Some Like It Cold: A Sheboygan Surfin' Safari - Book Excerpt

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 17:22:35 -0700

As sunlight cracked the horizon, fog began to lift off the cool water. The village had yet to awaken, but inside the Weather Center Café a few blocks from shore, a lone utility light glowed, indicating the town’s first sign of life that day. The uneven light created shadows as the café’s owner, Teek Phippen, fumbled in the darkness for his cell phone. The determination of a man in his mid-forties awake at 5:30 in the morning wasn’t going to be denied. He soon found his phone under a row of tipped-over paper cups, dialed a number, and waited for the groggy greeting on the other end.
“Waves,” Teek whispered into the phone. “Let the rest of the gang know. We’ve got waves.” The phone tree had been activated, and soon Teek would find himself among friends.
Moments later, the snow-covered grass of Deland Park crunched under his feet as he walked from his parked car along Broughton Drive to the shoreline, a mere hundred yards away. He cautiously navigated his way across the ice-covered embankments, further jeopardizing his uncertain balance with a longboard under his arm. Standing a solid six feet tall and weighing over two-hundred pounds, he conceded that the gusting winds made carrying his ten-foot longboard feel like “wrestling a giant lizard.''
The winds howling at twenty-five miles-an-hour seemed to freeze what moisture he had in his pores but also generated the waves he hoped to surf, which were crashing violently ashore only a few yards in front of him. Cresting at five feet and then seven, the rolling waves kept growling and multiplying. The water spilling onto the sand resembled the foam of a freshly poured beer. At thirty-four degrees Fahrenheit, the water seemed comfortable compared to the air temperature of two-below zero. For Teek and the handful of surfers already surveying the conditions at the water’s edge, it was an ideal day to surf.
“Riding is best when the weather’s the meanest,” Teek thought. “And these waves can be just as fierce as anywhere in the world.”
Surfable waves during that time of year were rare on Lake Michigan. The window of opportunity to ride them was even smaller. With a warm front scheduled to arrive later that afternoon, the ideal surfing conditions would soon disappear.
“We ain’t getting any younger, boys, and these waves aren’t getting any smaller,” said Jaime Ziegler, the thirty-something youngster in the group.
Alongside Teek and Jaime stood some of the area’s finest surfers, all of whom answered the call to adventure while wriggling into their tight, black wetsuits. Australian Grant Davey, who has often been considered the area’s most talented surfer, knew he only had an hour before the responsibilities as the head greenskeeper at the locally owned, world-famous golf course would pull him out of the water. Jim Gardner, adjusting the knit cap on his shaved head, held his camera tightly, knowing the day’s conditions would produce some phenomenal photos. Kevin Groh, whose salt-and-pepper sideburns were the only sign he was approaching fifty-something, slipped into his stretched-out, vintage wetsuit, long past its prime. “Comfort over style,” he always preached.
Knowing their knees, ankles, and hands would go numb under the fierce conditions in about an hour, the surfers were more determined than ever to race the clock of opportunity. As the last of them tossed their boards into the slush-filled waters, the unofficial patriarchs of the group, Lee and Larry Williams, arrived, pulling their cars alongside the Broughton Drive curb.
Stepping out first was Larry, who looked the part of a lifelong surfer with his Hawaiian print shirt, tiger tattoos wrapped around his arm, and a shark tooth hanging from his neck. A shade under six feet tall, Larry was built like a surfer and remained in good shape though he’d been surfing for more than forty years. As his thinning blond hair whipped into his eyes, he surmised, “It’s never a bad day if you’re at the beach.”
Lee got out of the car and surveyed the scene. He was a good five inches shorter than his brother, and his baggy black Team Blatz jacket gave little indication he was still hovering around his high school weight of one hundred and fifty pounds. After chugging the last of his beer and adjusting his eyeglasses, Lee slipped the cumbersome wetsuit gloves onto his hands and trudged toward the churning water. He wondered if surfing had been like this in California in the 1940s—not cold, of course, but a pastime embraced by a fairly small group of dedicated folks following their passion.
Within moments, the six grown men in black wetsuits were bobbing on the breaks a quarter-mile from shore, poised to ride the right wave when it presented itself. One by one, they climbed onto their ten-foot boards, balancing themselves by leaning in, arching back and standing tall while the torrential surf propelled them toward shore.
After nearly two hours of ripping up and thrashing through the quagmire of ice-filled waves, the surfers finally succumbed to the early indications of hypothermia and headed in to shore—their limbs frozen and immobile. Out of the water, they needed to generate heat as quickly as possible, before their core body temperatures dipped below ninety-five degrees. It was November, and the gales had arrived on the Great Lakes with wicked gusts upward of fifty miles an hour. As the sun slid over the horizon, the surfers stabbed their boards into a nearby snowbank, standing them upright and evenly apart like soldiers at attention. The boards looked like the ones on postcards from a sunny Hawaiian beach, except with snow instead of sand, pine trees instead of palm trees, and a sign that read, “Welcome to Sheboygan, Wisconsin.”
While America’s Dairyland usually conjures images of cows, cheese, and bratwurst, it is also home to a small but fiercely dedicated surfing culture more than two thousand miles away from the Pacific Ocean. It has become a Mecca to a different breed of surfer—one who prefers the perils of frostbite and icebergs to the unpredictability of shark attacks and turf wars. Thanks to the notoriety generated by the area’s elder surfing statesmen, Lee and Larry Williams, the fifty thousand residents of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, have begun to realize surfing on the Great Lakes is feasible and more or less reasonable—especially since their beaches are considered by many to be the number one freshwater surfing destination in the world, affectionately known as the Malibu of the Midwest.
Refusing to succumb to the elements, the surfers huddled around a freshly built bonfire that was already radiating plenty of heat. As the flames’ warmth melted away the lake’s slush from their wetsuits, they began peeling away the soggy layers and replacing them with dry sweatshirts and jackets. Chattering teeth soon gave way to hearty smiles, especially when Lee reached into a nearby snow bank and said, “What’s a bonfire without beer, boys?” Pulling a case of beer from beneath a mound of fresh snow, Lee started tossing cans to his friends, happy to take advantage of Mother Nature’s cooler.
Within moments, the group fell into their routine of swapping all-too-familiar surfing stories—tales that, thanks in large part to the beer, had grown into mythic tales of adventure and comedy. Always bringing perspective to the conversations was the group’s consummate storyteller, Larry Williams, who couldn’t help but express his affection for his hometown surfing scene.
“How can you not love surfing here?” he asked the group, somewhat rhetorially. With a dramatic pause, he caressed the tip of his Mako shark tooth necklace. “It definitely wasn’t nicknamed The Malibu of the Midwest for its sunshine and bikini babes.”
“Who are you kidding?” Lee said. “They’re here for the beer.” He toasted with his beer can turned upside down, signifying he needed another. The guys all laughed.
As the sun glistened off the Lake Michigan waters in the bright but still cold November morning, Jaime, youngest of the Sheboygan surfers, asked, “What exactly inspired you guys to surf the Lakes?”
Lee and Larry smiled at each other. Without missing a beat, Larry said, “Have we got a story for you.”

