Filming Is Under Way For Steven Soderbergh’s Liberace Bio-Pic
We’re not saying that director Steven Soderbergh is becoming a queer icon but Behind The Candelabra, which follows closely on the heels of eye-candy flick Magic Mike, is shaping up to be one of the most anticipated picture of 2013.
The movie depicts famed showman Liberace’s late-’70s love affair with blond muse Scott Thorson, 39 years his junior. It’s actually based on the memoir of the same name by Thorson.
Casting Michael Douglas as Lee and Matt Damon as his, er, somewhat younger lover, Soderbergh is focusing on the years prior to Liberace’s death due to complications from AIDS. According to the Daily Mail, Candelabra also stars Dan Ackroyd as Liberace’s manager, Rob Lowe as the plastic surgeon hired to remold Thorson into a spitting image of his older flame, and Debbie Reynolds as Liberace’s mother.
And the Daily News is reporting Soderbergh won’t be whitewashing the men’s physical relationship:. “The biopic won’t shy away from tender moments between the two lovers.”
The affair, which pushed the phrase “sugar daddy” off the glucose charts, was a deeply troubled one: Liberace had a voracious sexual appetite which mirrored his over-the-top lifestyle, while Thorson was a drug addict who contracted Hepatitis C. As the story goes, Thorson sued Liberace for $113 million in a headline-grabbing palimony suit. (He later settled for $95,000 when it became clear Mr. Showmanship was in grave health.)
Hopefully the film will be a smash and spark a Liberace revival as a new generation meets the man who gave “flamboyance” meaning long before there was Elton John or Lady Gaga.
Photo: ABC News
Yet again Hollywood blows a chance to give leading roles to gay men. Tavolta should have been cast as Lee. And as for Thorson . . . perhaps that aspiring actor Sean Lockhardt, who can draw on his real-life experience.
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Well, I’m in if only out of curiosity. I’m not really a Liberace fan, his persona was a bit too over-the-top. To me his celebrity has always represented a bizarre example of how obtuse straight people can be about gay, how they can’t see what’s right in front of them. (Granted his greatest fame was at a time when being publicly known as gay meant personal and financial ruin, and for good measure he sued and won for libel against U.K. and U.S. publications that alleged or hinted at the truth about his sexuality.)
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Damon at 42 seems a little long in the tooth to play the younger Thorson…is Soderbergh going to tap a younger look-a-like to essay the 18 year old Scott or just go in for a lot of soft focus? And Michael Douglas? Really? I’ve never forgotten how he had optioned the rights for Patricia Nell Warren’s “The Frontrunner” with the expectation that he would play Billy Sive and Kirk Douglas–his father, Kirk Douglas!–would play Billy’s mentor-lover, Coach Harlan Brown.
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@peter: Sean Lockhart is just too tiny. All the pics have Thorson being taller than Liberace. Travolta, maybe, but he looks less like the guy than Douglas does. With all the talk about plastic surgery I’d think they’d want to get the physical features more or less right.
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@LadyL: Film option for “The Front Runner” was never held by Michael Douglas. The book was originally optioned by Paul Newman but he only held the rights for about a year. All others optioning the rights have been various producers and they held the rights for nearly 20 years. Author Patricia Nell Warren sued to regain the rights and won them back in 1997. Ms. Warren and business partner producer Tyler St. Mark are still shopping the book but there are currently no options on the title or plans for a movie.
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Just more hets using the history of gay men to win Oscars. I have loved Liberace for over 20 years, but I will not be watching this.
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^ I agree. Actors want to be cast as actors not as types, imo.
Though I understand the need for casting more gay actors in general, obviously.
It’s a tricky subject i guess.
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The casting just sounds wrong wrong wrong. In the picture, Michael Douglas looks like Jerry Lee Lewis, and Matt Damon looks like NASCAR Jesus. You know who I bet could play a great Liberace, though he’s young for the role, is Johnny Depp. You need somebody with that charming-but-conflicted vibe. And for Scott Thorson, for my money you can’t do better than Chris Crocker. Am I right?
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While I’d totally agree that Damon is wrong (too old to begin with) I would never choose Chris Crocker. While Crocker might be closer to the correct age he physically doesn’t have what I would consider the right look to play Thorson. II don’t know that I could actually pick a current “known” actor to better fit either role but I sure think the two they have picked (Douglas & Damon) are way wrong.
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@Mr. Enemabag Jones: I’ve seen black actors playing roles which are conventionally played by white actors, like Hamlet for instance.
The opposite is a tedious world where gay people play gay roles, straight people play straight roles, and so on.
That’s not acting, that’s casting types to play themselves.
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@Mr. Enemabag Jones: Actually many black actors I have known would pass on a role that they felt was demeaning or a negative stereotype of Africa-Americans. But as a gay man, who happens to be an actor, I can only speak for myself when staying that I would choose another career if I would only be offered (and expected to play) gay characters. However, I would play Elton John but not Liberace.
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@Mcflyer54: Sorry; my bad. I knew that Newman had the rights for awhile, but for some reason got the impression that Michael Douglas picked it up after he dropped it. (The seventies Paul Newman as Harlan Brown…there’s a dreamy thought…)
I remember reading back then that Michael and Kirk Douglas were interested in playing the roles of Billy and Harlan, a prospect that was mind-boggling on soooo many levels. For starters, had either of them bothered to actually read the book??
