Behind the Candelabra: My Life With Liberace (20 page)

Lee was thrilled by the prospect. Startz had promised that the operation would remove all the lines, sags, and wrinkles that spoiled his appearance. In addition, he said the deep skin peel would give Lee the skin of a thirty-year-old. It sounded like a dream come true. Startz did quite a selling job. He’d found Lee’s weakness—his fear of aging—and played on it. Both of us were impressed by the man’s self-assurance, his firm conviction that he could give Lee whatever he wanted.

When they finished discussing the surgery, Lee suddenly said, “I want to talk to you about doing some surgery on Scott.”

It really took me by surprise. No way, at the age of twenty, did I need a face-lift. Nor had Lee ever voiced any unhappiness with my appearance, other than to suggest I try to lose a little weight—a suggestion I intended to take very seriously. I’d always been Lee’s “blond Adonis”—his words, not mine. So the mention of plastic surgery for me came as a complete surprise.

Startz turned and began to study my face. “What would you like me to do with Scott?” he asked.

Lee jumped up and ran into another room, returning with a large oil portrait of himself. “I want you to make Scott look like this,” he said, propping the painting up in front of the doctor. I was so stunned that I didn’t say a word. Meanwhile, Startz looked at the painting and then back at me, studying my face and then the painting with intense concentration. It was a full-face portrait of Lee and one of his favorite paintings of himself, clearly showing his prominent cheekbones, slightly arched nose, and pointy chin in the most flattering way. If anything, it also emphasized the differences between my face and his. Even the most casual observer could see that Lee had a heart-shaped face while mine was round. We had completely different bone structure.

“Yes,” Startz said into the room’s silence, “I think I can do what you want. He’ll need to have a nose job, and I’ll have to restructure his cheekbones and chin with silicone, but it’s possible. I can make Scott look a lot like you, if that’s what you want.”

The two of them were discussing me as if I wasn’t in the room, but it didn’t occur to me to object. I’d never been crazy about the way I looked and felt flattered, touched, by Lee’s desire to have me look like him. I didn’t think he was handsome in the conventional sense, but he had an interesting face, whereas I always thought mine looked as if it had been made from Play-Doh. If Dr. Startz could give me a clearly defined bone structure like Lee’s, I wasn’t going to object. In any case, I knew it would do no good. Once Lee made up his mind to do something it would take an act of Congress to prevent him from doing it. If he wanted me to have a new face I could either go along with it or get out of his life. The choice was that simple. No one defied Lee—not ever!

Startz advised Lee that he would need to plan on spending two months at home after his face-lift. But he also promised that Lee would return to work looking like a new, much younger man. They agreed to schedule the surgery in six months when Lee had a large block of time free. The whole thing had to be planned like a covert military operation because of Lee’s desire to keep the entire procedure a secret from his fans.

Lee and I never discussed the surgery he wanted me to have, either before or after the doctor’s visit. I knew how pointless any discussion would have been, even if I had any real objections. The truth is it never occurred to me to oppose Lee. My future was completely in his hands, as it had been from the day I accepted his offer of employment. Lee was much more than my lover, from the beginning. If he wanted me to spend the rest of my life with a new face, one that looked like his, that’s exactly what I would do.

The six months between our first meeting with Startz and the scheduled surgery passed quickly. Lee was busy, working very hard, and we were happy together. Occasionally I’d be swept by waves of restlessness, concern about where my life was headed. I’d remember my dreams of being a vet and working with animals, look at the life I had instead—however rich and luxurious—and wind up feeling disgusted with myself. My youthful dreams and plans hadn’t included being a gigolo for men. When I tried to discuss my doubts and concerns about my future and where I was headed with Lee, he’d act withdrawn and hostile.

“Don’t be a goddamn kvetch,” he’d say. “There are thousands of boys who’d love to be in your position!”

Of course, he was right. Sections of Vegas and L.A. teemed with hungry-looking, runaway kids—guys who would do anything to make a connection with someone like Lee. The entertainment industry was full of struggling young performers who would give their souls to be in my place. Lee’s eyes were constantly straying toward such men and he often flirted with them outrageously. I felt threatened and insecure every time he behaved that way and we would wind up having a fight about it. Then Lee would sulk. It wasn’t easy to live with him, day in and day out, but I could no longer imagine my life without him.