Liberace: The Milwaukee Maestro - Magazine Article

Tue, 1 Dec 2009 14:59:09 -0800

Known throughout the world for his trademark flamboyance, flair and exquisite over-the-top wardrobe, Liberace was the epitome of showmanship. Bursting onto the national scene in the early 1950s with one of America’s first syndicated shows during television’s infancy, Liberace soon became one of the world’s most popular entertainers. During a six-decade career of entertaining crowds of all ages at the piano, he sold more than 60 million records and was awarded six gold records. At one time he was Las Vegas’ highest-paid performer and was also listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s highest paid musician and pianist. “He was the King of Bling before there was a kingdom,” attributed Jerry Goldberg, Manager, Archives and Special Projects at The Liberace Museum in Las Vegas. “If he had just been a world class pianist, he’d be one of the ten best of all time, but you’d struggle to remember his name.”
Much of Liberace’s popularity was attributed to the fact that behind his trademark candelabras and glittering rhinestone facade was an eccentric genius who was keenly in tune with his strong Midwestern upbringing and beliefs. He endeared himself to a mostly conservative fan base with little difference between his gaudy onstage persona and his equally engaging offstage genuineness. “He was so good at remembering those little things about people that made them feel special,” guitarist Liona Boyd recalled of Liberace’s ability to charm all kinds of people. “He was a great storyteller, a real party man and a terrific showman. He seemed to enjoy himself more than the audience.”
Even the venomous cynicism of scorned critics, who nicknamed him The Sultan of Schmaltz, couldn’t tarnish his popularity. “Musical critics haven’t always been kind,” Liberace admitted in a 1981 interview. “But the audiences seemed to enjoy the kind of performance I could give them.”
The ever-smiling performer was nonetheless respected in the entertainment world as one of the canniest showmen since P.T. Barnum. Believing no crowd was too big or too small to deserve his best performance, Liberace constantly treated his fans to an inventive blend of contemporary favorites mixed in with memorable classical pieces. “If I play Tchaikovsky,” he said, “I play his melodies…and skip his spiritual struggle.”
Throughout his star-studded career, Liberace stood in the public spotlight as one of the world’s most popular entertainers. But off-stage, he struggled to keep his private life off the front pages of scandal-ridden tabloids. During an era when the American public would have accepted his homosexual lifestyle with hostility, rejection and ill will, he was forced to live behind the illusion of sexual ambiguity. “Most people really have a very limited knowledge of me as a human being. They know only that I play the piano, wear flamboyant clothes, am nice to my mother, have a brother named George…and a candelabra. But there’s more under this show biz exterior than most people know about.” Liberace often alluded.
At the time of his death in 1987, Liberace had trail blazed a long and arduous road into show business immortality. Through it all, he had lived the American dream – an aspiring tale of growing up in the straits of poverty, working hard towards success, enjoying vast wealth and becoming a worldwide personality. Almost from childhood, Liberace was a man with a plan and although he earned upwards of an estimated $5 million a year, the impression of his poorer days never left him. “You’ve got to be careful,” Liberace would advise young musicians. “Make sure to never forget your roots.” And for Liberace, those roots were deeply planted in West Allis, Wisconsin.
In what became the first of his many spectacular entrances, the man soon to be internationally know simply as Liberace was born on May 16, 1919 in the Milwaukee suburb of West Allis, Wisconsin. While he entered the world a robust and energetic thirteen pounds, his twin brother was stillborn. Christened with the first name of Wladziu (Polish for Walter and pronounced Vla-ja) and the middle name of Valentino (after Saturday matinee movie legend, Rudolph Valentino) he was Salvatore and Frances Liberace’s third child, joining older siblings George and Angelina.
Americanized as Walter since many of his playmates at West Allis’ Pershing Elementary couldn’t pronounce Wladziu, the Liberace’s youngest child was instilled with the intangible immigrant community values of family, hard work and education by his father, Salvatore. Back in 1906, with nothing more than a sack full of clothing and a French horn, Salvatore left the poverty stricken Italian village of his youth for the promise of America. Upon arriving in the States, Salvatore found work with John Philip Sousa’s United States Marine Band. After a brief stint, he began performing with his own band in Menasha, Wisconsin. That’s when he met and married Frances, the daughter of Polish immigrant farmers, in 1909. Along with thousands of other immigrants who had been attracted to the promise of factory jobs at Allis-Chalmers, Kearney & Trecker and the Pawling & Harnischfeger Company, the Liberaces eventually moved to the Milwaukee suburb of West Allis. But Salvatore insisted on making his living as a musician and found steady work playing at the Schlitz Palm Garden with the International Harvester Band. “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. He almost succeeded,” Liberace recalled in his autobiography.
Salvatore encouraged his three children to learn music at an early age. Because the family had temporarily lost their piano while moving from Menasha to West Allis, older brother George began his musical journey on the violin. One day when George was practicing his bowed instrument upstairs, Salvatore overheard four-year-old Walter picking out his older brother’s tunes on the piano. “In our house,” Liberace recalled of absorbing every piece of sheet music in the piano bench, “music was as much a part of life as conversation. My father was born in Italy, and it wasn’t just that he was a professional musician. My Polish mother’s family were all musicians, too. So nobody was surprised – least of all me – when I could play piano by ear when I was four years old. It came with the territory.”
