Walter Valentino Liberace

Over the years Liberace acquired an astounding array of prestigious awards, including: Instrumentalist of the Year, Best Dressed Entertainer and Entertainer of the Year. He also earned two Emmy Awards, six gold albums, two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's highest paid musician and pianist. Best of all, he was known and loved throughout the world as "Mr. Showmanship."

Liberace's television series debuted in 1952. By 1954 it was carried over 217 American stations and in 20 foreign countries. With his own unique one-to-one relationship with the viewers, Liberace became television's first matinee idol, in the true sense of the word.
In 1953, Liberace played to a capacity crowd at Carnegie Hall and in the same year made a record-breaking appearance before 16,000 at Madison Square Garden (surpassing the previous record set by Paderwski). He packed an over-capacity crowd of 20,000 into the Hollywood Bowl and did it again at Chicago's Soldiers Field with an audience of 110,000. In 1955, he opened in the Las Vegas Riviera Hotel as the highest paid entertainer in the city's history. He also made another movie, "Sincerely Yours."

In the spring of 1984 Liberace's premier engagement at New York's famed Radio City Music Hall broke all sales and attendance records of the 51-year history of the Art Deco palace. More than 80,000 people were on hand for what Liberace described as "the fulfillment of a dream and the culmination of my 40 years in show business." Commenting on the engagement, The Wall Street Journal said: "Liberace occupies his own special rhinestone-studded niche in the American dream."
In April of 1985 he returned to Radio City Music hall for an unprecedented 21 shows topping his own ticket selling record by grossing more than $2 million.

Liberace's final performances were at Radio City Music Hall October 16 through November 2, 1986. After his Radio City engagement he went on a four-city-tour to promote his fourth book, "The Wonderful Private World of Liberace." Then he returned to his Palm Springs home where he passed away on February 4, 1987, just a few months before his 68th birthday.