Bracing for a shock: Liberace Museum will close.

Attention, drag queens and music lovers ... there’s still time to plan your pilgrimage to Las Vegas before the Liberace Museum shuts its doors forever on October 17. Apparently there has been a steady decline in museum visitors from a high of 450,000 annually 15 years ago to about 50,000 annually today. This, along with the museum’s real estate problems, mortgage debt and lack of steady income factored into the decision to close. The Liberace Foundation owns the strip mall that houses the museum, but half of the rental units are currently vacant. It’s also a safe bet that almost nobody under 40 has the slightest idea who Liberace was. If you fall into this category please read my earlier post for details.

For 31 years the Liberace Museum has been home to the entertainer’s collection of 39 custom pianos (mostly grand pianos crusted in rhinestones or miniature mirror tiles), thousands of full-length furs and rhinestone stage costumes, a vast fortune in custom jewelry, recreations of his famous bedroom and sunken tub (seriously), custom automobiles covered with jewels and Austrian crystals, and a separate room filled with a lifetime of awards. Liberace died of AIDS in 1987 at the age of 68.

And if you’re a movie fan, you may be interested to know that director Steven Soderbergh’s Liberace biopic is due to hit theaters in 2012 with Michael Douglas in the title role and Matt Damon playing Scott Thorsen, Liberace’s long-time lover and chauffeur, who famously “outed” him in a $110 million palimony suit in 1982. Believe it or not, until that time Liberace was seriously convinced that nobody on earth thought he was gay even though he wore floor-length pink fox furs and collected dishes. This movie should be AMAZING.