Behind the Candelabra

by Scott Thorson

  Early in 1982 Lee started paying a lot of attention to a kid named Cary James, an eighteen-year-old who was a member of the Young Americans, the singing and dancing troop that appeared with Lee. James was blond, blue-eyed; in fact, he looked a lot like me before my plastic surgery. James hung out around our dressing room all the time, and Lee often favored him with a private chat. Catching the two of them with their heads together, having what looked like an intimate conversation, drove me to a fury. But every time I brought up my suspicions Lee swore I was imagining things; his conversations with James were completely innocent.

  Lee’s people seemed to realize that change was imminent. In private, Ray Arnett would tell me that James was the most boring kid he’d ever known, but Arnett praised James whenever Lee was around. When so-called friends told me that Lee was buying James small gifts, clothing and the like, I forced a major confrontation.

  “What the fuck’s going on around here?” I shouted. “Why is that little son of a bitch hanging around our dressing room all the time?”

  Lee played innocent. “Nothing’s going on,” he said. “The kid doesn’t mean a thing to me. You’re making a mountain out of a molehill.”

  I wanted to believe—how I wanted to believe him. I tried to take what Lee said at face value, but jealousy made me half crazy. I watched for any sign that he’d been lying to me. For the next few weeks James had the good sense to steer clear of Lee and me. Then, the third week in March, when we were appearing at the Sahara Tahoe, I got a phone call while Lee and I were in our dressing room resting between the first and second shows. My favorite foster mother, Rose Carracappa, had died.

  The Carracappas were the first family to take me in when my mother had been hospitalized after we moved to California, and they were the last family I lived with before meeting Lee. If things had been different, if my mother had been willing to let the Carracappas keep me when I was little instead of reclaiming me, I probably wouldn’t be writing this book. They were a good, dependable couple who would have given me a solid background, people who cared for me as much as the law, the welfare workers, and my mother had allowed. They represented the best the foster-family system can offer a kid and I’d never stopped caring for them, even though I hadn’t followed their advice.

  The news of Rose’s death, coming in the midst of my emotional problems with Lee, tore me up. I asked him if it would be all right if he made his entrance for the second show without the car. I was too upset to come out onstage, all smiles, and play chauffeur.

  “Sure, Scott,” Lee said, patting me on the shoulder in his most fatherly way. “I understand just how you feel. You stood by me when Mom died and I’m going to stand by you now.”

  Those were exactly the words I needed to hear. Without the Carracappas, Lee was all I had left in the world. I grabbed the emotional lifeline he seemed to be extending. He was as good as his word. He not only permitted me to sit out the last performance of the evening, he arranged for a Lear jet to fly me to the funeral the next day. I was so grateful for his understanding and support that it never occurred to me that he might have an ulterior motive for wanting to get me out of town. It would be one of the few times since we became lovers that Lee and I spent a night apart. Knowing how much he hated to be alone, I regarded it as a sacrifice on his part. We were both solicitous of each other’s feelings and needs as we said good-bye at the airport.

  When I returned twenty-four hours later it was obvious that something had happened in my absence. Lee’s people were looking at me differently, treating me differently, refusing to meet my eyes. I didn’t trust any of them. But I did trust my sister Annette’s husband, Don Day, who had a job working the concessions in Tahoe and who was staying with us, to tell me the truth. As soon as Don and I had a minute alone, I asked him what the hell was going on.

  Don told me that Lee had invited Cary James over to the house while I was away and that James had spent the night with Lee in our bedroom. There was no way I could stay in control after hearing that news. How, I asked myself, could Lee do that to me, to us, while I was at Rose’s funeral? The fact that I’d been away mourning the loss of someone I cared for doubled my sense of betrayal. Angry; God, I’d never been so fucking angry! If Lee had made the mistake of walking in at that moment, I think I’d have killed him then and there.

