Columnist Susan Snyder: Music still emits from Liberace’s home

Friday, Aug. 31, 2001 | 9:10 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Fridays, Sundays and Tuesdays. Reach her at snyder@vegas.com or 259-4082.

The guy lowered his video camera and asked quite seriously:

"Can you actually write something about this?"

We were standing in the library of Las Vegas Villa, former home of the late Liberace. The mansion is a hall for banquets, weddings and other events. Its managers hosted a cocktail party Tuesday evening for prospective corporate clients.

For guests it was a chance to see the mirrored sanctuary "Mr. Entertainment" called home, with its Sistine Chapel replica on the master-bedroom ceiling.

For Wilbert Dion "Papa D" Nailing it was a chance to perform, and he never misses one of those. Papa D is the newest wedding amenity, said Robert Fagan, the villa's wedding planner.

"He hasn't done a formal gig in 20 years. But he plays piano and sings like a bird," Fagan said. "He wanted to prove to his old buddies that he still has a shot."

Just before guests arrived, Nailing was in the second-floor library checking his computerized keyboards.

"I started playing when I was 15," he said, plugging a jack into the computer console. "And I'll be 70 next year."

He first played clarinet as a teenager in Mount Vernon, Ill. The saxophone came later, and he began playing keyboards around 1971. He lived in California then. In 1972 he moved here and worked as a porter at the Sahara. Music rarely paid all the bills. Papa D always had a day job.

"But we had a band, you know, among the employees," he recalled. "From time to time we'd even play in the Casbar lounge."

He moved away during the 1976 musicians strike. But he returned in 1988, taking a day-job hanging donation bags on the doors of homes for a local charity. Liberace's house was on his monthly rounds, and that's how he met Gladys Lucky. Lucky, who also attended Tuesday's party, was Liberace's cook and confidante for 40 years.

"She always invited me inside. She was so kind," Nailing said.

He slipped out of the room and returned moments later clad in a white tuxedo with a sparkly blue bow tie and cummerbund.

He welcomed the small crowd assembled before him, punched a few buttons and was off into a song and a world all his own. "From this moment forward, I start anew," he sang to a lilting, almost haunting tune.

The aroma of fresh hors d'oeuvres floating up the stairs lured all but Gladys and me downstairs. Papa D didn't seem to care. He finished that tune and launched into the next.

"Let's have some fun!" he bellowed into the microphone as his electronic "band" picked up tempo.

The keyboard emitted a sound like a banjo, and Papa D grinned ear to ear.

"This is the kind of music my grandfather played," he said to an audience that was mostly downstairs. "I remember this music from way, way back."

People meandered back upstairs -- mostly to see Lucky. But they tapped their toes and nodded to the sounds of Papa D. Whether he noticed is a mystery. He'd have done his show no matter who was -- or wasn't -- there.

"I hope y'all don't mind," he said. "I'm just havin' fun."

Was there anything to write about? You have to be kidding.

Where else on can a 69-year-old piano man get a second chance under Liberace's very roof?