My family and friends all told me how lucky I was. One former foster mother even said she’d never speak to me again if I screwed things up by alienating Lee in any way. There are far worse things, she told me, than being Liberace’s shadow. The Scott Thorson I liked, who had initiative—the kid who’d found his own foster home with the Brummets so he’d have a home for his own animals, that kid was getting lost as I followed wherever Lee led. Life in the fast lane had changed me, and not necessarily for the better.

I’d become dependent, unable to make a major decision on my own, and admittedly spoiled. I’d met Lee at a time when other young men my age were getting out on their own. But Lee didn’t want me to take responsibility for myself. He wanted unquestioning loyalty and slavish devotion, and he was willing to pay for it. All I had to do was admire something once and it was mine. I had a closet full of clothes and furs, a jewel case loaded with rings and necklaces, a Rolls-Royce, a Camaro, a van, a Cadillac, an Auburn, my three dogs, a couple of horses, and my own house; and, in addition, my salary had been increased. I lived in the average man’s idea of paradise. But, in the end, I’d pay a high price for the years I spent loving Lee.

On the day before Lee’s surgery I drove him into Los Angeles and we stayed at the penthouse overnight. The plan was for him to have his operations first because he wanted me to help with his postoperative care. Once he was on the road to full recovery it would be my turn. The actual operations would be done in Dr. Startz’s own operating room, adjacent to his offices on San Vicente Boulevard. Lee wanted his wig to remain on during the procedure and had relented only when Startz said he’d have to resign from the case if Lee forced him to operate under those circumstances. Strangely enough, Lee seemed more apprehensive about the fact that the doctor and his assistants would see his bald head than he was about going under the knife.

Although I wasn’t crazy about the idea, Lee insisted I be by his side during the entire procedure. Thank God, the doctor had vetoed that idea too. No way did I want to see Lee cut up, his skin sliced and stitched. However, I was permitted to stay with him while he was prepped and sedated. I even accompanied him into the operating room. Not until he was completely unconscious did I leave his side.

In those days, Lee didn’t like me to have large blocks of free time. He wanted to know where I was and who I was with every minute. Since he’d been told he’d be unconscious for hours he’d arranged to have Seymour Heller keep me company. According to Lee’s previous instructions, I drove to Seymour Heller’s house to wait out the operation. My relationship with Heller had improved from the early days when he’d been obviously antagonistic toward me. Heller had grudgingly accepted my place in Lee’s life and now treated me with a forced friendliness that was endurable if not enjoyable. All Lee’s people had started treating me that way after he’d insisted on it.

I picked Heller up and we went to a delicatessen to eat before returning to Startz’s offices. Lee’s operation took seven hours, the longest seven hours of my life. By the time the doctor came into the waiting room to tell us that everything had gone well, I was convinced Lee had died. Although Startz explained that he’d just finished stitching Lee and hadn’t yet bandaged him, I demanded to see him.

The doctor agreed and escorted me to the room where Lee lay on the operating table, his bruised face covered with blood and tiny black sutures, looking like an accident victim. “Oh, my God,” I said, turning to Startz, “are you sure he’s all right?”

“Positive,” Startz replied. “Why don’t you talk to him.”

I walked up to Lee and bent over him. “Booberloober,” I said, using my most loving nickname for him, “are you okay?”

“Yeah, Boober, I’m fine,” he responded, sounding relatively normal despite the way he looked.

My stomach churned and I could feel that deli sandwich threatening to come up as I squeezed Lee’s hand, trying to smile reassuringly. Hell; if this was what plastic surgery did to you, I didn’t want any part of it. Lee looked like he’d been hit by a truck. Once I’d made certain he was still alive, nothing in the world could have persuaded me to stay in that room. I totally freaked out. Lee looked like a piece of bloody meat. I just couldn’t imagine that anything good would result from that surgery.

Startz had rented a fully furnished apartment for us under an assumed name, part of the covert operation. A couple of hours later Lee had been bandaged and was ready to leave. The doctor had canceled all his other appointments in order to be with us during Lee’s postoperation recovery period. As I pushed Lee’s wheelchair across the busy street, I couldn’t help thinking that Lee needn’t have been so worried about secrecy. He looked like he’d dressed up to play the invisible man, with his entire face swathed in bandages and just tiny slits to permit him to see, breathe, and eat. At that moment he looked more like a mummy in a cheap horror film than a world-renowned entertainer. Five days after the face-lift we wheeled Lee back across the street to Startz’s office for the deep skin peel.