Focused on pushing his children’s musical talents, Salvatore refused to accept work as anything other than a respected musician. Since the opportunities to earn a living in Milwaukee as a career musician at the time were challenging, neighbors often overheard heated arguments emanating from inside the Liberace’s house at 635 51st Street (renumbered 1649 60th Street in 1931). As Frances constantly confronted her husband about his inability to provide for the children, Salvatore relentlessly thrashed back in his typical self-indulgent, domineering and often-tyrannical temper. As the situation deteriorated, Frances sought assistance from county welfare and Walter often found himself picking up groceries in his coaster wagon from the county relief station. “Except for music, there wasn’t much beauty in my childhood,” Liberace often cited as the basis for his love of luxury in later years.
By 1925, it became bitterly apparent that he could no longer support his wife and three children playing occasional jobs with his French horn in beer halls and silent movie theater orchestras. So Salvatore and Frances turned the house into a grocery store with a modest apartment in back as the family residence. During the day, Salvatore worked in the store and at night, he took whatever musical work was available. While many of Walter’s earliest childhood memories were those of his mother waiting on customers while he played on the grocery store’s linoleum floor, he also remembered the store keeping food on the family’s dinner table, “You may not make a lot of money, but you can always find something to eat. I can remember running from our little kitchen out into the store to get a couple of potatoes, or something for dinner.”
In 1926, Walter’s parents abandoned the living-room grocery business and bought a house across from the National Soldiers Home at 4301 National Avenue. The new living accommodations must have seemed like a mansion compared to their old home. “I guess the most wonderful thing about our new home was that you didn’t have to walk through a grocery store to get into it,” Walter gleamed.
As the Liberace children grew older, Salvatore continued to pressure his children into becoming musicians – at any cost. While older brother George excelled at the violin, older sister Angelina was constantly frustrated with Walter’s natural ease at the keyboard. Her frustration culminated when she was thirteen and given the assignment of memorizing seventeen pages of Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. After several weeks, Angelina was unable to learn the piece despite her father’s constant domineering. “Poor Angie. I should have helped her, but instead I showed off and acted like all little brothers over the world,” Liberace recalled of performing Midsummer Night’s Dream to spite his sister. “I guess I made her self-conscious because music that was a problem for her came easily to me.”
Later that year, internationally renowned piano virtuoso and former prime minister of Poland, Ignace Paderewski arrived in Milwaukee to perform at the Pabst Theater. Walter was already enamored with the famous pianist’s ability to turn his talents into worldwide fame by impressing both audiences and critics alike. So when the Polish national accepted a personal request from Frances’ mother to visit the Liberace’s West Milwaukee home prior to his scheduled performance that night, Walter was beside himself. Following a few short numbers on their living room piano, Paderewski took a seat as Walter took to the ivory keys with a Chopin piece. Thoroughly impressed, the piano virtuoso placed his hand on young Walter’s head and remarked, “Some day this boy may take my place.”
Even the stubborn Salvatore Liberace couldn’t ignore the praise from such a respected source. Realizing his son had progressed beyond basic piano lessons, he sought out better training for his boy. With the family in financial straits, Salvatore was only left with the hope he could seek out an accomplished teacher who would recognize the promise in young Walter and offer to instruct him for free. His journey led to a meeting with Florence Bettray-Kelly, a teacher at the Wisconsin College of Music who had studied with the virtuoso Moriz Rosenthal. After Walter performed a few selections on the piano, Mrs. Kelly agreed to take on Salvatore’s youngest son as her student and arranged for him to receive a scholarship with the Conservatory.
Florence Kelly’s lessons soon became the high point in Walter’s week. She provided the perfect learning environment for his musical ambitions to thrive while teaching him between programs at radio station WTMJ, where she was a staff pianist with the house orchestra. Nurturing his musical genius from the onset, she was furiously uncompromising, willful and outspoken. Florence conceded Walter’s abilities were limitless, but was continually frustrated by the work habits of her star pupil, “He had talent all right, but he certainly was set in his ways – even then,” she recalled without pause. “He would do just so much – and no more. We had lots of tussles. When he worked, he slaved, but it was the hardest job in the world to get him to work. That was the cause of all our squabbles.”