  I cursed, shouted, tore our bedroom apart. I don’t even know how long I went on like that. By the time I regained control the room was a disaster area of broken glass and furniture. Meanwhile, Lee was hiding downstairs, terrified of facing me. No way could I stay under the same roof with him. I didn’t even want to be in the same state. I had to get away, try to cool down and think things through. So I tossed a few things in a bag and asked someone to drive me to the airport. The Lear jet was still there and I had the pilot fly me back to Los Angeles.

  In L.A., not knowing where else to go or what to do, I took a cab to the penthouse. I couldn’t shake the feeling that my life was over. Lee had been my whole world; if I didn’t have him I didn’t want anything else. The darkest thoughts ran through my mind as my emotions seesawed between anger and self-pity. Unable to face being alone, I called Mr. Y, the man I considered to be my best friend. He came over; we shared some cocaine and talked for hours.

  By the next day I’d made up my mind not to call Lee. I wanted him to make the first move, to apologize for what he’d done. Then maybe I’d be able to forgive him and we could start over. While I waited for the phone to ring a note arrived. It was from Lee and said, “Love me or leave me!”—not exactly the abject apology I thought I had coming.

  I stayed holed up in the penthouse, licking my emotional wounds, while Lee left Tahoe for Palm Springs. A couple of days later I got a call from the man who functioned as the majordomo of the Cloisters.

  “For God’s sake,” he said, “what the hell is going on with you and Lee? Last night he had two French kids here with him in bed.”

  I couldn’t believe it. I’d been sitting around like an idiot, waiting for Lee to call and the whole time he’d been amusing himself with a three-way. The anger I’d felt in Tahoe was child’s play compared to the rage that shook me after learning that Lee had been tricking around as he’d done before we met.

  I called him at the Cloisters, screaming into the phone, “How dare you? How dare you do that to me? I could kill you!”

  Again, I couldn’t face the night alone so I called Mr. Y and another friend who happened to be a former patient of Dr. Startz and who, like me, had become hooked on drugs. (As it turned out, this friend would later be my sponsor in a rehabilitation program.) This time cocaine didn’t cool my anger or soothe my pain. I paced the penthouse, ranting and raving at my friends. Meanwhile, Lee was back in Palm Springs, convinced that I now represented a serious danger to his health and happiness. He was scared to death. Of me!

  He was due in L.A. the next day to rehearse for the Oscar ceremony, and he intended to stay at the penthouse. Common sense should have dictated that Lee book a suite at L’Hermitage or some other luxury hotel, in view of my occupancy of the penthouse and the problems between us. But Lee had no intention of changing his plans because we’d had a battle royal. Once he set a course of action he was unstoppable, plowing forward regardless of the consequences.

  There would be no time for me to cool down, to gather my thoughts and emotions—no time for me to decide what to do about Lee, about myself, no time to sort out the events of the last few days. Lee wanted me out of that penthouse so he could move in. Hell, I don’t blame him. It was his property. He had a right to be there and, in his view, I didn’t. But I can’t help wishing he’d have changed his plans, just this once.

  Instead he did what he always did when faced with an untidy problem that needed handling: he called Seymour Heller. He told Seymour I had to be removed from the penthouse no later than two o’clock the next afternoon. Lee himself planned to arrive shortly afterward and he didn’t want me anywhere near him ever again. He told Heller that I’d thre
atened him, which was certainly true. But if everyone who has ever said, in the heat of anger, “I could kill you,” carried out that threat, half the people in the United States would be in jail for murder. Right or wrong, Seymour regarded my threats as a serious danger to Lee’s life. He made preparations to act with force.

  When I first left Tahoe to take refuge in the penthouse Lee had asked Heller to have me watched. As I later learned, Heller contacted Jay Troulman, Liberace’s business manager. Troulman subsequently got in touch with Tracy International, a private detective and security agency that had worked for Lee before. In the past, Tracy International had performed over a dozen investigations for Lee and provided bodyguards for him on special occasions. The firm, and specifically Tracy Schnelker who ran it, was given the task of keeping track of my comings and goings after I arrived in L.A. Schnelker would ensure that my departure from the penthouse was timely.

