Liberace Museum Back From the Dead?

America's favorite flamboyant showman lived a life of excess, which was perfectly captured in Las Vegas's Liberace Museum, an off-Strip venue that featured the pianist's luxury cars, diamond-encrusted pianos, and over-the-top costumes. When it closed in 2010, many of Liberace's possessions were sadly shipped off to storage. But they may be soon return to the public's eye.

The singer's eye-catching possessions, along with concert footage and rare photos, are on their way to a new home, according to Liberace Foundation chairman Jonathan Warren, who spoke to Out Traveler editor Neal Broverman in an article for Los Angeles magazine. Warren lamented an unsuccessful deal that would have placed a new Liberace Museum in downtown Vegas — in a shopping center that once held two gay clubs, ironically — but said there would be news soon of an even more exciting venue, one that Liberace once worked at during his long career performing in Las Vegas.

Currently, Liberace's Swarovski-encrusted Roadster is on display at Vegas's Cosmopolitan Resort and Casino, while his Rolls-Royce Phantom V Landau is being shown at L.A.'s Petersen Automotive Museum. The star owned nearly 30 cars before he died in 1987 from AIDS-related complications.
 

The Liberace Foundation, which gives out tens of thousands of music scholarships, hopes to feature many of them in the new Liberace Museum — and, of course, those wild costumes, including the fox fur coat with 16-foot train and the red, white, and blue ensemble with patriotic hot pants.