Behind the Candelabra: My Life With Liberace by Scott Thorson, Alex Thorleifson Page B

Jerry to move out, that didn’t happen. As a substitute for meaningful action, Lee sent me flowers daily. My tiniest whim was his command—clothes, jewelry—and all I had to do was admire something and it was mine. He even cleaned up after the dogs when they had an accident, a job that would be mine as soon as the “honeymoon” ended.
    Our sexual relationship caused problems from the beginning. I’d completely underestimated Lee’s sex drive. He may have been over the hill but he wanted sexual encounters as couple of times a day. Ironically, he often had physical difficulty in fulfilling his desire. Lee used amyl nitrite as a stimulant, to heighten his sexual experiences, and he urged me to use it too. Amyl nitrite comes in little ampoules or “poppers,” like smelling salt, and it has an odor like rotten eggs. On Lee’s insistence I tried it once, hated the smell, and refused it from then on. Lee continued to use it heavily, but he stopped asking me to join him. In our first months together he cared about me enough to put my feelings and wishes ahead of his own.
    He showered me with affection and presents. But the gift of his love proved more seductive than anything else. In the end I couldn’t resist it. The night he confessed that he loved me, I’d already started caring for him. When we left for Tahoe a few weeks later, I’d learned to love him. It was the last thing in the world I’d expected to happen. I’d made a bargain with Lee, a deal for sex and companionship in exchange for financial security; and I’d done it with my eyes open. Now, for the first time in my life, I stopped worrying about my future and my welfare and concentrated on someone else’s happiness. Although Lee was forty years my senior, there were times when he seemed like a lost soul. I made up my mind to devote myself to him, to make him laugh, to lighten all his burdens—lofty plans, but typical I guess for an eighteen-year-old with his head in the clouds. At the time I didn’t realize how difficult a task I’d set myself, or how many people would bitterly resent my attempting it. But I soon learned that Jerry wasn’t the only person who would be unhappy with my role in Lee’s life.
    Lee had a three-week booking at the Sahara Tahoe and he always took his entourage on such trips. It was my first opportunity to meet the group Lee called “his people.” He introduced me around and made certain they understood how important I was to him. The most influential of them all was Seymour Heller, who worked through AVI (American Variety International) as Lee’s West Coast agent and manager. Heller was a small man in his mid-fifties, balding, with a permanent frown etched on his face. When we met at the airport he gave me what I took to be a cold, appraising look before congratulating me on joining Lee’s organization.
    Heller was one of Lee’s few close heterosexual associates. He did a marvelous job of pretending that the young men who moved in and out of Lee’s life were employees rather than sexual partners. Lee helped the deception by putting his lovers on his payroll, giving them jobs and titles. During my years with him I was variously described as a chauffeur, bodyguard, and secretary-companion. My predecessors had been called valets, protégés, yard boys, or houseboys, depending on their individual talents. Some, like me, wound up in the act.
    It struck me that Heller was jealous of his privileged, influential position in the Liberace camp. His thirty-year employment had been interrupted only once, in the early sixties, when, according to Lee, Angie had temporarily taken over his job. The experience must have made Heller insecure. Businesslike and pragmatic, Heller made the ideal foil for Lee. Heller played hardball when negotiating contracts, while Lee played the smiling, agreeable, “anything goes” entertainer.
    But when he carried his role too far Lee admonished him, saying, “Put the hatchet away, Seymour!”
    Ray