PENSIVE MUSIC Pianist and showman Liberace died today at his home in Palm Springs after receiving the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church. The flamboyant pianist died Wednesday at his home of heart failure, surrounded by family and friends. MOURNFUL MUSIC Liberace was one of the most charismatic performers of his generation. His meteoric rise to fame in the 1950s made him the highest-paid entertainer in the world. When I first played here in 1944 I got $750 a week, and now my salary's in six figures. His dazzling stage shows and outlandish costumes earned him a vast international following. ARCHIVE: Among stars lucky enough to be presented were Liberace. While the Queen talked to Alfred Marks, the Prince has a joke with Liberace. 'It was a very happy evening,' Her Majesty's reported as saying. But on February the 4th 1987, Liberace is pronounced dead at his home in Palm Springs, California. MOURNFUL MUSIC The autopsy report showed that Liberace was suffering from a large number of serious diseases. The challenge will be to determine which of those diseases ultimately caused his death. SUSTAINED UNEASY NOTE INTRIGUING MUSIC Dr Jason Payne-James is an internationally recognised specialist in forensic and legal medicine. Called on by the National Crime Agency, the Metropolitan Police and government task forces in the US and the UK, he provided evidence in the Soham murders and the Baby P cases. The death of Liberace is subject to some controversy. There are two conflicting, and completely different, accounts as to how he died. His treating physician says that he died from 'cardiac arrest, due to cardiac failure, 'due to subacute encephalopathy'. The autopsy report says that he died from respiratory failure. So why are there two conflicting official reports? What did he actually die from? The circumstances surrounding the death of one of the world's most popular entertainers are shrouded in mystery. Liberace's doctor had signed a death certificate, but the coroner wasn't satisfied. It is my firm belief that, uh, somebody along the line wanted to pull a fast one on us. He suspected foul play, and two days later ordered the body to be taken from the mortuary and subject to autopsy while millions of fans around the world were still in mourning. TENSE MUSIC January the 22nd 1987. Two weeks before his death, Liberace is at his colonial-style mansion in Palm Springs, California. When he woke up that morning, he was feeling ill and suffering from an uncomfortable mouth infection. He's examined by his physician, Dr Ronald Daniels. Liberace is 67, fatigued and sick, but his career is still in good health. Over the course of 50 years, he has amassed a fortune of more than $100 million. He was a kind, gentle, considerate, unbelievably generous, wonderful entertainer. Oh, I` I gotta tell you, so many people here have asked me whether this is my piano, and I'm rather proud to say it is. There are only two in the whole world like it. Uh-huh. Thank you very much. Everybody who met him absolutely adored him. And I got both of them. LAUGHTER MELANCHOLY PIANO MUSIC Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1923. By the age of 4, Liberace could play almost any tune, and debuted as a soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at just 19. By his 20s, he was playing popular songs in nightclubs and movie theatres, but his big breakthrough came in 1952 when he was given his own TV show. (PLAYS PIANO) It was the perfect medium to showcase his flamboyant style, his wit and virtuoso playing. (PLAYS PIANO) (CONTINUES PLAYING PIANO) 35 million Americans tuned in regularly. Liberace became a national celebrity. He is extremely fastidious about all of his performance. He knows exactly what he wants to do. He has an intuitive sense of what audiences want... Welcome to our show. I must apologise; I was in a bit of a rush tonight and I didn't have time to really get dressed up. LAUGHTER ...and then gives them what they came for, what they want, simply in spades. In the '60s, Liberace established his own unique brand with dazzling production numbers and wildly extravagant costumes, earning him the title 'Mr Showmanship'. (PLAYS PIANO) DRAMATIC MUSIC But Liberace was a man living a double life. Despite his immaculate public image, in private he fought a constant battle to keep the truth about his sexuality hidden. Behind the facade of all the glitz and the glamour and the bling, he was a very troubled man. He was so conscious of image. He wanted people to respect him and he did not want anybody to know that he was gay. 23rd of January 1987. By now, Liberace's throat infection has worsened. His doctor has had him admitted to Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, California. He's weak, dizzy and has dramatically lost weight. Looking at the autopsy report, the first thing that I notice is that Liberace was suffering from anaemia when he went into hospital. Anaemia is a condition where there is an inadequate or insufficient number of red blood cells. Red blood cells contain haemoglobin, and haemoglobin is the chemical that transports oxygen around the body. Anaemia, therefore, reduces the ability to transport oxygen. There are dozens of possible causes of anaemia; by far the most common