  The night before the Academy Awards was one of the worst nights of my life. After my friends left I just couldn’t get to sleep. The wreckage of my life with Lee stared me in the face. I knew he’d never take me back after the things I’d said and done. But, despite my anger over his infidelity, I couldn’t stop loving him. It may have been wishful thinking but part of me thought if we could just sit down, face to face and man to man, we might be able to work things out.

  I was still tossing and turning long after the television stations signed off. So I went into the living room and turned on the stereo. Lee had the lights rigged to respond to the music, dimming and brightening, and I finally dozed off early in the morning watching them. I would wake up a few hours later to find myself living a nightmare.

  23

  Lee woke up in the bed we had shared at the Cloisters on the morning of March 25, 1982, the day he would make his much-looked-forward-to appearance at the Academy Awards ceremony. As he’d done every morning when we were together, he kissed and cooed at the various dogs who slept in the bedroom, scolding them all if one had an accident during the night. Perhaps he even had a lover or two in bed with him that morning. By his own admission, he had continued to have the two young Frenchmen as his houseguests. Knowing Lee, I bet he’d already put the problem of what to do about Scott Thorson in someone else’s hands. From that day on, Lee would do his level best to pretend I didn’t exist.

  From where he stood, it had been an exciting week. With the two Frenchmen he’d enjoyed the sexual variety he’d been craving and, in Cary James, he’d found a suitably youthful and malleable replacement for me. James would, in fact, become Lee’s next companion. As Lee dressed for the day he was already concentrating on the evening ahead, anticipating the acclaim he expected to receive from the glittering Academy Awards audience. It was shaping up to be one of the happiest days of his life.

  But it would be one of the worst in mine. As I caught a few hours rest after a sleepless night, Seymour Heller made plans to remove me from Lee’s life—permanently. That morning, sometime after eleven, acting under Lee’s instructions, Seymour Heller met private investigator Tracy Schnelker, and three of Schnelker’s more imposing employees, in one of the offices on the ground floor of the penthouse building. Heller had also called my half brother, Wayne Johansen, asking him to be present during the meeting. While it may have made sense, from their point of view, to have my half brother present during a situation that could have been nasty, his presence is something I can never forgive. The subject to be discussed at that meeting: Scott Thorson and, more specifically, how to get me out of the penthouse before Lee arrived. Heller told everyone that I was in the penthouse using drugs, that Liberace wanted me fired from my job (I was on the payroll as a bodyguard-chauffeur-companion), removed from the premises, and, if possible, taken to a hospital where I could be treated for my addiction. He added the information that I carried a gun. Obviously, in Heller’s view, he was certainly doing his job, but I felt hurt and bitter.

  Any detective hearing such a description would conclude that Scott Thorson was a very dangerous character, to be approached cautiously and with all available force. Later testimony indicates that Schnelker came to exactly that conclusion while he listened to what Heller had to say. I’m sure that, as he and his men rode the private elevator up to the penthouse, they thought they were going to be in danger. When the elevator doors whooshed open they stepped out, ready for anything—except what they found.

  The penthouse is enormous. But Schnelker and his men had no trouble locating me because two maids, already cleaning the premises despite the fact that I was supposed to be armed and dangerous, told Schnelker where to find me. I was, in fact, still sleeping on the sofa in the living room.

  The first thing I remember was being roughly shaken awake. My immediate thought was that I was being robbed. I saw four men standing over me, none of them looking friendly. One of them had a hook instead of a hand, which he brandished in my face. My God, I thought, they’re going to kill me. Desperate to escape, I began to struggle with Schnelker, ordering him to get the hell out of there or I’d call the police. That sounds ridiculous now, but I didn’t know what else to do. During the ensuing brawl someone sprayed me with Mace but they missed my face. Somehow, I managed to shake free of them all. Looking back, it’s almost comical. They were as afraid of me, and what I might do, as I was of them.

