Liberace Biography and Profile

Wladziu Valentino Liberace ( May 16, 1919 - February 4, 1987 ) was a child piano prodigy who became a star of live concerts, television, and recordings. At the height of his success, he was considered one of the worlds highest-paid entertainers. His flamboyant lifestyle and stage appearances earned him the nickname Mr. Showmanship. Early Life Liberace was born in the Milwaukee suburb of West Allis, Wisconsin. His father was an Italian immigrant, and his mother was of Polish descent. Liberace began playing the piano at age 4, and his prodigious talent was discovered at an early age. At age 8, Liberace met the legendary Polish pianist Ignacy Paderewski backstage at a Pabst Theater concert in Milwaukee. As a teenager in the Great Depression, Liberace earned money performing in cabarets and strip clubs despite disapproval from his parents. At age 20, he performed Liszts Second Piano Concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Pabst Theater and subsequently toured the Midwest as a piano player. Personal Life Liberace often hid his private life as a gay man by allowing public stories about romantic involvement with women to gain traction. In 2011, actress Betty White, a close friend, stated that Liberace was gay and she was often used by his managers to counter homosexual rumors. In the late 1950s, he sued the U.K. newspaper Daily Mirror for libel after it published statements implying that he was gay. He won the case in 1959 and received more than $20,000 in damages. In 1982, Liberaces 22-year-old former chauffeur and live-in lover of five years Scott Thorson sued him for $113 million in palimony after he was fired. Liberace continued to insist that he wasnt gay, and the case was settled out of court in 1986 with Thorson receiving $75,000, three cars, and three pet dogs. Scott Thorson later said that he agreed to settle because he knew that Liberace was dying. His book Behind the Candelabra about their relationship was adapted as an award-winning HBO film in 2013. Music Career In the 1940s, Liberace reworked his live performances from straight classical music to shows that included pop music. it would become a signature element of his concerts. In 1944 he made his first appearance in Las Vegas. Liberace added the iconic candelabra to his act after seeing it used as a prop in the 1945  film A Song To Remember about Frederic Chopin.   Liberace was his own personal publicity machine performing from private parties to sold-out concerts. By 1954, he earned a record-breaking $138,000 (more than $1,000,000 today) for a concert at New Yorks Madison Square Garden. Critics panned his piano playing, but his sense of showmanship endeared Liberace to his audiences.   In the 1960s, Liberace returned to Las Vegas and referred to himself as, a one-man Disneyland. His live Las Vegas shows in the 1970s and 1980s often earned more than $300,000 a week. His final stage performance took place at Radio City Music Hall in New York on November 2, 1986. Although he recorded almost 70 albums, Liberaces record sales were relatively small compared to his celebrity. Six of his albums were certified gold for sales. TV and Films Liberaces first network television program, the 15-minute Liberace Show, debuted in July 1952. It didnt lead to a regular series, but a syndicated film of his local live show gave him widespread national exposure. Liberace made guest appearances on a wide variety of other shows in the 1950s and 1960s including The Ed Sullivan Show. A new Liberace Show started on ABC daytime in 1958, but it was canceled after only six months. Liberace eagerly embraced pop culture making guest appearances both on the Monkees and Batman in the late 1960s. In 1978, Liberace appeared on the Muppet Show, and, in 1985, he appeared on Saturday Night Live.   From early in his career, Liberace was interested in earning success as an actor in addition to his musical talents. His first film appearance occurred in the 1950 movie South Sea Sinner. Warner Bros. gave him his first starring role in 1955 in the film Sincerely Yours. Despite a big-budget advertising campaign, the movie was a critical and commercial failure. He never again appeared in a lead role in a film. Death Outside of the public eye, Liberace was tested positive for HIV by his personal physician in August 1985. More than a year before Liberaces death, his lover of seven years, Cary James Wyman, was also tested positive. He later died in 1997. Another lover named Chris Adler later came forward after Liberace died and claimed that he received the HIV virus from sex with Liberace. He died in 1990. Liberace kept his own illness a secret until the day he died. He did not seek any medical treatment. One of Liberaces last public interviews took place on TVs Good Morning America in August 1986. During the interview, he hinted that he might be sick. Liberace died of complications of AIDS on February 4, 1987, at his home in Palm Springs, California. At first, several causes of death were publicized, but the Riverside County coroner performed an autopsy and declared that those close to Liberace conspired to hide the real cause of death. The coroner stated it was pneumonia as a complication of AIDS. Liberace was buried at Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. Legacy Liberace achieved his fame in a fashion unique to his own personal style. His presentation of shows as a piano-playing entertainer borrowed from classical music traditions, flamboyant circus-style shows, and the intimacy of piano bars. Liberace maintained an unparalleled connection to his core audience. Liberace is also recognized as an icon among gay entertainers. Although he fought against being labeled as homosexual during his lifetime, his sexual orientation was widely discussed and recognized. Pop music legend Elton John has stated that Liberace was the first gay person he remembered seeing on television, and he considered Liberace to be a personal hero. Liberace also played a key role in the development of Las Vegas as an entertainment mecca. He opened the Liberace Museum in Las Vegas in 1979. It became a key tourist attraction along with his own live shows. The proceeds from the museum benefited the Liberace Foundation of Performing and Creative Arts. After 31 years, the museum closed in 2010 due to declining admissions.