are iron or vitamin deficiency. But anaemia can be a symptom of many different conditions, or a symptom of a poor diet. I bet you thought it was another piano. Actually, it's a refrigerator and a freezer. He really liked to eat. He was raised on bounteous Polish dishes and even more bounteous Italian dishes as a child, and that means he's gonna be fat. So, most of my suits come in three sizes ` thin, fat and impossible. His weight went up and down like a demented yo-yo. If he was fat, he knew he had to diet because he couldn't get into his stage costumes. It was as simple as that. Liberace found unorthodox ways to lose weight. Seven days before his death, his publicist announced he had been eating nothing but watermelon for several months. If he felt that something worked, if there was a particular diet, 'I can go on this and lose weight and the melt` the fat will melt away,' well, then he` yeah, he would go for it. Watermelon is healthy enough. It contains no fat, no cholesterol and no salt, and it does contain vitamin A and vitamin C. But to follow a diet of just one food type or one fruit just makes no sense and can be potentially dangerous. Doctors conduct tests and give him a blood transfusion to raise his dangerously low haemoglobin count. But it's only a temporary respite. Liberace is still perilously ill. Anaemia is extremely unlikely to cause death directly, but it can play a part in making underlying diseases worse. But what those underlying diseases were was a mystery, and in 12 days' time, Liberace would be dead. 2 January the 26th 1987. Palm Springs, California. After four days of hospital treatment, Liberace is discharged and returns home. He went into seclusion, and even his closest friends were not allowed in. In January` late January, it was becoming quite grim. Fluids taken from Liberace's body during the autopsy were subject to toxicology tests. The results revealed one significant finding. In his urine, there were traces of a metabolite of benzodiazepines. Those are anti-anxiety drugs. Liberace was taking anti-anxiety pills up to three days before his death. He had good reason to feel anxious. The flamboyant stage presence masked a deeply troubled man. He was riddled with guilt. He didn't understand his sexuality. It was the Catholic influence. In the eyes of God he was a sinner ` he was going to die and go to hell. He would try to hide it, mask it, but he couldn't help it. Back in the early '50s, Liberace was mobbed by a mass of adoring fans. He's comparable to Frank Sinatra or to Elvis Presley in terms of audience recognition. In terms of money, he simply set records across the board. Well-groomed, warm and witty, he was a heart-throb. People would storm the theatres, they would stand for hours, they would cry and sob. The women just went crazy for him. There was even a string of girlfriends, including an engagement to actress Joanne Rio in 1954. And I think it was purely` Well, I know it was purely for the press. Uh, he enjoyed being with her, and he thought it would be interesting to be married because that was the thing that was done in that time. It was purely for the facade, and he actually believed it himself ` that if he presented that image of him, no one would ever know he was gay. He maintained the facade for several years, but in 1956 a British newspaper article changed everything. Cassandra, a columnist for the Daily Mirror, described Liberace as, 'A quivering, giggling, 'fruit-flavoured, mincing, 'ice-covered heap of mother love.' The effect of the Cassandra case was disaster on Liberace. He read that and he was so offended by being called a puff ` it really struck him down. Liberace sued, fiercely denying he was gay, and won �8000 in damages ` at the time, the highest award for libel in British legal history. He, on a stack of Bibles, and` took an oath that he was not gay. So therefore, for hi` the rest of his life, if he would give indicators or there was any indication that he was gay, he was afraid that the courts would come back because that was a big deal in England when he won. Here you've got a man who has protected his identity so powerfully and his private life so powerfully, you know, he has a hermetically sealed identity, and here they are just trying to pierce it, and I think it would have caused him immense amounts of psychological pain, because he knew what that would mean if it ever came out ` that he would lose an immense amount. He would lose his fans, he would've, um, been perhaps socially rejected and marginalised and made fun of; all of these things were possibilities. He repeated the denial in 1982 when his former chauffeur and lover, Scott Thorson, brought a lawsuit against him. When the court case was finally settled between Liberace and Scott Thorson, and Scott Thorson was effectively paid off, I think that was enormously damaging for Liberace. The publication of embarrassing details about his sexuality forced Liberace to settle out of court. Constantly fighting with the press and suing them for` for stories they put out about his sexuality would have caused him an immense amount of emotional pressure, and the fear of social rejection, the fear of judgement, the potential for losing everything would have been immense. Anti-anxiety pills revealed