This week, some truly fabulous 16mm footage of Liberace performing “Over the Rainbow” surfaced on Youtube. The footage comes from a 1954 episode of The Liberace Show entitled “Tribute to the Musical Year” which was recently put up for sale on Ebay.
“Over the Rainbow” is one of my favorite Liberace covers of all time, and as far as I’m aware, any video footage of him performing it hasn’t been made available to the public for over 60 years. What makes this performance particularly significant is “Over the Rainbow’s” long and cherished history as a gay anthem which has provided comfort and inspiration to our community for nearly 100 years.
Thanks so much to James Smith for sharing this incredible piece of history! You can find a series of clips from the episode on his Youtube channel linked above.
Beyond The Candelabra 