[2] He was born in Wisconsin to parents of Italian and Polish origin and enjoyed a career spanning four decades of concerts, recordings, television, motion pictures and endorsements.

[8] Liberace later said "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.

"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."

In childhood, Liberace suffered from a speech impediment; as a teen, he was taunted by neighborhood children, who mocked him for his effeminate personality, his avoidance of sports, and his fondness for cooking and the piano.

[14] At the end of a traditional classical concert in La Crosse, Wisconsin in 1939, Liberace played his first requested encore, the popular comedy song "Three Little Fishies".

[15] 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.

The transformation to entertainer was driven by Liberace's desire to connect directly with his audiences, and secondarily from the reality of the difficult, top flight competition in the classical piano world.

[18] He was playing at the best clubs, finally appearing at the Persian Room in 1945, and Variety wrote "Liberace looks like a cross between Cary Grant and Robert Alda.

Besides clubs and occasional work as an accompanist and rehearsal pianist, Liberace played for private parties, including ones at the Park Avenue home of millionaire oilman J. Paul Getty.

"[21] In 1953, Liberace signed with Louis Snader, a California theater owner and TV producer whose telescriptions—short film clips used as fillers on local stations across the country.

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.

They referred to his "sloppy technique" that included "slackness of rhythms, wrong tempos, distorted phrasing, an excess of prettification and sentimentality, a failure to stick to what the composer has written.

[30] A critic summarized 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.

[32] Despite his enthusiasm about the possibilities of television, Liberace was disappointed after his early guest appearances on The Kate Smith Show and DuMont's Cavalcade of Stars, with Jackie Gleason.

[26] Liberace learned early 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.

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.

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.

"[42] 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.

A new Liberace Show premiered on ABC's daytime schedule in 1958, featuring a less flamboyant, less glamorous persona, but it failed in six months as his popularity began slumping.

In a cameo on The Monkees, he appeared at an avant-garde art gallery as himself, gleefully smashing a grand piano with a sledgehammer as Mike Nesmith looked on and cringed in mock agony.

His exposure to the Hollywood crowd through his club performances led to his first movie appearance in Universal's South Sea Sinner (1950), a tropical island drama starring MacDonald Carey and Shelley Winters, in which he was billed as "a Hoagy Carmichael sort of character with long hair".

When Sincerely Yours was released in November, the studio mounted an ad and poster campaign with Liberace's name in huge, eccentric, building-block letters above and much larger than the title.

Warner quickly issued a pressbook ad supplement with new "Starring" billing below the title, in equal plain letters: "Liberace, Joanne Dru, Dorothy Malone".

He received kudos for his brief appearance as a casket salesman in The Loved One (1965), based on Evelyn Waugh's satire of the funeral business and movie industry in Southern California.

Liberace's final stage performance was at New York's Radio City Music Hall on November 2, 1986;[51] it was his 18th show over a tour of 21 days (from October 16), and the concert series grossed just over $2.5 million at the theater box office.

"[55] Liberace became bald in his middle-age years and was so insecure about his hair loss that he began wearing elaborate hairpieces and refused to let himself be seen without his toupee both in public and in private, even sleeping with them on.

Everything that he, she and it can ever want...a deadly, winking, sniggering, snuggling, chromium-plated, scent-impregnated, luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit-flavoured, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother love".

[69] In a 2011 interview, actress and close friend Betty White confirmed that Liberace was indeed gay and that she often was used as a "beard" by his managers to counter public rumors of the musician's homosexuality.

Aside from his long-term manager Seymour Heller and a few family members and associates, Liberace kept his terminal illness a secret until the day he died and did not seek medical treatment.

Scott Thorson remarked that he was not aware that Liberace had any health issues and up until one year before his death that "he was in overall excellent shape for his age; barrel-chested and powerfully built.