by the official autopsy may have brought relief to a man fighting to keep his private life a secret. January the 26th 1987. A blood transfusion has helped Liberace's anaemia, but he's still seriously ill. He was feeble. He was failing. He had sunken eyes. His appearance was` He was a mere shadow of his former self. Symptoms that may have been caused by a chronic, long-term illness. The autopsy report shows that Liberace was suffering from emphysema. Emphysema is a condition of the lungs whereby the internal structure of the lungs is progressively destroyed. The smallest structures in the lung are the alveoli, spaces where the breathed air passes oxygen to the bloodstream. In emphysema these alveoli are broken down, so the amount of oxygen that can be passed from the breathed air to the bloodstream is reduced. The autopsy report shows that Liberace had severe emphysema, so it's quite likely that he suffered from shortness of breath, some wheezing and perhaps persistent cough. There's little doubt about what caused Liberace's emphysema. ARCHIVE: He admires Britain and the British very much, especially our quaint line in ashtrays. He was a chain-smoker for many years. I think he smoked, at the beginning, because that's what people did ` it was fashionable ` and then as he went on he just enjoyed smoking, so he continued. He smoked right up to the very last. Cigarette smoke contains a toxic mix of 7000 chemicals, including benzine and nitrogen dioxide, that attack the lungs and make them susceptible to infection. So could emphysema alone have killed Liberace? Emphysema can be life-threatening, and in association with chest infection it further reduces the amount of oxygen entering the bloodstream, and the autopsy report shows, at the time of his death, that is exactly what Liberace had. 3 27th of January 1987. Liberace is so ill he is now bedridden. His breathing difficulties have worsened, and a nurse cares for him around the clock. Liberace was suffering from a severe chest infection, bronchopneumonia. When microorganisms that cause bronchopneumonia invade the lung, they trigger an inflammatory immune response. Lung tissue and air passages, or bronchioles, fill with liquid, causing shortness of breath, fever and chest pains. It will be adding more to the damage caused to the lung by the emphysema. The bronchopneumonia will further reduce the ability of oxygen to get into the bloodstream. Liberace's body is under attack from two chronic lung conditions. Acting in tandem, could they be life-threatening? The emphysema and the bronchopneumonia don't appear sufficiently severe to have caused death on their own, so there must have been some other underlying condition or conditions that ultimately caused him to die. Further investigation reveals Liberace was indeed suffering from another potentially life-threatening illness. The autopsy report shows that Liberace's heart was significantly enlarged and significantly damaged. November the 3rd 1986, New York City. Just three months before his death, Liberace's 50-year career is about to reach its peak ` 18 shows back to back at Radio City Music Hall. He was intimidated, but he was excited. It was the largest venue he had ever done in his career. Um, and he didn't like big venues because he didn't` he was afraid that people wouldn't turn out, but they turned out in droves. But during the final performance, Liberace experiences difficulty breathing, dizziness and chest pain. I went to see him in his dressing room, and he was lying on his bed, and I said, 'Oh, you must be sick,' and he said, 'No, no, no, no, I've got a` a touch of flu,' uh, and` but he was sweating. So it occurred to me that maybe there was a bit more to it than that, but he wasn't gonna tell me and he sure as hell wasn't gonna tell the audience, and he was resting in order to get back on stage to give it to 'em again. He was about 5'9", 5` about 5'9", 5'10". Um, he n` his normal weight was around 180 pounds, a little on the chubby side, um, and so he's dropped` he's dropped, uh, 40, 50, 60 pounds. And so all of` And when he's giving performances, he's backstage gulping` gulping oxygen between the acts. He's` He's deathly ill. So he's performing at Radio City Music Hall in New York in 1986, uh, less than six months before he dies, uh, but his audience is not` is not keying to that at all. He was so weak that he could not get off` off the piano bench to do his typical bows. There was, kind of, a gasp backstage, cos that was just` it was a shock. Likely evidence of a chronic, underlying heart condition. Liberace's heart showed evidence of pulmonary heart disease. Pulmonary heart disease is damage to the heart caused by damage or disease to the lungs. The chambers on the right-hand side of the heart that pump the blood through the lungs were distended, and the heart muscle was greatly thickened, because it was having to pump blood at a higher pressure through the damaged lung tissue. The damage to the lungs and the damage to the heart caused by the disease of the lungs, means that the amount of oxygenated blood in the body is greatly reduced. A further chronic heart condition threatened Liberace's life. There was also significant damage to the left side of the heart caused by changes in the mitral valve, the