Essay Israel and Palestine - 740 Words

The Issue Of Israel and Palestinenbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;In 1993, in Oslo, Norway a historic peace agreement was secretly drawn up with the hopes of bringing all the violence between the Palestinians and the Israelis to an end. Yasser Arafat, the chairman of the PLO, and Yitzhak Rabin who was prime minister of Israel at the time shook hands at the White House in front of President Bill Clinton to finalize the accords. This was the first step towards peace in a long time between the warring nations, and one that many people believed was going to bring an end to the fighting. These accords were significant because it was the first time that Israel ever recognized the Palestinian Liberation Organization†¦show more content†¦He believes that he is right, and no one is going to change his opinion. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Ariel Sharon is a big bully. I do not justify Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians, and I do believe that Yasser Arafat supported terror strikes, but Sharon knows that he has the upper hand in the whole situation. America is going to stand behind Israel, so Sharon makes all these crazy demands from the Palestinians. He will give them some of their land, but Israel will control the air space in the new Palestinian territory. Of course Palestine is not going to agree to that, demands like that are absurd, but Sharon has the world on his side because when he blows up a house full of Palestinians, it is referred to as a military action, but when Palestinians attack Israel it is looked at as terrorism.nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;President Bush and his cabinet of maniacs has created this entire scare of terror attacks, and Ariel Sharon was the first person to jump on that bandwagon. This was exactly what he needed to justify Israel beating up on Palestine and taki ng control of Palestinian land. 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Descartes And God Essay Example For Students

Descartes And God Essay Jared RhineEnglish 201October 10, 1997Descartes sets about proving the existence of God through his meditations on knowledge in an effort to prove the skeptics of his time wrong. He first determines that human knowledge is based entirely too much on unproved presuppositions. He argues that this makes it difficult to distinguish between truth and error, since we cannot recognize true knowledge. Descartes proposes that the quest for knowledge must be based upon universal doubt. Specifically, he proposes the following in relation to his universal methodic doubt: 1. In order to seek truth, it is necessary once in the course of our life, to doubt, as far as possible, of all things. 2. We ought also to consider as false all that is doubtful. 3. We ought not meanwhile to make use of doubt in the conduct of life? 4. Why we may doubt of sensible things. 5. Why we may also doubt of mathematical demonstrations. 6. We cannot doubt of our existence while we doubt, and this is the first knowledge we acquire when we philosophize in order. Descartes proceeded to strip away his knowledge base in order to determine the one indubitable fact, Cogito, ergo sum. From this absolute knowledge of his own existence, he set about deducing the existence of God through ontological argument. In our minds, the idea of God is one of an infinitely perfect Being. An infinitely perfect being must have existence, otherwise it would not be infinitely perfect. Therefore, God exists. In proving the existence of God, Descartes set the groundwork for determining that God created man. He further postulated that God, being infinitely perfect and not a deceiver, could not have provided man with the deceptive powers of knowledge. Therefore, mans mental faculties are determined to be trustworthy provided we separate what there is of clear and distinct in the knowledge from what is obscure and confused. Using this reasoning, man must discard all previous knowledge, which is doubt-ridden, all sensory-based knowledge (as perceptions can be misleading) , and all intellection. As a result, skepticism is removed and valid knowledge possible. Descartes primary purpose was the defense of human knowledge against the attacks of the skeptics. He was justified in excluding preconceived notions, presuppositions, and traditions in determining the limits of knowledge. Descartes discarded the ability of the mind to know truth and the human abilities of contradiction and sufficient reason. In doing so, he made a solution to the problem impossible. As it relates to his theory of the existence of God, Descartes universal doubt refutes his own conclusion as to Gods existence. Descartes formed an idea of God as an infinitely good being. He would have had to discover this idea within his own mind. According to his principle of universal doubt, he cannot simply know whether his conception of God is correct or incorrect. He would have, as a matter of his own principle, considered it as false until proven otherwise. Therefore, since the idea of God