As an artist of great discipline, Florence Kelly couldn’t understand Walter’s lackadaisical attitude. With both teacher and student strong-willed, they often clashed over selections she insisted he learn. One of the most disputed pieces was Liszt’s Forest Murmurs. Walter was supposed to play the composition on the air at WTMJ, but he flatly refused to finish it after learning only two pages. When Mrs. Kelly was told of his insubordination, the two verbally spared as the other radio musicians watched in amazement. She pushed him out of the studio and threw the music sheets out after him while yelling at him that she’d have nothing to do with him until he learned the number. Then Mrs. Kelly immediately telephoned Salvatore and explained that Walter’s scholarship was in jeopardy unless he followed her instructions. By the time Walter arrived home, his father was furious and banned him from playing the piano. About a week later, Walter returned to Mrs. Kelly and knew Forest Murmurs perfectly. The sometimes-contentious, always-respectful partnership between student and teacher remained for seventeen years – the longest scholarship ever granted by the Conservatory – as she continued coaching the piano prodigy even after he became famous. She found it quite amusing when he played Forest Murmurs nearly twenty years later on his television program and announced, “This is my favorite piano number.”
The relationship between teacher and student continued as the Great Depression’s economic malaise engulfed the entire country and crippled the Liberace household. By the end of 1929, Salvatore Liberace the respected musician was unemployable. Since the sound revolution of film talkies eliminated the need for symphony orchestras in cinemas, Milwaukee offered few opportunities for a French horn player. For ten years, Salvatore had no steady work. He was often absent during the day only to return home at night with grease-stained hands, unable to admit the shame of taking day work as a factory hand. Divorced from the profession he loved, Salvatore’s bitterness grew as did his abusive nature towards his wife and children. His Italian pride was damaged further after discovering he was no longer the family’s main provider. With another mouth to feed in 1930 after the birth of Rudolph, Salvatore’s wife and children were forced to find jobs that would help put food on the table. Frances found work in a cookie factory and brought home bags of damaged cookies and chocolate at night. George drove a grocery truck and taught piano lessons on the side. Angelina worked as a secretary and assistant nurse. Even before he was a teenager, Walter brought home money washing dishes in restaurants.
Entering his teens, Walter realized his antisocial behavior and intense interest in music often alienated him among peers his own age. By the time he entered high school, Walter learned to use his musical talents to win them over. At West Milwaukee High School, he found that his fellow students accepted him for what he was: a talented piano player with an energetic sense of fun. Using any opportunity to broaden his skills as an entertainer, his lunches were spent playing boogie-woogie, ragtime and the latest popular songs in the girls’ gymnasium. He soon became a favorite at birthday parties by indulging his friends at the piano with the latest tunes. Never one to turn down the chance to entertain a crowd, he stepped in for an ill classmate to emcee a home economics class fashion show. Arriving in a beret, artist’s smock and flowing tie, Walter used a long pointer and easel to introduce the models and explain the fashions with so much humor the entire audience was in stitches throughout the performance.
Walter’s love of dressing up continued to manifest itself during high school. While other boys customarily wore sweaters to school, he always arrived in a coat and vest. When West Milwaukee High School celebrated Character Day each semester, Walter almost always won first prize for the most original costume. His outfits were meticulous from Yankee Doodle Dandy and Greta Garbo - complete with slinky gown, blonde wig and heavy makeup – to Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia who was in the news because of Mussolini’s recent invasion. “That was Walter for you,” assistant principal Joseph Schwei reflected years later. “Nobody but Liberace would have dared to dress like that in those days – and the kids liked him for it.”
While attending West Milwaukee High School, Walter continued his lessons with Mrs. Kelly. Refining his classical pianist studies during the day, he also focused on improving his skills as an entertainer at night by playing popular melodies in honky-tonks and beer halls to help supplement the family income. For fourteen year-old Walter Liberace, spending his evenings in beer gardens and roadhouses introduced him to a world far removed from his conservative childhood. Alongside Del Krause, Carl Lorenz and Joe Zingsheim, Walter started appearing around town as a four-piece band named The Mixers. Playing at Little Nick’s, a beer hall on Milwaukee’s Muskegon and Mitchell streets, Walter was offered the opportunity to perform a wide-range of popular tunes from the 1920s and ‘30s. During the band’s scheduled intermissions, Walter would continue playing and accept customer requests. His unwavering priority to keep the crowd entertained at any cost amazed even his fellow band mate, Joe Zingsheim, “One night he was playing piano in my brother’s gin mill and someone poured beer over his hands. He never missed a beat, he just kept on playing.”
Throughout high school, Walter continued to play at night while avoiding his family’s deteriorating home life. In a rare display of harmony during the spring of 1937, the entire Liberace family – mother and father, George, Angelina and Rudy – were in attendance for Walter’s graduation from West Milwaukee High School. While the graduate’s grades – an 84 average, 21st in the graduating class of 76 – would have easily earned him admission into the University of Wisconsin, Walter had no interest in furthering his academic education. His single, all-consuming ambition was music and entertaining people with his talents on the piano.