valve that controls blood flow into the main pumping chambers. During each heartbeat, the mitral valve opens to allow the passage of blood from the upper to the lower chambers, then closes again to prevent backflow. The damage to the left-hand side of the heart would be compounded by the mitral valve not functioning correctly. When we add together the damage to the right-hand side of the heart, caused by the lung disease, and the left-hand side of the heart, associated with mitral valve problems, the whole heart is in a very parlous state. Liberace's deteriorating health is clear from his appearance on Oprah six weeks before his death. He was made up... They tried to conceal as much of his, uh, unhealthy appearance as they did. And he was feeble. They didn't realise that he was unwell, and when the show was over, he just all but collapsed. It was his last appearance on television. So did a combination of cardiac and respiratory conditions kill him? Liberace had two significant lung conditions ` emphysema and bronchopneumonia. He also had two significant cardiac abnormalities. These conditions, in the absence of any other diseases or illnesses, could have resulted in his death, but in Liberace's case, I think we have to look further. The mystery deepens. Toxicology tests on fluids taken from Liberace's body revealed a small trace of an anti-anxiety medication but no sign of any antidepressants, painkillers or other significant drugs. Despite the conditions we know that Liberace was suffering from, the toxicology report shows that he wasn't taking any of the medications that we might have expected him to be taking. PENSIVE MUSIC So were his conditions untreatable or is there another explanation? Pittsburgh, 22nd of November 1963. 23 years before his death, Liberace is scheduled to perform at a club in this city's North Hills district. His costumes need to be cleaned, but his dresser is busy running errands. He said, 'Well, I can just do this myself,' so he decided to clean his clothes, and it would be, uh, time-effective, cost-effective. And he inhaled the chemicals, and he became unwell ` extremely ` and he was rushed to the hospital. Liberace is diagnosed with kidney failure. He fears he is dying. TENSE MUSIC Brought up a Roman Catholic, Liberace would later claim he had a divine revelation. ETHEREAL MUSIC He has a vision, and that vision is of a nun who, in effect, comes in and tells him he's going to be all right. She tells him to pray to St Anthony, patron saint of miracles. ETHEREAL MUSIC Liberace recovers, convinced his faith has saved him. His life is transformed. He adopts St Anthony as his guardian angel. He begins to shun doctors and medicine. He didn't like to be controlled. He didn't like to be told what to do. When a doctor would tell him something, if it was good news he would accept it; if it wasn't, he would go into denial. I think he had an aversion to pills of any kind. The love of the audience coming over the footlights was enough ` that was his medicine. That was what he, uh, thrived on. Holding on to his rekindled faith, Liberace begins to believe in miracles, not medicine, a conviction he would cling to until the very end. February the 1st 1987, three days before his death. The mystery disease is taking an ever greater hold. Liberace is now too ill to move. His pulse is growing weaker. FOREBODING MUSIC One of the symptoms Liberace developed was difficulty in swallowing; the medical term is dysphagia. Dysphagia can be caused by a wide variety of medical conditions, such as inflammation of the gullet or perhaps with a hiatus hernia, but other more severe conditions, such as stroke or, indeed, cancer. Dysphagia can lead to weight loss, chest infections, malnutrition and dehydration. But whatever the cause, it's a turning point in Liberace's struggle. The significance of this is that it marks the start of the last phase of Liberace's life. Liberace's gone from somebody who was completely in control of his image ` his body, his mind, his voice ` to a very sick man with multiple illnesses, powerless and out of control of his own body. PENSIVE MUSIC February the 2nd 1987. Liberace's nurse; his sister, Angie; and Cary James, his love of five years, are at his bedside. Still hoping a miracle will save him as it had once before, he drifts in and out of consciousness. According to the people who were by his bedside, his skin was colourless, his arms weren't moving, his eyes were yellow, he was semi-conscious and he was merely responding with yes or no. POIGNANT MUSIC But what could explain his problems with speech and mobility? I can also see from the post-mortem report that Liberace was suffering from cerebral atrophy, a condition when neurons and other supporting cells are lost from the brain. In Liberace's case, the cerebral atrophy was to the sides and the bottom of the brain, quite symmetrically, which suggests that it wasn't congenital, it wasn't traumatic, but might have been associated with reduced blood supply or some other fundamental brain abnormality. Further investigation revealed the most likely cause. Microscopic examination showed that there were microglial nodules in the brain, and these are possibly associated with early dementia. Liberace's medical history shows that during