What better compliment to the neon glitz of Las Vegas than a museum brimming with rhinestones, Rolls Royces and furs? The publicist calls it "a little taste of Liberace" -- precisely the kind of understatement that gilded pianos and full-length mink capes leave reeling in the desert dust.
The Liberace Museum is celebrating its 18th anniversary Tuesday. Among other things, the museum houses a collection of Mr. Showmanship's pianos, costumes, and the cars he used to make his stage entrances.

"There's a Rolls Royce ... covered in mirrored tiles that are etched with galloping horses," says Jamie James, Liberace's publicist from 1967 to 1987. "And there's an Excalibur completely covered in Austrian rhinestones -- even the tool kit -- that he used for his last show at Radio City Music Hall."

"Some shows, he would use up to seven cars," he adds. "I think one of his greatest joys was the response he would get from the audience. He loved to make people ooh and aah."

In the costume gallery, visitors marvel at a costume laden with sea shells that weighs over 225 pounds and Liberace's full-length, full-circle, fur cape lined with Austrian rhinestones that weighs more than 175 pounds.

"He'd only wear them for a moment when he made his entrance, and then he'd throw them into the wings," says James. "Two stagehands came out with hernias."

Proceeds from the museum go to scholarships for the creative and performing arts. James says the Liberace Foundation has contributed more than $3 million to scholarship funds, and that Liberace considered it one of his greatest accomplishments.