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134 THE POLITICS AND POETICS OF CAMP
eleven universities with scholarship money. In the museum are Liberace’s
“classic” cars, his “million-dollar jeweled wardrobe,” his furs, and his “unique”
pianos. He stressed the workmanship in his costumes, and the program asserted
that they are “elaborate works of art—created from silk, metallic and brocaded
fabrics; precious and semi-precious jewels and bugle beads.” The program stated
further that “when one of these extravaganzas is retired from the show, it is
carefully catalogued and stored. The more flamboyant end up in the Liberace
Museum, where visitors can get a close-up look at their workmanship.” He
elevated his costumes to the status of “works of art,” stressing their
workmanship, and then he enshrined them in a museum, where they achieve
greater status by being catalogued and either stored or displayed. 6
Also in Las Vegas is Liberace’s Tivoli Gardens Restaurant, for which he gave
Bea two vouchers for dinner, making a joke of emphasizing the address. There was
also a large advertisement for the restaurant printed in the program. Bea kissed
him again. Then he gave her another gift—a “forever” scented silk rose. She
kissed him again, but this time he said he was all out of gifts. He escorted her
back to her husband and said to him in his soft nasal voice, “I got her all ready for
you.” Back at center stage, he reported that he heard the husband whisper to his
wife, “Why didn’t you get a ring?” Then he quipped, “She has to do more than
dance to get a ring.”
Next was an introduction to the Rockettes, who had been “having a love affair
with New York City” for more than fifty years. As the orchestra played “New
York, New York,” a large movie screen came down and the audience saw a
larger-than-life Rockettes retrospective spanning from opening night in 1932 to
the 1960s. The audience saw them Paris-bound in street clothes on a boat in their
precision line; on a “fleet” visit on board a U.S. Navy ship, where they perform
military drills for the masters of military drill; making-up in preparation for a
show; and finally onstage in glorious technicolor. Suddenly, the scrim was
backlit and the audience saw the orchestra. As the scrim rose, the orchestra rolled
forward to drum rolls. A large flashing “New York” sign dropped from above.
The Rockettes rose from beneath the floor in a line that completely filled the
width of the stage. And the orchestra sank down into its pit. Like the
architectural features of the Music Hall, the build-up to the Rockettes’ entrance
was constructed to induce a heightened sense of anticipation in the audience.
The Rockettes did a rather static tap number in white tuxedos to “I Love New
York.” This time the emphasis was more on tapping, but both the tap steps and
the spatial formations were simple. The focus was on uniformity and precision,
but the build-up overpowered the act. The Rockettes ended their dance with the
predictable downstage, high-precision kick that always gets audience applause.
Behind them, Liberace was driven onstage in a cream-colored Rolls-Royce.
He told the audience that it is the only car of its kind in the world: it is the car
that Michael Todd had made for Elizabeth Taylor, and it is worth a million
dollars. My brother Gary turned to me to point out that a million dollars is not
really a lot of money when one considered that the car the Beatles rode around in