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@Mcflyer54: You’re an actor, Mcflyer54? Can I ask you how much in your experience the closet affects the decision of gay actors to accept roles like Liberace and Thorson?
I’m thinking of the era in which both Cary Grant and Montgomery Clift passed on the opportunity to work with Hitchcock on the film “Rope” because they understood the main characters were gay. Beyond typecasting, is fear still a major issue do you think? How much has the word “typecasting” become code for homophobia?
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@LadyL: My guess would be that any interest that either Michael or Kirk Douglas may have expressed was a result of Newman having (or having had) the rights in the first place. There is always much competition for works once another actor has expressed interest. It wouldn’t surprise me at all of neither Michael or Kirk had read the book or were totally aware of the subject matter. Anyway, just thought of them playing the rolls are just plain creepy to me.
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@streetsmart: You know, you’re probably right about the Douglasses interest in “The Frontrunner” being sparked by the rights having been in Paul Newman’s possession–I don’t know why that aspect of it hadn’t occured to me. All sorts of movies have gotten green-lighted that Julia Roberts or Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise had passed on simply because these actors had expressed momentary interest in the script. So, yeah, I guess that explains it….
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On the other hand, given Hollywood’s tendency to change storylines to suit the (perceived) comfort level of audiences and the vanity of major stars, I wonder if back then the Douglasses really thought they could pull it off. (Consider Mel Gibson’s “update” of Isabelle Holland’s “The Man Without a Face.”)
Did Michael and Kirk Douglass assume that they could turn Billy and Harlan into platonic friends, keeping the mentoring aspect of the story with the Olympics as a background while ignoring completely the romantic/sexual themes?
But then, what would have been the point, since Harlan’s struggles with his sexual identity and the attraction and romance between he and Billy were so central to the story? Since the project never came off, someone in the Douglass camps must have come to the same conclusion. (For which the gods of gay literature be thanked!)
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But I do wish someone coud bring Warren’s story to the screen with integrity, if not for cinema than maybe HBO. After the success of “Brokeback Mountain,” what is taking so long?
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The rumor (and I specifically state it is just a rumor) is that Brad Pitt is looking for a (positive) gay themed project to offset his mother’s objection to marriage equality and gays in general. In my opinion, Pitt would make a terrific Harlan (attractive, fit and age appropriate). And as a side note, “Brokeback Mountain” made approximately $180,000,000 eith production costs of less than $15M … just shows that there is money to be made from projects with gay themes if in the right hands.
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Actually I could see Jeremy Jordan – most of America probably hasn’t a clue who he is but personally I think he’s going to be huge. He was on Broadway as Clyde Barrow in the short lived “Bonnie & Clyde” and is currently the lead in Broadway’s “Newsies” but will be joining the cast of NBC’s “Smash” early in 2013. If someone as well known as Brad Pitt would tackle the lead then I think the roll of Billy could go to a newcomer without much fear of hurting the box office and might actually benefit the production.
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Be my Maestro, Lee,
Passion more seen, soul more heard,
Play Liberace,
Piano’s rosetta stone,
Maestro music is that way.
Shirtless Matt adore,
Twirl your bike helmet for bull,
Whirl your red silk shirt,
Poolside by moonlight, ballet,
Lee key-dance Malaguena.
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@LadyL: It is difficult to say what effect the closet has on any actor because each deal with it in their own way. I know performers who are totally out in there personal lives but not professionally but they are not A-List performers. I have three gay friends who are currently appearing on network series but none of their characters, although long running (in excess of 3 years) have any sexual identity – again they are certainly not A-list performers. In my opinion none of the three would hesitate to play a gay character given the right roll. Other gay performers regret taking on gay rolls (Rupert Everett has been very vocal about accepting such rolls) because they feel it leads to typecasting and limits their opportunities.
Many hold up Neil Patrick Harris as an example of a successful gay actor not typecast or forced to accept only gay rolls. However, NPH was already cast in two seasons into his roll of Barney on “How I Met Your Mother” before he was nudged out of the closet. His rolls since coming out have not been as romantic leads (“The Smurfs” and a “Harold & Kumar” movie) and his theatre appearances in “Assassins” & “Company” (where gays are usually more openly accepted) have also not forced him into a romantic leading man position (although “Company” comes close there are many who have always believed that the lead character “Bobby” is himself a closeted homosexual). When Sean Hayes took on “Promises, Promises” he was unfairly criticized because he was a gay man playing a straight romantic lead – he did fine by the way.
Your suggestion of Grant & Clift passing on rolls is certainly valid but the world was completely different at that time. Both Grant & Clift were the subject of years of rumors and wouldn’t have dared to tackle any character that could have stirred that pot or given more credibility to the rumors. Rod Steiger played a homosexual in “The Sergeant” in 1968, which at the time was quite shocking (and unsuccessful), but had he not have already been an established actor (with two Academy Award nominations under his belt) and a history of playing super macho characters, it is highly unlikely he would have accepted the part.
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Mommy Dearest, but with boners. I am going to be sick.