an examination a week before his death, his physician had also diagnosed apraxia, difficulties with movement, personality change and dementia. And so that's the most likely basis for his physician's use of the term subacute encephalopathy on the death certificate ` a rather diffuse catch-all phrase which describes general brain-related problems. So could cerebral atrophy be the cause of death? We know that the pathological changes in Liberace's brain accounted for his dementia. That dementia was manifest as personality change and also as apraxia, difficulty in moving. But I don't think that those were the primary causes of death, so I need to investigate further. But whatever agonies his final hours may bring, Liberace is determined to die in his own home with no doctors present. What they may do is tell you something that you don't want to hear and confront you with the truth. Now, if you're a person who's spent a lot of time denying parts of yourself and lying to the outside world, the last thing you want is to be confronted with anything truthful, like you're ill or that pain you have is real. Without the aid of any medication and clinging to his faith alone, Liberace's body is shutting down. The autopsy report shows that microscopic examination of Liberace's spleen and lymph nodes demonstrated a clear loss of lymphocytes. TENSE, DRAMATIC MUSIC Lymphocytes are created by the spleen ` an organ about the size of a fist, located in the abdomen. The main function is to filter the blood and create new blood cells. Together with the lymph nodes, it plays a vital role in the body's immune system. With a dangerously low lymphocyte level, Liberace is so ill his body is losing its ability to defend itself. 4 4th of February 1987. POIGNANT MUSIC By now, Liberace is in a coma. JERE RING: I left Los Angeles about 7, arrived in the desert about 9, and I was the last to see him. He was in bad shape, and he was clinging to life at that point. By 11 o'clock, Liberace's breathing slows. His strength is clearly ebbing away. And I took his hand and I just leaned down to him and I spoke in his ear and I told him to just let go, cos he was trying so desperately to hold on cos he didn't wanna die, he didn't think he was going to die. He thought he would come out of this. POIGNANT MUSIC MUSIC CONTINUES (SOBS) ARCHIVE: Pianist and showman Liberace died today at his home in Palm Springs. He had been ill with anaemia, emphysema and heart disease. I had left the house and I was alone in my car driving back to Los Angeles. And the breaking news that Liberace had passed away in Palm Springs, and I just wept in the middle because I was just there, I was spiritually still with him. It was heart-wrenching. It was just` I cried all the way back. My initial reaction when Seymour Heller, his ex-manager, telephoned me, uh, was complete disbelief. I didn't` I didn't think it was possible. POIGNANT MUSIC A lot of people (BREATHES RAGGEDLY) couldn't believe it. He was young. He was 67 years old. They would say, 'I just saw him in` last year in Vegas. He was great. What happened? How did he die?' I think the general public reaction was exactly the same as mine ` complete disbelief and shock. The death certificate issued by his treating physician says that he died from cardiac arrest, due to cardiac failure, due to subacute encephalopathy ` a debilitating brain disease. When Liberace was admitted to hospital on the 23rd of January, he had a number of brain-related symptoms ` dementia, personality change, difficulty in moving. And those were probably the reasons that the treating physician put subacute encephalopathy on the death certificate. But in the days following Liberace's death, this verdict was fiercely contested. Amid increasing speculation about his private life, the county coroner demanded to know the cause of Liberace's encephalopathy. It is my firm belief that, uh, somebody along the line wanted to pull a fast one on us. He called for an investigation. In a dramatic turn of events, Liberace's body was seized and brought back to the coroner's office for an official autopsy. The coroner's report showed that before his death, Liberace had a blood test and the results were startling. He tested positive for HTLV-III, the virus we now know as HIV. OMINOUS MUSIC Las Vegas, August 1985. 18 months before his death, Liberace had an annual check-up at a private clinic. Blood tests confirmed he was HIV-positive. HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus, targets the immune system of the body, and particularly destroys the lymphocytes ` the white cells that help fight infection. Over a prolonged period of time, the body's ability to defend itself is reduced and ultimately lost. Liberace knows what his diagnosis could mean. In the mid '80s, fear gripped the nation. ARCHIVE: Gay bathhouses were shut down by the city a year ago. Business at gay bars has dropped by a third. ARCHIVE: In New York City, a Republican campaign proposal to close all businesses that cater mainly to homosexual men; mandatory blood tests for doctors, nurses, teachers, food handlers and prostitutes. It was scary, cos a lot of people were dying. Uh, people were backing off from being` from intimacy, and at that point, you know, they didn't know if they would