape of a grand piano and a candelabra ring.

Honey Jackson of Ft. Lauderdale stared in disbelief at one of the rhinestone-embedded outfits. "I don't see how he could sit and play with that on," she said. "It seems like it would hurt."