It’s true that Wladziu Walter Liberace’s public persona was that of an effeminate mama’s boy. Yet for most of his life, he steadfastly refused to admit to being homosexual. In his younger years, Liberace had some high-profile dates and courtships with women to quell the rumors and he constantly claimed that he was just waiting for the right girl to come along. He was afraid that his most rabid fans -- middle-aged and elderly women -- would desert him if he came out.
It wasn’t until he was in his 40s, in the 1960s, that he began to loosen up, hanging out with young men in his homes in Las Vegas, Palm Springs, and Malibu. But that was still in strict privacy; he never flaunted his sexuality in public.
Finally, in 1982, when Lee was crowding 60, "the scandal" erupted. He’d hired Scott Thorson, an 18-year-old live-in chauffeur, bodyguard, and secretary, whom he later fired and bodily ejected from his house for his drug use and a death threat he made against Liberace. Thorson sued, claiming palimony, for $120 million. The case went to court and the testimony of their five-year relationship was fairly explicit. The judge, however, sided with Liberace and threw out the case. (Liberace and Thorson settled for $95,000.)
In addition, Liberace was hospitalized shortly before his death in February 1987. Doctors treated him as an AIDS patient, putting him in quarantine. This confirmed the AIDS rumors and that story was published far and wide.
By the way, it was Liberace’s sister who insisted he be hospitalized.
The original cause of death was listed as "cardiac arrest due to cardiac failure, due to subacute encephalopathy," a general term for degenerative brain disease. Right after his death, Liberace’s casket was transported to the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Hollywood Hills.
According to the February 7, 1987, edition of the Los Angeles Times, "The controversy began when Forest Lawn officials took Liberace's death certificate to the Glendale office of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services in order to obtain a routine burial permit.
"There, a department employee, following procedure, telephoned the office of Riverside County Coroner Raymond Carrillo in order to verify the certificate.
"At that point, Carrillo balked, demanding to know the underlying cause of the encephalopathy. He then ordered the return of Liberace's body.
"In California … deaths due to communicable diseases, including AIDS, must be reported to the coroner. In all such cases … a coroner is authorized to decide the extent of any inquiry, from taking no action to ordering an autopsy.
"'This is a case that should have been reported to the coroner's office,' Carrillo said."
So it all boils down to what was in Coroner Ray Carrillo’s mind, doesn’t it? Did he believe he was doing his sworn duty? Could he have used his discretion? Was he looking for his 15 minutes?
Calling him up and asking him is beyond the scope of Question of the Day, but we can cite another infamous case Carillo was involved in around the same time, that of Dora Kent, whose head was cryonically preserved by a life-extension company (ostensibly to be reanimated when technology could bring her back to life). Carillo autopsied Kent’s headless body and determined that Kent might have been alive when she was decapitated. Carillo demanded not only Kent’s frozen head, but all of Alcor’s other preserved "patients." Ultimately, a judge intervened, ruling that the coroner didn’t have the right to autopsy Dora Kent’s head (or any of Alcor’s other cryobots).
So you make the call about the coroner.