get it through kissing or, uh, intercourse or what it was. Liberace refused to accept his diagnosis. He went into total denial. Cos he felt fine, there was no reason why he should` shouldn't just keep going and living life as he did. He would've had to cope with what it meant for him. The possibility of the whole world finding out something that he's worked so hard to keep secret and under wraps may have to be opened up to the world, and he would've probably had a great sense of being exposed. Knowing he was HIV-positive 18 months before his death, Liberace did everything possible to keep it secret. His manager vehemently denied all press speculation about the cause of his ill health. But without realising, Liberace had been at high risk all along. Different partner every night ` uh, sometimes two and three in a night. Um, out by the pool, under the table ` anywhere he could get it, he would get it. Liberace was a very horny guy. He liked to get laid, and in this world ` in that world ` there's always plenty of guys who wanna go to bed with somebody famous. Liberace always had the net out. He was always looking for new entertainment. And he found it, because of all the bling and the` and, uh, all the lifestyle, he was able to draw. And he had a` he had a` a passion for the underling. Your hustlers from the streets, that were, you know, somebody that` If someone paralleled him in lifestyle, he didn't want it. He didn't want anybody, sort of, you know, from the ring of celebrities. Liberace was living with several different identities at once. He had this very public persona which was very flamboyant, very out there, and a very private self which was about his homosexuality and his gay lifestyle, and never the twain shall meet. In the '80s, many feared an HIV diagnosis was a death sentence, but the virus itself is not fatal. Even without treatment, HIV may not produce symptoms for many years, and many people don't develop AIDS at all. And we know that Liberace was suffering from life-threatening heart and lung conditions. So what actually did kill him? INTRIGUING MUSIC Liberace's body was riddled with chronic heart and lung conditions, HIV and dementia, but none of them was the killer disease, and the cause of his death is still unknown. Further investigation reveals a tantalising clue. Microscopic examination of tissue taken at the time of Liberace's autopsy showed that he was suffering from a widespread infection with a virus known as cytomegalovirus. SLOW, DRAMATIC MUSIC It's the breakthrough Dr Payne-James has been looking for. Cytomegalovirus is in the environment all around us, and normally our immune systems will protect us against it, preventing infection. If our immune systems are compromised in any way, for example because of the use of drugs, because of infection or because of HIV, then organs can become damaged. It's clear in Liberace's case that his adrenal glands, his oesophagus, his liver and spleen were all affected. Liberace didn't just have HIV infection; he had full-blown AIDS. DRAMATIC, OMINOUS MUSIC This discovery completely changes our understanding of Liberace's death. The emphysema of his lungs, the condition of his heart, had nothing to do with it. But all the other symptoms ` the infection in the mouth, the difficulty in swallowing, the infection of the lungs, the cerebral atrophy, the depleted lymphocytes ` all fit into a coherent pattern ` a diagnosis of HIV/AIDS. MOURNFUL MUSIC The HIV virus has so badly compromised his immune system that his body can no longer effectively fight against infection, so opportunistic infections, such as viruses, attack and proliferate within the body, damaging internal organs, ultimately resulting in Liberace's death. POIGNANT PIANO MUSIC But a further mystery remains. Why did the coroner order Liberace's body to be seized and taken from the mortuary? I would say this has to do with a post-mortem outing rather than a desire for scientific truth or so forth. (PLAYS PIANO) Liberace was admired by all. He was revered as one of the world's greatest of entertainers, and this brilliant pianist, and there were those people who j` were jealous of that, and they wanted to say, 'I told you he was a fag. I told you he would die of AIDS, and he denied it.' And that` that's pretty much the attitude. They just wanted to shoot him down. (CONTINUES PLAYING PIANO) Today, antiretroviral drugs are widely used to treat and control HIV infection. The Federal Drug Administration licensed the first of these drugs less than one month after Liberace's death. He was one of the greatest showmen in history, and he wanted to bring joy to his audiences and entertainment and glamour, and I think he should be remembered for his talents and showmanship. I remember Liberace as a great friend ` as someone who was unbelievably generous to everybody he came across, and including me, who engendered an extraordinary kind of affection and love, and when that isn't there any more you feel very sad. He's charming, a brilliant performer and is incapable of meanness, narrowness or bigotry, and so in that regard he's the best of America, I would say. TRIUMPHANT MUSICAL ENDING APPLAUSE Captions by Tariqa Satherley. Edited by Anne Langford. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016