With his father still unemployed and brother George out touring with orchestras, Walter was left as the principal supporter for his family. His first regular job was in the Red Room bar of the Plankinton Arcade. The pay was $35 a week plus all he could eat – a deal the manager claimed he’d lost money on. Walter also hired himself out for late-night parties, often leaving the Red Room at the 1:00am closing time to entertain revelers elsewhere, sometimes until dawn.
While never discouraging Walter from entertaining the boozing public with popular tunes, Florence Kelly continued to school the young man in the classics. After she secured him a contract with a Chicago booking agency that sent him to high schools, colleges, women’s clubs and other organizations across the Midwest, Mrs. Kelly presented her prize student with an extraordinary opportunity in 1939. Dr. Frederick Stock of the Chicago Symphony invited Walter to play with them in a concert at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee. But the performance wasn’t for another six months and Walter needed to continue working. He found a job as pianist with a popular dance band, the Jay Mills Orchestra and also landed a six-month solo engagement at the Wunderbar in Wausau, Wisconsin. To avoid tarnishing his image as a classical pianist with the Chicago Symphony, Walter experimented with his on-stage persona. Whenever he appeared at bar halls and saloons it was under the moniker of Walter Buster Keys. “Naturally, Walter Buster Keys only worked about six or seven months. He then disappeared forever into the more obscure pages in the history of the entertainment business,” Liberace reminisced. “I went back to my own name and I didn’t really care how people pronounced it, as long as they recognized it.”
Following his very successful performance with the Chicago Symphony, Walter realized opportunities for serious young pianists in Milwaukee were scarce. Refusing to become an unemployable musician like his father, he was spending less time at home traveling the Midwest wherever the work would take him. His disinterest in spending time at home was further fueled after he discovered his father Salvatore’s infidelity, which eventually led to his parents divorce in 1941. When the situation presented itself for Walter to perform in La Crosse, Wisconsin during the spring of 1939, he enthusiastically obliged.
Playing a successful, standard program with the usual smattering of classics, Walter was perplexed by the La Crosse audience’s lack of overall enthusiasm among the polite and appreciative applause. So when it came time for the encore, he turned to the audience and asked what they wanted to hear. Following an embarrassing moment of silence, a voice in the balcony cried out, “Three Little Fishes.” The crowd erupted since the nonsensical tune, made popular by Kay Kyser’s Orchestra, was the country’s most popular song at the moment. But once the laughter subsided, Walter began playing an introduction in the florid style of Chopin, followed with the unmistakable strains of Three Little Fishes. As his fingers continued dancing on the ivories, performing the tune as if interpreted by Mozart, Beethoven, and John Philip Sousa, Walter concluded the song in a wave of thunderous applause. The La Crosse crowd’s delight was immortalized in a nationally syndicated Associated Press wire article that led with the headline, “Three Little Fishes Swim in a Sea of Classics.” It was at that moment Walter Liberace realized the combination of classics and popular music could achieve the greatest audience response, “The audience seemed to love it; they relaxed and enjoyed themselves and… they smiled. That was the big thing, for me. They smiled in a way that they hadn’t for the straight classical repertoire, no matter how well I performed. And suddenly I had an idea of how to make piano playing pay more than the $35 a week I’d been getting.”
Following the performance in La Crosse, Walter continued to build on his popularity and took his act of incorporating light classical, popular and novelty numbers into his hotel and supper room performances. But by 1941, Walter realized he had gone as far as he could in Milwaukee’s limited entertainment market as a musician. “He felt he couldn’t grow any bigger in Wisconsin and wanted to be a bigger fish,” Jerry Goldberg of the Liberace Museum recounted. “For him it was all about the money and the only place pianists were making a living performing back then was on the east coast.”
So the budding star, with the encouragement of his teacher Florence Kelly, set out for New York. Upon arriving in the Big Apple, Walter received little attention from Broadway booking agents despite his numerous Midwestern press clippings and letters of recommendation. Although his persistence succeeded in an opportunity to play background music for dining guests at one of New York’s prime venues – the Persian Room at the Plaza Hotel – he still yearned to be a headliner on the center stage. No longer the center of attention as a local prodigy in Milwaukee, Walter Liberace had become just one of many musicians who had made the pilgrimage to New York, unable to discern himself from the competition. Realizing he had to distinguish himself with something different than the name Walter Valentino Liberace, he looked to the success of his childhood hero and became known simply as Liberace. “With the greatest conceit in the world, I reasoned that if my idol, Paderewski, could become world famous using only his last name, Liberace couldn’t be so bad.” Walter Liberace admitted in his autobiography. “Why complicate an already rather difficult looking name?”
At first, the single named billing did nothing to help his career aspirations in New York, so Liberace, or Lee as he was addressed in casual conversation, opted for the exploding entertainment world of Los Angeles. “While in New York, Liberace was creating lifelong friendships with Debbie Reynolds, Phyllis Diller and Milton Berle. All of whom encouraged Liberace to move west,” Jerry Goldberg attested.
