Out to Lunch

with Liberace, who belts back the borscht with BILL ZEHME

BILL ZEHME

Liberace, his New York publicist told me, never lunches without an entourage. Perfect, I said, and invited the entourage to one of his favorite restaurants, the Russian Tea Room.

When the silver stretch limousine pulled up on West Fifty-seventh Street, out climbed the publicist, Diana; Liberace's frequent companion Cary-James, a muscular young man with highlighted hair and matching diamond rings; and the man himself, Wladziu Valentino ("Call me Lee") Liberace, the pride of West Allis, Wisconsin, the fop emperor of Las Vegas, Mr. Showmanship in the surgically unaltered flesh.

Baby-faced and tanned at sixtysix, wearing a vanilla double-breasted sport coat, an elegant striped shirt, and turquoise tie and slacks, he looked as though he had stepped off the French Riviera. In New York for another record-breaking concert series at Radio City Music Hall, he was brimming with energy and disarming warmth.

"I'm so glad we came to the Russian Tea Room!" he said in his trademark genial whine as we all settled into the first red banquette beyond the bar. "You know, I came here years ago when I couldn't afford it. I had to save up. They haven't really changed it much, either. I always remember the brass samovars and urns of fresh flowers. It's faaaab-ulous."

A waiter in a cossack shirt took our drink orders. Liberace asked for a Moscow Mule and began telling me about what had happened on his favorite soap opera, Days of Our Lives, that afternoon. He had watched the program in his limo. "Oh, we're great soap-opera watchers," he confided. "You get so involved with the characters!" Cary nodded in agreement.

Liberace's hands were as smooth as those of a thirty-year-old. He wore only one ring, a goiter-size Australian black opal surrounded by a plethora of small diamonds. When I admired it, he told me with a wink, "Mae West said, 'If you only wear one, make it a big one.' " Cary held his lighter next to the ring. "Look at the colors in the opal now," he urged. "The fire brings out a rainbow effect." It was true.

Liberace said he was looking for a place in New York to buy, probably in Trump Tower, where he was currently staying, compliments of Donald Trump. He said he loved the location, but noted prudently that Trump apartments are "vcrr/r up in the bucks for what you're getting. On Park Avenue I can get four times the space for the same amount of money."

What kind of bucks were we talking about? I pried. "They start at two mil," said Liberace. "Anywhere from two to six," echoed Cary. "I'm lucky if I spend six to eight weeks a year here," said Liberace, gnawing on a piece of black bread. "But it's such an exciting place to be... "

Over a steaming bowl of borscht ("This is almost worth turning Communist for"), he marveled at the city's vast array of cultural experiences, even mentioning "the hookers on the West Side, the likes of which I've never seen." He gasped. "They wear nothing! It was a cold day and they were in bikinis with leg warmers! There's nothing in the back at all—just two cheeks sticking out!" Diana the publicist explained that the hookers' prime clientele were commuting drivers on their way to or from the Holland Tunnel. Deadpanned Liberace: "I guess they get 'em cornin' and goin', if you'll pardon my expression."

He cackled riotously.

His main residence is Las Vegas, but he performs there only two weeks a year. Recently offered a two-year engagement, he turned it down. "I don't want to be the rich est piano player in the cemetery," he told me. A plate of chicken Kiev landed in front of him. "1 love how the butter oozes out," he said, pierc ing his poultry with a fork.

I inquired about the Liberace Mu seum in Las Vegas, which houses his discarded costumes, jewelry, and automobiles. "1 just got the five acres next to it, where I'm going to build a new museum four times as large," he announced. "It'll be the only structure of its kind in the world, because it's gonna be piano shaped. In fact, just from the draw ings they've seen, the airlines are changing their air-traffic patterns to fly over the museum and point it out to passengers."

Grinning triumphantly, he continued, "The ground-breaking's in July, and so the other day I went into Tiffany's and bought a shovel. It's silver, but they're gonna gold-plate it for me. After the ground-breaking, I'll just clean the mud off of it and stick it in the museum. I already have my jeweled hard hat ready to go."

I asked what would become of the present museum. "It will become a Liberace bank branch," he mewed felicitously. "Three banks are already negotiating for the distinction."

With that he winked and stuffed a chunk of Kiev into his mouth. "This," he said, "is delish!"

All of us in the entourage smiled appreciatively.