Once again, Lee emerged swathed in mummylike bandages. After spending a final night in the apartment we drove to Palm Springs, still accompanied by the doctor. Lee was in great pain but, even worse, those bandages made him feel horribly claustrophobic. In fact, they almost drove him out of his mind. Startz had the solution to the problem. He kept on shooting Lee full of Demerol. Meanwhile, he revealed his plan for my transformation.

First, he wanted me to slim down and put me on what he euphemistically called the California Diet. The diet consisted of a prescribed course of oral medication that would completely kill my desire to eat. Startz guaranteed a loss of at least fifteen pounds in the four weeks preceding my own surgery. I didn’t know it at the time, but the medications he gave me included pharmaceutical cocaine, amphetamines, and Quaalude. Before then my drug intake had been limited to the nicotine in cigarettes, the alcohol in liquor, and an occasional aspirin. Unlike many kids of my generation, I’d never turned on to drugs. I’d tried marijuana and hadn’t enjoyed it, and I’d tried Lee’s amyl nitrite and hadn’t liked that any better.

But I had no hesitation about taking the pills that Startz prescribed, never realizing that a medical doctor would be handing out highly addictive drugs as if they were no more than placebos. My first day on the California Diet, I was in a total fog, off in a little world of my own. I had a mild case of the shakes and a massive case of unreality. It seemed like a powerful effect from what I’d been told were just diet pills. As promised, I had no appetite at all. Startz spent the next few weeks drinking heavily, feeding me pills, and shooting Lee full of Demerol. The only sane person in the house, aside from the help, was Angie. She had volunteered to come and stay throughout Lee’s recuperation.

During the years, a few alterations had occurred in the way Lee treated his family. When I discovered that he preferred to put them up at hotels rather than let them stay with him during their visits to Vegas or Palm Springs, I’d become very upset. “For God’s sake, Lee,” I had argued, “they’re your
family.
How can you ask them to stay in a hotel when we have so much room?”

I don’t know if I changed Lee’s way of thinking or if he was simply growing older and mellower, but he now permitted members of his family to stay in his homes. The tensions that kept the family divided for so many years had slowly dissipated. I was genuinely fond of Angie, George, and Mama Liberace, and delighted to see the Liberaces draw closer together. It made me very happy to think that I’d played some small part in making that happen. So Angie was with us during Lee’s recovery. She would play an even greater role in his life in the years to come.

A few days after we arrived at the Cloisters Lee’s dressings were removed. He looked awful. His face was badly swollen, the skin mottled with black-and-blue marks and covered with scabs from the peel. Lee refused to have anyone see him in that condition. His closest associates, Heller and Arnett, were barred from the house. For the next few weeks, while Lee healed, he and I and Angie and Startz were holed up in the Cloisters. Seeing how bad Lee looked sure gave me second thoughts about my own impending operation. But, in view of the fact that Lee had his heart set on having me transformed into a Liberace look-alike, it was too late to back out.

The Hollywood Diet was working. Although I couldn’t eat at all, Startz encouraged me to drink with him. We partied all day. I was in a complete fog from the time I took my first pill in the morning until I fell into bed at night. The old Scott Thorson was beginning to emerge from the blubber I’d acquired over the last few years. I could see the growing approval in Lee’s eyes every time he looked at me, and that encouraged me to continue with the regimen. Ultimately, I dropped more than the promised fifteen pounds in the weeks between his surgery and mine. My goal was to lose sixty.

Meanwhile, Lee felt and looked better every day. First, the swelling and discoloration receded. Then one day he came out of the shower and all his scabs had washed away. His skin looked pink, shiny, new and unlined. Lee could easily be taken for a man in his late forties rather than a sixty-year-old. As far as he was concerned, Startz had worked a miracle. For the first time in years Lee looked as good as he felt. He wasted no time ordering several new wigs, with dark hair instead of gray, to match his youthful appearance. He began seeing people again and everyone complimented him on the way he looked.