Upon arriving in California, Liberace and his talents were immediately recognized by Clarence Goodwin – a shoe manufacturer who had extensive Hollywood connections. “You have a rare talent,” the shoe man insisted, “but what you need is a good manager. I’ll do the job for you.”
Like Florence Kelly before him, Clarence Goodwin took the young pianist under his wing and introduced him to the likes of Bing Crosby, Don Ameche, Bob Hope and other golfers at the Lakeside Golf Club. Liberace soon found himself performing in the booming nightlife of Hollywood. As World War II raged on in Europe and the Pacific, he transformed himself into a crowd-pleasing showman for servicemen about to be deployed. Looking to make the performance indicative as his own, he began incorporating any bit of stage property. “Within days of the opening of the 1945 film A Song to Remember, featuring Cornel Wilde in the candelabra-lighted role of Frederic Chopin, Liberace found a silver-plated candelabra for $12.50 and placed it as a permanent fixture on the music rack of his gleaming, grand piano,” Jerry Goldberg recalled of the trademark prop that would help define the showman’s career.
During a performance at San Diego’s Del Coronado Hotel, Liberace caught the attention of Don Fedderson, a Los Angeles television executive who saw in the virtuoso pianist someone who could ignite the nation’s imagination and appetite for good music. Beginning with a modest budget and dependent on Liberace’s engaging personality, the weekly half-hour variety program began airing live on a single Los Angeles station. After it drew astronomical ratings locally, The Liberace Show became a showbiz phenomenon and was booked by close to 200 stations nationwide as one of television’s first syndicated hits. “Believe me, it takes some strong eye muscles to wink at 45 million people every week,” Liberace joked.
Liberace remained a fixture on television for the next 17 years and soon became a fixture on the Las Vegas Strip when he opened the Riviera Hotel in 1955 as the highest paid entertainer in the town’s history. After more than 25 years of his average income exceeding $1 million, he surrounded himself with the finer things in life. He owned seven homes scattered throughout the country including Malibu, Palm Springs and Las Vegas. The showy jewelry he wore during his shows alone cost $3 million, including the world’s largest rhinestone – a 115,000-karat, 134-facet, grapefruit-sized stone from Austria valued at $50,000 in 1985. His personal collection of more than 300 miniature pianos and 39 full-sized ones, along with a fleet of automobiles and a collection of furniture from around the world, were maintained in three warehouses. “Lee wasn’t just a collector, he was a real shopper,” said Dora Liberace, the widow of Liberace’s brother George, during a 1990 interview.
After it was jokingly suggested he had enough riches to fill a museum, he decided to put his personal belongings on display at his home overlooking Hollywood’s Sunset Strip in February 1975. When nearby neighbors complained and sued claiming the extensive tourist excursions were causing traffic jams in their upscale neighborhood, Liberace was forced to close his first museum. He then scouted his hometown for a museum site and found a great Victorian mansion on Milwaukee Avenue in the suburb of Wauwatosa. But again his plans were foiled by legal problems. “Marquette University practically bought the property out from under him,” Jerry Goldberg recounted of Liberace being forced to abandon his bid to purchase the property.
On Easter Sunday 1979, The Liberace Museum opened for visitors in a converted shopping plaza just 2.5 miles off the world famous Las Vegas Strip – where it still welcomes over 50,000 visitors annually. As the main fundraising arm for his non-profit Liberace Foundation for the Performing and Creative Arts, the showman looked to assist young musicians and struggling performers with the museum’s revenue. “The Foundation personifies Liberace’s legacy of showmanship and scholarship as it has created over $5.5 million in scholarships to nearly 2,200 students in 110 colleges and universities,” Jerry Goldberg reiterated.
Today at the museum, many of Liberace’s personal treasures are still flamboyantly displayed. Besides eight of his cars, fifteen pianos, numerous candelabras and over twenty of his unprecedented stage costumes is a floor-length mink cape trimmed with 40,000 rhinestones appraised at $750,000 and his pair of infamous red, white and blue spangled, sequined and bejeweled hot pants from the 1976 Las Vegas Salute to the Bicentennial performance.
Everything on display at the Liberace Museum was part of Mr. Showmanship’s glitzy on-stage panache – a legacy that influenced performers such as Elvis Presley, Elton John, David Bowie and bands like Queen and Kiss. “The public demands a certain amount of escapism and fantasy from performers,” Liberace often proclaimed. “The ones who dare to give it are the ones who skyrocket.”
Even in the twilight of his six-decade career, the ever-smiling performer who had made personal trademarks of a lighted candelabra and outrageously overstated attire refused to quit working. He introduced himself to a whole new generation of fans with guest appearances on The Muppet Show, Saturday Night Live and the first Wrestlemania alongside Mr. T. and Hulk Hogan. Even when rumors of his deteriorating health began to surface in 1986, Liberace continued to make public appearances at the Radio City Music Hall and at book signings in New York, Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles to promote The Wonderful Private Life of Liberace. His last public appearance was a performance on the Oprah Winfrey Christmas Show, which was taped for television in mid-November. On February 4, 1987 Liberace died at his home in Palm Springs, but his strong Midwestern ideals shone through as he reflected on his potential legacy, “I would like to be remembered as a kind and gentle soul, and as someone who made the world a little better place to live in because I had lived in it.”

