Stepping into Liberace's shiny shoes
In May, Martin Preston marked his 25th year slipping into shiny rings and lavish fur and performing as flamboyant pianist Liberace.
In 1990, he performed for Liberace’s original fans.
“Sadly, most of those folks are gone at this point,” Preston said in an interview this week. “Now I am working for their kids basically. People come up to me after the show — probably in their 60s and 70s — and say, ‘When I was kid, I used to watch Liberace every week (on TV) with mom’ or Aunt Grace or something.
“For them, it’s like ‘Howdy Doody.’ They’re reliving their youth.”
He will meet many of those second-and-third-generation fans Friday night when he returns to Ocala to perform Tribute to Liberace at Circle Square Cultural Center in On Top of the World.
Liberace died in 1987, but his talent and grandeur — from the bling to the capes to the candelabras — set a high bar for showmanship. In the following Q&A, Preston describes preserving that legacy.
Q: What does it take to become Liberace?
A: It takes about an hour of steady work to become him physically. It’s a lot of make-up and hair work; I am in foam rubber from my neck to my knees, what we in theater call a fat suit. Liberace was stocky and I’m built more like, oh, I don’t know, Ray Bolger or something like that.
Each costume weighs between 25 and 30 pounds, and then I have fur coats and things that go on top of that. I typically will go through about five costume changes in a show. I have reproductions of his jewelry, so I have three rings on each hand, which does not facilitate piano playing but is part of the gig.
Q: What have you learned about the man by stepping into his shoes and wearing his rings?
A: I have close friends who worked for Liberace for several years, so I was around the show a lot and got to see how it works and got to meet him and so forth. There were at least two Liberaces: the Liberace who was on the stage and there was the private Liberace who, believe it not, was a rather conservative person. He was very much a homebody, almost shy. The whole flamboyant character was a creation of his ... Over the years, he became more and more flamboyant and always had to top himself and be just a little more outrageous than he was the year before.
Q: How did you stumble into this?
A: The first time I saw him live, I really didn’t know much about him. He was from another generation. I grew up with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. I was a magic nut, and I still am. My boyhood idol was a guy named Marvin Roy, who did an entire magic act with light bulbs. The first time I ever saw Liberace perform, I actually went to see Marvin — he toured with the Liberace show for five years.
The minute Liberace hit the stage, I was completely bowled over. They didn’t call him Mr. Showmanship for nothing. He was an incredible live performer ... He was absolutely electrifying.
I became a huge fan.
About six months after he died, I ran into a guy who was doing a little 20-minute tribute to Liberace, and it wasn’t very good. The guy was a good pianist, but he did not capture the character at all. And I thought, “Well that’s a shame. Somebody ought to do this right — actually re-create the man, re-create the sparkle.” And the more I thought about it, I thought, “I wonder if I could do it.”
When I committed to doing it, I was working as the musical director for “Forbidden Broadway,” which was an off-Broadway show. I gathered the cast after the show one night and said, “Look, I have an idea. Tell me what you think. I am going to become Liberace.” Every single person said. “You’re insane. Don’t waste your time or your money. It can’t be done.”
And that was my incentive. If it had not been for that, it probably would have remained a fantasy.
I went to work the next day, and it took me two years to get it ready for the stage. There was no guarantee that the obscene amounts of money I spent on it, and all the time rehearsing, it would work at all. And much to my surprise, it did work. Twenty-five years later, here I am.
When: 7 p.m. Friday Where: Circle Square Cultural Center, On Top of the World, 8395 SW 80th St., Ocala Tickets: $13-$15 for OTOW residents, $14-$16 for non-residents (854-3670 or www.csculturalcenter.com)