  I sprinted through the penthouse wondering why the Pinkertons, who guarded the building and had spoken to me the previous evening, had let such dangerous characters inside. I could hear men pursuing me, knocking over furniture in their haste. Sometime during their pursuit I saw my half brother Wayne near the elevator. That brought me up short. My first thought was: What is he doing here? Why doesn’t he help me, call the police?

  Then the truth hit me. I’d been set up. No one got up to the penthouse without the express approval of Lee or Heller. The only way up was by private elevator and you needed a key to operate it. At that moment Wayne moved toward me, saying, “These are private investigators, Scott. They’re here to get you to leave. Lee wants you to go.”

  I was outraged. Wayne and I weren’t close, hadn’t been close for years. And yet there he was, asking me to leave, on Liberace’s behalf. “Who the fuck do you think you are, coming in here like this?” I shouted. “You have no right to be here!”

  Then one of the four men, probably Schnelker, said he’d come to help get me to a hospital. The whole situation seemed unreal. There stood my brother Wayne, a man I rarely saw, and four hired goons, telling me I ought to go to a hospital. They tried to calm me down and I kept on telling them to “get the hell out,” and asking for Lee. By then the maids had appeared from wherever they had been working and were taking in the free show.

  While I faced Wayne and the detectives, Lee was enjoying a leisurely breakfast before dressing for the day. The sun was shining and he may even have taken time for a stroll through his beloved gardens at the Cloister, perhaps stopping in his private chapel for a brief prayer. By noon he was in his limousine, relaxing in total luxury as he made the two-hour drive into Los Angeles. His conscience was clear, his mind at rest, his hands clean; according to his way of thinking, he was in no way responsible for the events taking place in the penthouse. That would be his unwavering testimony in the years to come, although he would freely admit ordering my eviction. That day, Lee focused on his upcoming performance rather than the end of our relationship.

  I didn’t have that luxury. I’m a big guy, almost six feet three inches, and I weighed about 180 at the time, but in my pajamas and bare feet, I was clearly no match for four burly detectives who were determined to throw me out of the place I’d regarded as home for five years. My only weapon was anger. I couldn’t have presented a real threat. Nevertheless, one of them maced me again, this time managing to hit me in the face. I guess they expected it to slow me down, but it only made me more desperate. I got past the four of them and raced for a bedroom, where I planned to barricade myself. As I ran, thinking myself in a life-and-death situation, I heard one of the maid
s screaming, “He has a gun.”

  At first I thought she was warning me that one of my attackers had a gun. Then, when I heard Wayne shout that I had two guns, I realized the warnings were meant for the detectives.

  It is true that I had guns. Lee had insisted that I carry them and had obtained a permit for me from John Moran, a Vegas sheriff. But I’m not Dirty Harry. I didn’t intend to make detective Schnelker’s day. All I wanted to do was get to a phone, call Lee, and find out what the hell was going on.

  Then I saw Seymour Heller, standing clear of the action but observing it all. Although I’d already been roughed up and maced, seeing him was the worst moment of the entire morning, because I knew Heller wouldn’t evict me on his own. He would be thereonly if he was acting on Lee’s behalf. And that meant Lee and I were finished.

  I reached the bedroom ahead of my pursuers, locked myself in, and tried to think clearly. But my heart was pounding, my skin and eyes burned from being maced, and tears were pouring down my face. Meanwhile, Schnelker and Wayne kept on shouting through the door, saying that I ought to go to a hospital and that Lee would pay for my treatment. I didn’t trust those bastards, not after what they’d done to me, and I still couldn’t quite take the whole thing in. I was fired, they’d come to evict me. What did that have to do with me going to a hospital?

  Obviously, I needed help. First, I called Irv Osser, an attorney I knew. I’m sure I must have sounded pretty incoherent as I tried to explain what was going on. Nevertheless, Osser told me to stay put, not to leave the penthouse under any circumstances. But that didn’t seem a likely option in view of the fact that Wayne and Schnelker and God alone knows who else were standing outside the door, telling me I had to leave before Lee arrived—or else. It was the implied threat behind the “or else” that scared me.