is in doubt, the trustworthiness of mans reasoning must also be doubtful and Descartes cannot escape his own real doubt. Descartes uses a process of reasoning, a mathematical formulae, in attempting to demonstrate Gods existence. If his reasoning is of demonstrably doubtful validity, how can Descartes demonstrate Gods existence? The validity of Descartes reasoning is supposed to flow as a consequence of the infinite perfection of God; and Gods infinite perfect is made certain through Descartes reasoning powers before he has even proven that these reasoning powers are valid and trustworthy. Descartes assumes the very thing beforehand, which he intends to prove afterwards. Descartes accepts the trustworthiness of his faculties in demonstrating the existence and infinite perfection of God, and that is illegitimate. A doubtfully valid faculty will produce a doubtfully valid argument, which will, in turn, produce a doubtfully valid conclusion. The entire a rgument for Gods existence is therefore nullified by a suspect reasoning process. Since he proves the reliability of his reason and process by means of Gods veracity, the proof of his reliability cannot be established beyond doubt. Thus, Descartes attempt to vindicate the validity of human knowledge failed, because, by rejecting the reliability of his own powers to discover and know truth, he made it impossible for himself to remove himself from his own universal doubt. Further, Descartes has marked inconsistencies in the manner in which he applies his procedure. He purports to reject everything in his pursuit of fundamental knowledge, even principles of contradiction and sufficient reason. In reality, he does not. He assumes the truth of these principles and uses them repeatedly. Cogito ergo sum is based upon the validity of the principle of contradiction. This principle states that it is impossible for something to be and not be at the same time. Descartes becomes aware of his own existence by thinking or doubting. Why? Because he perceives that it is impossible to think and not think and to exist and not exist at the same time. If he were consistent and seriously doubted the principle of contradiction, he would have to agree that it is possible for an entity to think and not think, to exist and not exist at the same time. Then, according to his own supposition, he could not be sure after all that the fact of his existence is certain. Only by granting the validity and truth of the principle of contradiction beforehand, can his existence be established as an objective fact. That is exactly what he does. The same line of reasoning applies to his proof of Gods existence and infinite perfection. Descartes rejection of the principle of contradiction invalidates his arguments because, as long as this principle is not established and accepted, he could never be sure whether it would be possible for God to exist and not exist at the same time. Similarly, Descartes w ould have to remain doubtful as to whether God could be veracious and not veracious, deceiving and not deceiving unless the principle of contradiction was taken for granted before Descartes begins to prove Gods existence. Descartes does not accept this principle of contradiction throughout his reasoning. This is a glaring inconsistency in his arguments. Descartes further conducts his inquiry into the existence of God with the supposition that he doubts the principles of sufficiency and causality. Unfortunately, he uses these principles before he has proven their validity. Descartes believes that God is an infinitely perfect being that could not have originated in our minds because an idea such as this would exceed the causality of the mind, as the mind is less perfect than the content of the idea itself. Consequently, the idea had to be produced by God himself otherwise there would be no sufficient reason for the presence of such an idea in the mind. Clearly, Descartes uses the prin ciples of sufficient reason and causality in demonstrating the existence of God, even though he doubts their validity. Therefore, if he lets these principles stand as doubtful, his entire argument is nullified by doubt. If he accepts them as valid prior to establishing their validity, he is acting in contrary to his fundamental doubt doctrine. In either case, he makes the existence of God impossible. Descartes could not prove Gods existence consistently as he could only do so through the use of a reasoning process, which, according to his own principles, was essentially doubtful in its validity. The only thing he could ever be certain of was his own existence. This too, strictly speaking, he should have doubted, because he had doubted the principle of contradiction and the testimony of his own consciousness. If Descartes had been consistent, he would have aligned with the skeptics because his universal doubt left him no other choice. Universal doubt, therefore, is a flawed course in pursuing an understanding of human knowledge and the existence of God. God cannot exist using Descartes arguments. Complete doubt cannot lead to an understanding of human knowledge.