For more information on Liberace, please visit the official Liberace Museum and Foundation for the Performing and Creative Arts website at www.liberace.org.

The Nuclear Football - Documentary Script Excerpt

Thu, 8 Jul 2004 15:09:26 -0700

ACT ONE – TEASE

IT’S THE WORLD’S MOST DANGEROUS HANDBAG.

BUZZ PATTERSON
The first time I picked it up , I realized that I was holding in my hand the world's nuclear capability.

IT ENABLES THE UNITED STATES PRESIDENT TO AUTHORIZE A NUCLEAR ATTACK FROM ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.

BRUCE BLAIR
From the time the President gives the go ahead, 'til the time thousands of weapons are leaving their tubes. The whole process would last about ten minutes.

IT’S CALLED THE NUCLEAR FOOTBALL.

ALLAN LICHTMAN
The Football, in some ways, is like Pandora's Box. It should never be opened.

TITLE CARD – THE NUCLEAR FOOTBALL

IT’S A DOOMSDAY SCENARIO WE PRAY NEVER HAPPENS. THE PRESIDENT IS AWAY FROM THE WHITE HOUSE WHEN UNITED STATES’ MILITARY RADAR DETECTS WHAT APPEARS TO BE AN INCOMING NUCLEAR WEAPON.

MILITARY OFFICER (SOT)
So you’ve got Zulu-one-five-one unknown.

ALLAN LICHTMAN
The President would have literally minutes to make a decision as to whether or not to launch a retaliatory strike.

IN A MATTER OF SECONDS, A MILITARY AIDE RUSHES TO THE PRESIDENT’S SIDE.

BUZZ PATTERSON
First thing is to notify the President that we've had an incident or a situation that requires his involvement.

STRAPPED TO THE AIDE’S WRIST IS A PLAIN BLACK BRIEFCASE. HURRIEDLY, HE UNLOCKS THE BAG.

BUZZ PATTERSON
Get him, pull him aside, and crack open the Football and start working with him to make the decisions, and help him either answer his questions in terms of decision making options, or help him in terms of communicating those decisions to the Pentagon.

SEPARATED FROM THE COMMAND STRUCTURE UPON WHICH HE RELIES TO MAKE CRITICAL MILITARY DECISIONS, THE PRESIDENT MUST DEPEND ON his MILITARY AIDE AND THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THE NUCLEAR FOOTBALL. IN THE BALANCE LIES THE DECISION WHETHER OR NOT TO UNLEASH AMERICA’S NUCLEAR MUSCLE.

MUSIC SEGUE

FORTUNATELY, THE UNITED STATES HAS NEVER BEEN FORCED TO STARE DOWN A DIRECT NUCLEAR ASSAULT. EVEN SO, A TOP-SECRET SYSTEM OF DEFENSE STRATEGIES, CONTINGENCIES AND CAPABILITIES HAS BEEN DEVELOPED TO DEAL WITH SUCH A DOOMSDAY SCENARIO. PART OF THAT PREPAREDNESS LIES INSIDE A BLACK BRIEFCASE – COMMONLY KNOWN AS THE NUCLEAR FOOTBALL.

BRUCE BLAIR
It's a plain old-fashioned briefcase with documents inside that describe the nuclear war plans and options for the President of the United States.

JOHN KLINE
It’s a symbol of the power, the nuclear might if you will, of the United States.

BUZZ PATTERSON
The Football is a black leather bounded piece of luggage and it’s approximately 45 pounds. It's a hard case, inside of the leather covering. It has a handle, and a loop structure where you can actually attach it to your wrists for security purposes.

WHENEVER THE PRESIDENT LEAVES THE WHITE HOUSE – WHETHER ON A JOG DOWN PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE OR ON AN OFFICIAL STATE VISIT ABROAD – THE NUCLEAR FOOTBALL, CARRIED BY A MILITARY AIDE, IS ALWAYS WITHIN REACH.

JOHN KLINE
It was designed so the President could respond immediately in the event of an attack from the Soviet Union, so it needs to be immediately available to the President.

BUZZ PATTERSON
It's been by the President's side wherever he goes no matter where it is in the world, and has been ever since the Cold War began.

FOR OVER FORTY YEARS, THE NUCLEAR FOOTBALL HAS BEEN AN INDISPENSABLE PART OF THE UNITED STATES NUCLEAR PREPAREDNESS. BUT DURING THE ADOLESCENCE OF THE NUCLEAR AGE, THE UNITED STATES OPERATED WITHOUT SUCH A DEVICE.

MUSIC SEGUE

IN 1945, THE MASSIVE DESTRUCTIVE POWER OF THE ATOMIC BOMB WAS DEMONSTRATED AT HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI. OVER THE NEXT DECADE, THE UNITED STATES ADVANCED ITS NUCLEAR CAPABILITIES. BUT THROUGHOUT THIS PERIOD, IT LACKED A UNIFORM PLAN FOR HOW NUCLEAR WEAPONS WOULD BE DEPLOYED.

ALLAN LICHTMAN
In the early 50’s, when America was developing its war fighting plans, and was getting enough nuclear weapons, it was all chaotic. Different elements of the military had different plans that were duplicative and that often were in conflict with one another. So here we have, in the 50's, the most destructive force ever known to humankind, and we had no rational way of controlling it or figuring out how to use it.

IN RESPONSE TO THIS SHORTCOMING, IN 1960 THE EISENHOWER ADMINISTRATION DEVELOPED THE SINGLE INTEGRATED OPERATIONAL PLAN, OR SIOP.

ALLAN LICHTMAN
The SIOP finally put together the duplicative, conflicting plans for fighting nuclear war into a single devastating package.

AMONG OTHER THINGS, THE SIOP CALLED FOR A MASSIVE U.S. NUCLEAR RETALIATION TO ANY SOVIET NUCLEAR ATTACK. IT ALSO DICTATED THAT ANY NUCLEAR LAUNCH ORDER HAD TO ORIGINATE FROM THE PRESIDENT, AND THEN BE EXECUTED THROUGH THE PENTAGON.

BUZZ PATTERSON
The go ahead to launch would flow down from the Pentagon to the war fighting Commanders In Chiefs, and keys would be turned from that point on.

THE SIOP BECAME THE CORNERSTONE OF THE UNITED STATES’ NUCLEAR COMMAND AND CONTROL SYSTEM. BUT A MAJOR FLAW WOULD BE EXPOSED DURING AMERICA’S CLOSEST NUCLEAR SCARE.

