October 6, 1950: Liberace Lights Up the Last Frontier

Today in 1950 · Friday, October 6, 1950

Liberace with his brother George in an October 1953 publicity photo, from the early years of the fame that began on stages like the Last Frontier's

Liberace with his brother George in an October 1953 publicity photo, from the early years of the fame that began on stages like the Last Frontier's · MCA publicity photo, 1953, published without copyright notice, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

On this Friday night in 1950, the Hotel Last Frontier on the Las Vegas Strip turned eight years old, and the anniversary show it booked was a 31-year-old pianist from Milwaukee named Liberace. Variety logged the engagement in its nightclub columns the following week: 'Liberace opened at the Last Frontier, Las Vegas, Friday (6) in the show marking the spot's eighth anni.'

The Strip in 1950 was still a short parade of ranch-styled resorts — El Rancho Vegas, the Last Frontier, the Flamingo, and the brand-new Desert Inn — competing for headliners week by week in the trade papers. The Last Frontier became Liberace's Las Vegas home base in the early 1950s, the room where the candelabra-and-grin act was polished before television made it national.

The arc from this eighth-anniversary booking was steep: within five years, Las Vegas would hand him an unprecedented $50,000 a week to open the Riviera. The town was inventing its own kind of stardom, one lounge opening at a time.

Also on this day

Born this day in Glendale, California: David Brin, a future storyteller of the space age, arriving in the same season the new magazine Galaxy Science Fiction hit the newsstands.
The UN General Assembly prepared the resolution — adopted the next day — that authorized steps toward a unified Korea, effectively blessing the advance north.
In Washington, the administration reassured Britain that Gen. MacArthur's operations would stay clear of Chinese territory.

🎵 On the radio that week: America’s No. 1 song was “Goodnight Irene” by Gordon Jenkins and The Weavers (Billboard best sellers) — TIME magazine sniffed that the Weavers' polished version was 'dehydrated' and 'prettied up' — America bought it anyway. That sound never really left — we recreate 1950s doo-wop and slow-dance ballads every week: read the stories behind our songs or listen on the lovesong1950s channel.
🎬 At the movies: October opened with the season's front-runners — “My Blue Heaven” and “Sunset Boulevard” — still out front at the nation's box offices.
⚾ In sports: The World Series was underway — the Yankees taking a taut, low-scoring set from the Whiz Kids at Shibe Park and Yankee Stadium, capped by the Game 4 clincher this series covered on October 7.

Sources: Variety, Oct 11, 1950 (Lantern scan): Liberace opens at the Last Frontier · Online Nevada Encyclopedia: Liberace · Science Fiction Encyclopedia: David Brin · UC Riverside Library: David Brin Papers · Wikipedia: October 1950 · Billboard best-seller charts, 1950 (issue scans) · Variety National Boxoffice Survey, 1950 (Lantern scans) · Sports records: sabr.org. Every fact above is drawn from the records linked here — no dramatization, no invented details.

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