Made in Wisconsin: Liberace

You're telling me that Liberace, arguably the greatest American pianist of all time...is from Wisconsin?

He certainly is! He was born in West Allis, Wisconsin in 1919 as Wladziu Valentino Liberace, of an Italian father and Polish mother.

He quickly emerged as a child prodigy on the piano, playing at, mirabile dictu, the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee at age eight. He worked his way up in the music business within Wisconsin, only moving on to bigger venues on the East Coast in the 1940's. 

And the rest is history. I can remember watching him

perform on television while young and being amazed at the dazzling talent and mesmerizing showmanship the man so naturally exhibited.

Proud of you, fellow Wisconsinite!

Keith Massey was born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin. He has his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Biblical Hebrew, with a minor in Arabic. After 9/11, he served as an Arabic linguist at the NSA. He is currently a Latin teacher at a public high school in New Jersey.

Keith is the author of Intermediate Arabic for Dummies. His fiction novels follow the adventures of Andrew Valquist, roughly patterned after himself--a man born and raised in Wisconsin who gets pulled into the world of international intrigue. 



Keith's novels are A Place of Brightness, Amor Vincit Omnia: An Andrew Valquist Adventure, Next Stop: Spanish, and In Saecula Saeculorum.