MUSIC SEGUE

IN OCTOBER 1962, U.S. RECONNAISSANCE PHOTOS REVEALED THE SOVIET UNION WAS BUILDING SECRET MISSILE BASES IN CUBA, JUST NINETY MILES OFF THE FLORIDA COAST.

JODY POWELL
The Cuban Missile Crisis was perhaps the closest this country ever came to going to nuclear war. It was a true headtohead confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States over a tremendously important issue.

DURING THE FIRST DAYS OF THE CRISIS, PRESIDENT KENNEDY STRATEGICALLY KEPT NEWS OF THE DISCOVERY QUIET. HIS ADMINISTRATION SECRETLY MET TO FORMULATE A RESPONSE.

ALLAN LICHTMAN
Kennedy was faced with the polarities of bombing and invasion on the one hand, and pure diplomatic action on the other hand.

IN ORDER TO FURTHER THE RUSE OF BEING UNAWARE OF THE MISSILE BUILD UP, KENNEDY KEPT PREVIOUSLY SCHEDULED CAMPAIGN TRIPS TO OHIO AND ILLINOIS. BUT AS THE CRISIS ESCALATED, THE PRESIDENT WAS FRUSTRATED BY HIS INABILITY TO WEIGH POSSIBLE NUCLEAR SCENARIOS FROM THE ROAD. KENNEDY’S BEST OPTION WAS TO RETURN TO THE WHITE HOUSE.

JODY POWELL
He wanted to get back in a way that did not tip off anyone, including the Soviets, as to what we knew or thought we knew at the time.

JODY POWELL
And that was the cover that allowed him to get back in a position to manage and make decisions about that crisis.

BACK IN WASHINGTON D.C., EIGHT DAYS AFTER THE CRISIS BEGAN, KENNEDY WENT PUBLIC.

PRESIDENT KENNEDY (SOT)
Within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island.

KENNEDY DEMANDED THAT RUSSIAN PREMIER NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV REMOVE ALL OF THE MISSILE BASES. WHEN KHRUSHCHEV REFUSED, THE YOUNG PRESIDENT ORDERED A NAVAL BLOCKADE OF CUBA.

ALLAN LICHTMAN
We quarantine Cuba. We keep the missiles from being supplied, and at the same time, try to negotiate an end to the crisis. And, here's the world watching the American picket ships patrolling outside Cuba with nobody knowing whether or not the Soviets are gonna try to cross the line and perhaps precipitate nuclear war.

FOR SEVEN DAYS, THE UNITED STATES AND THE SOVIET UNION TEETERED ON THE BRINK OF NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST. THEN ON OCTOBER 28TH, THE WORLD BREATHED A SIGH OF RELIEF.

NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER (SOT)
The retreat to Moscow. Russian ships steam out from Cuban ports with their decks loaded with missiles. The Soviets are withdrawing under pressure from the New World.

ALLAN LICHTMAN
It wasn't the young Kennedy who blinked. It was the experienced Nikita Khrushchev who turned back the ships and agreed to dismantle the offensive weaponry on the island of Cuba.

ALTHOUGH DIFFUSED, THE CONFLICT POINTED OUT A FAILING OF THE SINGLE INTEGRATED OPERATIONAL PLAN.

ALLAN LICHTMAN
Here you've got the SIOP, the most devastating power at the hands of a leader, by far, in the history of the world. The weakness, though, is you've got to be in the command center in Washington to actually begin launching a nuclear attack.

BRUCE BLAIR
The United States went through a complete overhaul after the Cuban Missile Crisis.

AT THE URGING OF DEFENSE SECRETARY ROBERT MCNAMARA, MILITARY OFFICIALS WERE INSTRUCTED TO DEVISE A SYSTEM THAT WOULD GIVE THE PRESIDENT THE TOOLS NEEDED TO AUTHORIZE A NUCLEAR ATTACK AT ANY TIME, FROM ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.

BUZZ PATTERSON
And the Football was born out of that need for a real time decision-making tool.

ALLAN LICHTMAN
They decided to centralize the capacity for a President not to launch a nuclear attack per se, but to begin the decisionmaking process towards launching a nuclear attack. This small briefcase, supposedly with the weapons plans inside of it and the codes inside of it, that would never leave the President's side.

THE BRIEFCASE WAS NAMED THE PRESIDENT’S EMERGENCY SATCHEL, BUT IT QUICKLY ACQUIRED A NICKNAME.

BUZZ PATTERSON
The Aides back in those days dubbed it the Football, and it remains that way today.

ALLAN LICHTMAN
And the term Nuclear Football actually goes back to the Eisenhower administration, because the old SIOP was called Drop Kick. Well, if we're gonna launch a drop kick, we have to have a Football with which to do it.

ON MAY 10TH 1963, ONE OF THE FIRST PHOTOS OF THE NUCLEAR FOOTBALL WAS SNAPPED. SINCE THEN, INFORMATION ABOUT THE BAG'S CONTENTS REMAIN HIGHLY CLASSIFIED.

ALLAN LICHTMAN This is all shrouded in secrecy.

JUST WHAT IS INSIDE THE NUCLEAR FOOTBALL?

### END OF ACT ONE ###

TaBLE OF CONTENTS

Some Like It Cold: A Sheboygan Surfin' Safari - Book Excerpt

Liberace: The Milwaukee Maestro - Magazine Article

The Nuclear Football - Documentary Script Excerpt